Last week I transferred a substantial amount of money from a well known high street bank in Oxfordshire (UK) to my Italian bank account. The bank here in the (UK) charged me £20. On checking my bank statement the following day to make sure the money had left my UK account I was amazed to see the Italian bank had charged me £240 for receiving the money from the UK. In total I have been charged £260 for this service. Does this sound right??? Any advise from anyone would be very much appreciated.:curse:

Same thing happened to us. The UK bank said they only charged 20£ but when the money arrived in Italy £186 had been charged by the uk bank. After many emails and letters to the bank they told me it was a charge of the Italian bank. We asked the Italian bank for an explanation and they said that it was the UK bank that charged us not them. After 4 letters and no reply to a very well known Uk bank for an explanation:curse: I have decided to go personally to my branch and sort it out next time in the UK.( This happened November 2007) Regarding buying a property, it is correct that the estate agent charges you and the seller a percentage of the price. Here it is 3%- 6% (depending on value of property) each . Yours has asked you for 3% split between buyer and seller so quite reasonable.
When you buy here you usually pay a non refundable deposit at the Compromesso (maybe because you are not an Italian resident it's at 20%)If the buyer pulls out he loses it, if the seller pulls out he has to pay double this amount back to the buyer. Hope this helps.

I can't believe they have charged you for receiving money We have always used Moneycorp to transfer funds directly to Banco Posta and have never been charged...yet.

Although don't get me started about all the other charges you have to pay

We tranfered a large amount a few years ago and we're only charged by the UK bank. Then again we were with BDS so they probably couldn't be bothered to see if there was anything else they needed to charge

Banks would charge you to breathe their air if they could.
Did you use the proper IBAN numbers etc.
Go into the bank and ask them to drop the charges as you have more to ship and will look elsewhere otherwise.

It depends how much you transfer, below a certain amount and the Italian charges are nominal about EU15, above a certain amount (from memory EU50K) and the italian government takes a slice which seems to be 1% at least that was the excuse they gave me. So if you transfer more than EU50K you will loose 1% + EU15.

Most I have ever transferred is £5k and only my UK bank charges me - nothing at all from Unicredit. There are also the money laundering rules and regs involved in all this which might explain the govt. %. Anything above £5k is open to investigation. Have had this amount queried by a Spanish bank before they would accept it from my UK bank.

Mike,
Chris is exactly correct, over a certain amount and the Italian Govt take a percentage, My Italian bank manager explained this to me just last week, and it is to do with money laundering regulations. Bit of daylight robbery really

I am not sure what the process is if you use a money exchange place like HiFX for instance, does anyone know what the charges are? Do the money exchange companies charge and does the receiving bank still make a charge?

Debra - using Moneycorp you have never been charged by either end??

Regards Kenny

Hi Kenny

Absolutely never been charged for receiving money here in Sardinia and on two occasions we have sent over £50,000 from the UK. We ring Moneycorp, agree a rate and the monies arrive here around 3 days later. From memory I think we pay Moneycorp a fee of around £30.00. We have used them around 5/6 times and their exchange rate has always been a lot better than UK banks.

Could it be I don't pay to receive monies because I have a Post Office account as opposed to a Bank??????

Debs

Debs,
thanks, i have PM'd you
Kenny