I'm on a bit o a learning curve here - just found out that we cannot legally keep our any savings in Alliance and Leicester savings account in the UK when we move to Canada. Don't know about the others, haven't heard from them yet.

A&L suggest their offshore banking division - has anyone decided to go down the offshore savings route? I understand how it all works (it's simple enough) - I just wondered if anyone had any pros and cons to share. The rates are generally better than INGdirect.

Many thanks,

rio

Who told you that? A&L? I'm not surprised: they are another bunch of weasels:

Alliance and Leicester close accounts of customers who sued them for overcharging on fees

I just hate it when lazy officials just say "oh, you can't do that, it's illegal" when what they actually mean is "I can't be bothered to change my processes to allow that".

No, there is no legal reason why you have to close your account. Move to another bank *before* you go (after you go is more trouble because the new bank has to verify addresses, which is harder from overseas, so many just give up and disallow new accounts from overseas).

K.

I am curious about this one as well. Does it only apply to savings accounts or is it any account? We were planning to keep our Abbey National (Current Account) open to keep OH pension going into it, is this not possible? I thought that it was recommended that you keep a UK account open incase you need to return to UK for some unforeseen reason.

Nah, there's no legal problem. My bank manager (yes, I actually have a real genuine bank manager) has known about me emigrating for years (thank you CIC) and has advised a whole bunch of things, none of which are "shut your account you illegal swine".

If your bank advises it's "illegal" then ask them to put it in writing and if they are stupid enough to do that, take the letter to the banking ombudsman.

K.

That's why my savings are now with First Direct and they are pretty good and have been better than ING in recent years (pure luck on my part). ING wouldn't let you have a foreign or c/o UK address.

Cathie

Hmmm, interesting. Prompted by your thoughts, I read the Alliance and Leicester's terms and conditions....and, as kt0157 suggested, it's simply because they don't want to incur the hassle/potential liability of having expats saving with them. (To come clean, the use of the work 'legal' in my oringinal post was actually mine, not theirs: what they say is something along the lines of " we can't be arsed" rather than "it's not legal".).

So that's pretty clear then, switch the cash into another account with someone else.

Had hoped to shift to ING....but Cathie tells me that they won't have any of my cash if I don't live in the UK....and I know I can use firstdirect (for current accounts)....but this brings me back to my first Q - is an offshore account easier to manage than a UK based (eg firstdirect) savings a/c?

rio

They are happy to take your money even if you are non-resident in the UK. But just don't use Alliance and Leicester International, on principle, eh?

K.

I have a vague recollection of looking into offshore at one point but it all sounded rather complicated (or maybe it was risky) and I gave up.

Cathie

Does anyone know if First Direct allow interest on their savings accounts to be paid gross? Once you're no longer UK resident/ordinarily resident you're entitled to interest without deduction of UK basic-rate income tax.

However, in practice a lot of banks are unaware or not-willing to pay interest gross unless it's to do with low income. I got my current bank to pay interest gross but FD's interest rate is better

[QUOTE=albanylakes]I'm on a bit o a learning curve here - just found out that we cannot legally keep our any savings in Alliance and Leicester savings account in the UK when we move to Canada. Don't know about the others, haven't heard from them yet.

Just found this post and wondered how many other unhappy A and L
folk there are out there. Having banked with them for nigh on 30 years
they one day just stopped me doing internet banking from india
No warning jst stopped and they say that they feel india is unsafe for me!!!
Great thanks a bunch bank now can not see anything online at all
Would love to hear from others in same boat

we have a lloydstsb onliner savings account and things are great. We looked into putting the money off-shore but there was no difference in interest rate (when comparing net interest in our branch and gross interest offshore). My thinking was if I pay tax in the UK the canadian tax prats won't tax me on my interest. If the saving where offshore then any money u bring into canada is subject to taxation (or so I am lead to believe - I am sure I will be corrected on that if I am wrong)

Rubbish. Lots of non-residents keep bank accounts in the United Kingdom (how do you think the City of London would survive if this was banned ... ?)

If they do deduct tax you can reclaim it from the Inland Revenue if you have no UK tax liability. Alternatively you can open an account with a Channel Islands or Isle of Man bank branch but you may find sterling interest rates there to be lower (on deposits) compared to an onshore United Kingdom account.

The CRA will expect you to declare it for Canadian tax anyway.

The problem is some financial institutions don't allow accounts to non-residents (don't know why!!!). That's why I had to close my ING account in the UK but was able to transfer the money into First Direct instead (and turns out their rate was better anyway).

Cathie

If they don't want to deal with non-residents that's their policy (take your business elsewhere), but there's absolutely no law to that effect.