steve270468

Hi all.I'm hoping to get my soon to be ex wife to agree on taking out a loan / mortgage to buy me out of the house rather than selling it, £15kWhere can we get the best deal on a mortgage?How long does it take to arrange, get the money?I also need a little advice regarding a bank transfer from Hungarian bank to an English bank, my Hungarian is no where near good enough to navigate the Hungarian banks website.I need £15k sent to my English account from my wifes Hungarian accountIs it done bank to bank?What can I expect in charges?How can I get the best exchange rates?Must be some other things I haven't considered let me know if you think of any.Thanks in advance

Pulaski

You can send a wire from bank to bank, and the exchange rate will be poor for a relatively small amount; there will also be a fee to send the wire, and another in the UK to receive the wire!

A better choice is to use an on-line foreign currency remitter, such as transferwise, xoom.com, xe.com, and many many others (search BE for xe.com or transferwise and you will find many threads on this subject).

The on-line remitter should be able to debit your account in Hungary directly, or you transfer the money to the remitter, saving you the "send" fee, then the remitter will give you a much better FX rate than the banks ever will, and should be able to make a direct credit (look for BACS, ACH or something like that in the credit options, and not "wire") to your account in the UK, thereby saving you the receive wire fee too.

You will need to register with the on-line remitter, similar to opening a bank account, and you will be expected to provide identifying information and copies of documents such as your driving licence and passport. This will take a few days, so it would be best to start the process a couple of weeks ahead of you wanting to move the money.

steve270468

Could I just take cash with me?Looks like I can according to the ugov website

Peter_in_Hungary

First check the exchange rates for cash exchanges = tourist rates = rip off (usually). Also if you turn up at the bank with a bag full of money they get twitchy about money laundering so expect hassle.

I have used HiFX to transfer UK to Hungary with no problems, but as they are a UK based operation there may be Hungarian bank charges to get the HUF to them.

Pulaski

That would be ill-advised for several reasons, not least if you lose it, it's gone!

OGSG

You could also simply just take out the £15k from the Hungarian bank and take it over to the UK privately.

steve270468

Thanks for the advice guys may have found a solution pity exchange rates are so bad right now though

OGSG

All sorted? Current exchange better now for HUF to GBP