Grathen

Hello all,
Long time lurker first time poster. We land on the 4th of June but due to complications the sale of our flat will crawl on beyond that. I am just interested to know how people generally transfer the profits of house sales from the UK to Canada. We both have transferwise borderless accounts and will also set up an account with RBC on arrival. Could I give my solicitor the transferwise account details? But if I then transfer it that way to Canadian dollars could I then transfer it to the RBC account?
Thanks for your advice.

Hurlabrick

We are hoping to finally sell our house in July. The proceeds will be paid into our UK bank account (we have and will continue to keep this open), then from there we will move to our Canadian account via Transferwise. I dont know how their new borderless account works

Oakvillian

The mechanics of it should be straightforward. You ought to be able to set up your Transferwise account to direct CAD funds to your RBC account. I'd be most comfortable with managing the international transfer myself, rather than relying on a solicitor to get involved with an FX brokerage directly. Why not have the funds deposited in a UK account (I assume you won't have closed it by then) and instruct Transferwise from there?

I'm not familiar with Transferwise. I suspect, as with all these things, there's a catch somewhere: upfront fees may be lower, but are you getting as good an exchange rate as you would with a more traditional brokerage? What sort of haircut do they take on the deal? For a significant sum such as a house sale, I'd be very inclined to shop around for quotes, to see how much will actually end up in your Canadian account for a given UK starting price on a given date.

When I did mine back in 2006 I just wired funds from my UK bank to my Canadian bank, but that was before I knew about BE and the wealth of knowledge on here about how to do international money transfers more efficiently. Good luck with the move!

BristolUK

Everyone on BE that uses Transferwise - and I think I really can say everyone - loves it. I used to think that it lost advantages from transferring bigger amounts than I do but someone did some comparisons and it was better for bigger sums too.

But that's a comparison with available/advertised rates. Of those that use more traditional brokerage, nobody ever seems to say what rate they get or fees paid. Sometimes I wonder if they got what was a good deal at the time they first used an alternative to banks and assume that it's still the case when it may no longer be so.

Or maybe they get preferential rates, no questions asked.

DigitalGhost

Thank you for bringing my attention to TransferWise. I'll be signing up for an account with them too I think. They even offer £10 topcashback when you do your first transfer.

glendem4

Hurlabrick

Actually, IIRC Transferwise have reduced their GBP - CAD charge to 0.45% a couple of months back.

bathexpats

This is really useful information, thank you everyone. I hadn't heard of Transferwise, and have been looking at MoneyCorp. But I thought I'd check here first.

My wife and I sold our house in November, landed in Canada for a recce in January, and are back in the UK at the moment,and head back to Canada (Sooke on Vancouver Island) in 2 weeks permanently.

We would like to transfer about 18k of our house sale over to a Canadian bank account, and keep the rest in premium bond savings (as they are doing very very nicely in there at the moment). When we are ready to put a deposit down on a new house, we'd then like to transfer the rest of our savings over.

graham1710

MSE have a page on foreign exchange, including about sending larger amounts:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ba...xchange#larger

When I was doing this, I found people tended to shy away from transferwise for very large amounts, citing concerns of reliability/safety vs some of the bigger players. I can't comment if that's accurate or not, but just passing on some of the concerns I saw. I have used transferwise as well, but for smaller amounts. Take a search through MSE forums for more info.

Bear in mind that you can negotiate with the bigger players (moneycorp, FC exchange, etc.) when sending large amounts and can get a better rate than what they'll advertise online. Just don't assume what you see advertised, or the first rate they give you, is the best. I successfully negotiated a reasonable amount more. You can also mention what one gave you and the other will typically match it. They also have some cashback offers via MSE at the moment. I've used both moneycorp and FC exchange and had good experiences with both.


Anyway, just wanted to give you that extra info if this is a lot of money you're transferring.

Good luck!

Graham.

DigitalGhost

I used MoneyCorp the last time I sent a fairly large sum from Canada. At the time they had an affiliate promotion thing ongoing with this site but I don't know if they still do.

I went to RBC and they initiated the transfer to a MoneyCorp account with HSBC in London and then the money was in my UK account the next morning. The process was extremely simple tbh and I don't recall costing that much.

BristolUK

When I bought my house in 2005 and then later, same year, my rental property, I estimated the total cost including transfer fees, lawyer bill, refund of property tax already paid by seller etc and then made a 'swift' (I believe) transfer to the lawyer's bank account (in time for closing) with either me making up a $100 or so shortfall on the day, or the lawyer refunding the excess.

At the time it was a % fee of the amount but with a maximum. The exchange rate seemed fair too. It cost the max £12 each time. I was happy enough with that.

Collie

There are other alternatives to Transferwise too; we used CurrencyFair when transferring the proceeds from our house sale some 6 years ago. They charge a fixed amount ($6 iirc) rather than a percentage of the total, so this may make them cheaper for larger amounts. It's definitely worthwhile researching carefully, as the savings can be substantial

DigitalGhost

There does seem to be more choice regarding these services now than there used to be. Another option is Starling which lets you move money between the UK and Canada using a mobile app and also provides a card that can be used to withdraw up to £300 per day without comission via an overseas ATM.

BristolUK

Comparison website

Just tried £100000 transfer to CAD on their respective sites. CurrencyFair recipient gets $171,846. Transferwise recipient gets $172,084. £5000 gets $8588 on CF and $8625 on TW. Slight advantage to TW.

Can do some more comparisons on this site

graham1710

Just remember you can negotiate with the bigger companies such as moneycorp, fc exchange, etc. You'll only get their "best" rate over the phone, so using a comparison website won't really give you accurate results. I found the best bet was setting up accounts at various places and giving them a call when ready.