Hi Guys, we are moving back to the UK after 18 years in Canada. We don’t have a UK bank anymore but obviously need one to transfer the funds from selling our house here to buy a new one in the UK. How did you guys manage to open an account without a UK address?

Your question suggests you plan to buy in the UK before you leave Canada, right? You shouldn't need a UK bank account just to buy a house here - you could wire funds to pay from an account in Canada, set up a GBP account with Wise, or get an international account with a provider like HSBC Expat (though they require a high minimum balance.) In my case, I was still living in the US when I bought my UK property and I already had an account with HSBC Expat in Jersey (had never heard of Wise at that point.) I had to provide some additional paperwork to my UK estate agent but otherwise it was staightforward. I didn't set up a UK bank account until I was actually living here full time.

thanks for the response. Yes we are selling our house then doing a 2 week trip home to buy a house. I’m pretty sure we can’t open a UK account without a UK address and the usual utility bill proof of residency Lol. I haven’t heard of Wise so will look into that thanks.

We used Wise to temporarily hold funds (seamless international money transfers, cheap and fast). We stayed in an AirBnB for 6 weeks when we landed. Lloyds was the easiest to set up an account with. But we kept our US account open and used Wise to transfer.

https://www.lloydsbank.com/current-a...al%20addresses.

I do think you will need some sort of UK address though, since you have to be a resident, so a holiday stay won't do it. Be aware that Wise is not actually a bank, although accounts there have all the necessary codes for seamless money transfers into and out of any bank. I wouldn't leave large sums of money in there for a long time, it doesn't have the same insurance coverage. It has been incredibly useful though.

https://wise.com/

Some of the online accounts don't require proof of address ( Monzo and Revolut are two of them). I opened a Monzo account when we first arrived and had the debit card sent to my daughters address. We didn't need to provide any proof . Once established in the UK, we opened accounts at a High Street bank. Note though, you have to be in the UK to actually open the online account.

We just moved from Ontario to the UK in January. We opened an account with HSBC UK online but I’m sorry but I don’t remember if we needed a UK address. We are staying with my husband’s sister so we used her address whenever we needed one.
You will need a UK address for your TOR when you get to that stage.
We used Toronto Dominion Canada Trust to transfer the proceeds of our sale to our UK account. Excellent rate due to the sum being transferred and minimal charge and a bank to bank transfer. One thing I think is important that I read on here is if you want to transfer a large sum from Canada, you need to go into a bank branch. You can’t do it online. Someone posted that they had to fly back to Canada to make their transfer.

Can I be really nosy and ask whether you’ve already found a house and are just coming for 2 weeks to do paperwork? Or whether you’re coming to view houses and are hoping to find a contender during your visit. If it’s the latter. I’m very impressed! We’re coming over from France next year but I’d assumed it would take us months to buy something. Maybe you have a much better idea of your search area than we do.

Our daughter bought her house from the USA without a UK bank. She used Wise to pay the lawyer fees initially and then to send the whole amount of the final purchase to avoid holding a large sum in GBP that would have to be reported on her IRS return as part of FATCA. She also got a Wise debit card to use with her Wise GBP account so she could immediately pay bills, draw cash from ATMs etc on arrival in England. We had helped her find a house including a Facetime video walk-through of the house where she also talked with the seller.

She moved in with us a few weeks before the final purchase of her UK house and opened an account with Chase UK online within the first few days of arriving. We had added her name to our utility account as proof of residence but Chase didn't require that. It took less than 30 minutes before her account was opened, and I sent her a few £ to test it. All done in the comfort of our front room.

Hi, we are pretty much going back to where we came from so house searches is the easy part. I will have relatives view them before we fly over.

Thank you. How was your experience with Wise paying the balance of the house purchase?

Excellent, and a couple of years later we followed her example.

Last July my wife cashed in her Roth IRA and we then proceeded to purchase 2 buy-to-let properties in our town here in England which we repaired and improved and now have renters in both properties. I have a lot of confidence in using Wise.

I am very envious!

So I guess from your Username you're somewhere 'Up North'? Can I ask which town your B2L's are in? I've often thought some day I would go back, ideally somewhere around the North Yorkshire moors or over toward Lancashire. Maybe I could be a tenant of yours one day 😀

We live in Guisborough.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/...rough%20priory

This is off-topic and you may already know about it but I thought I would mention that when you buy a property in the UK after living abroad you will pay a surcharge on the stamp duty which you can claim back after you have lived back in the UK for 183 days continuously. Not all solicitors who handle conveyancing will tell you this.