sallysimmons

We’re just over 2 weeks away from moving back to the UK and as we’ve worked through the process of moving back, we’ve learned some tips and lessons. I had some many questions when we started out, so I thought I’d share my tips with anyone who needs them.

Banking

Having read nightmare stories of people unable to open bank accounts or get credit cards in the UK, we moved our banking to HSBC a few months ago. Once our US accounts were open, we were able to open a UK account in advance and we now have debit cards and UK credit cards all ready to go when we get back. The advantage of doing it this way is that the US office can share your US credit history with the UK and therefore you can get credit cards without any hassle.

It’s been a bit of a headache administratively just because there are so many steps to go through (open US account and online banking, then open UK account, then ask for debit and credit cards etc) but all the way through, HSBC have been very helpful.

Also, if you have over a certain amount of money (different in each country) you can open a premier account – this gives you additional services and more personal attention. But even with a basic account, you can get all set up in the UK before you arrive.

Finding a rental property

We can’t stay with family and friends because we have cats who don’t mix well, so we needed to find a rental from over here. We are also self-employed and don’t have any UK credit history, so we thought we might have problems. To make it easier we hired a home-finding company recommended by another BE user. It’s not cheap but it turned out to be worth its weight in gold. Rentals are so competitive right now that we needed her speed. She spotted the house we rented before anyone else, and that allowed us to secure it.

The lack of credit wasn’t a problem. I offered to provide a copy of our US credit report and they were happy with that. (We can order those for free over here once a year).

The homefinder we used is County Home Search and it costs £750 upfront and then one month's rent if they find you a place. They do a LOT of running around for that money and send detailed reports, photos and videos of each house they visit.

National Insurance

We wanted to have these numbers in case they were needed for anything but had no idea what they were. There’s a number for ex-pats to call, which is 44 191 225 4811. Just be warned that even when they say they’ll send you your number, it seems to be hit and miss whether a letter actually goes out. I had to call 3 times and my husband had to call twice. We eventually both got the numbers but it took 3 months from start to finish.

Utilities

I have no idea about other providers, but we’re going with Utilities Warehouse. You can order gas, electric, landline, mobile phones and Internet all from them and then you just get one bill. They’ve been very helpful. If you order 4 or more services, you get a 10% discount on your energy bills, which already seem quite reasonable.

Internet

If having decent Internet speeds is important to you, you need to check the areas you plan to move to. We had to change our plans quite drastically after finding out that the place we wanted on the banks of lake got download speeds of only 1MB. Not even enough to watch a Youtube clip without it freezing up.

Don’t pay any attention to the speeds advertised by the companies except when looking at cable services (Virgin fiber optic and BT Infinity). When a company sells a package for ‘speeds up to …’ the real speeds are never what they promise and depend on how far the house is from the telephone exchange. Use this website to check actual speeds for any postcode. http://www.uswitch.com

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That's it so far. We're moving cats but I don't know what I've learned about that yet. I'll have to update when it's all done.

Don't know if this was helpful, but if anyone has any questions, let me know.

Karrie72

Very helpful Sally, thanks for sharing and good luck with your move!

dunroving

Regarding internet, can I ask what you went with? I'm with BT (their top package) and find iPlayer, YouTube, etc., often freeze. I think it's because even though I live only about 8 miles from a big city, the area is quite rural and services are pretty rubbish (they had only dial-up for the longest time, Freeview reception is rubbish, as is DAB radio reception).

We don't have cable so cable internet isn't an option, and a USB dongle I tried sucked big-time. Luckily, Freesat is great but I'd love to find a quicker internet option as I'm on the net (for work mainly) a lot. At about £40 a month, it seems like daylight robbery.

sammyz

Thank you,Sally! We too are hitting the UK in just over two weeks! So much research and it's like rediscovering the UK all over again!

Good luck and best wishes!

Sammy in Tokyo

mayhemuk

I have found Utility Warehouse to be fine.
Do make sure you send in the meter readings monthly to secure the extra 10%!!!

pennylessinindia

interesting about Utility warehouse, as a landlord I have had huge problems with them and very unhelpful and wanting to charge for removal on pre paid meters I did not install!!

Would be interested to know what internet packages folk end up with, seems quite expensive and not great speeds. I have decided to wait til I get back and see what the neighbours all use

sallysimmons

I'm afraid my experience won't be much help in your situation. Once we found out about the Internet speeds, we narrowed our property search down to only locations with cable Internet. We download a lot of big files for our work and because we both work online all day, we absolutely have to have fast speeds.

It broke my heart to say goodbye to the idea of living in my dream areas, but I consoled myself with the fact that it may be better there one day in the future.

In the meantime, we checked every house we saw on Uswitch and only considered them if they had cable. We wound up with a house that get Virgin's 100MB service.

I would advise anyone who used the Internet for work, or who has family members who like to download music, movies, games etc. to check out every area and only move somewhere with good speeds. Once you're in a bad area, there's nothing you can do unless you're rich enough to pay for your own dedicated T1 line. (Also, don't think being in a big city means fast speeds - some areas of the big cities have shockingly low speeds and we're going to be living in a rural area but have super fast speeds. You have to check every postcode to see what the situation is in that specific area and then ask the landlord/current owner to make sure that house is wired for the cable service.)

sallysimmons

Good to know - thanks!

dunroving

Thanks, Sally, you confirmed what I suspected. There are many reasons looking back why I wish I had bought in the town/village closer to Glasgow (it has rail links and much better TV, DAB, internet, etc.), even though the village I live in has great views and doorstep access to country paths.

The cost isn't worth moving at the moment, plus I really don't think I'll be in this area much longer anyway so moving house just for the sake of a year makes no sense, financially.

Moggiemiss

Thanks for all this information Sally.

I will look into The Utility Warehouse for a package on services, when I come back in a couple of months.

Hope the move goes well, especially with the kitties, let us know how it goes.

Lorry1

Great info Sally. Good luck with moving back home in a couple of months!

Tr1boy

Utility, I'm with EON, they get a bad rap, but I've been pleased with the and they were much cheaper than EDF, which the property was connected to when I moved in. EON have just dropped their rates as well.

Internet, I'm with Talk talk, again good service, only had one quibble, when I moved apartments and they tried to sting me with a new connection charge, after telling me I would have to pay for any further moves when I moved in originally. All sorted in the end. I'm on the Essentials Package, it comprises anytime talk, which is basically free landline calls to anywhere in the UK, and 40gb BB. I'm a light user and would normally use about 5gb per mth, but just signed up for Eurosport Player for the cycling, but at 1gb per hour, I'm still going to be under the monthly limit.

Cost for the Talk Talk package is approx £27 per mth inc VAT.

sallysimmons

The good news is that they're making great strides all over the country. There are some really interesting rural pilot projects using wi-fi for example (the community pays for cable to be laid to one location such as a church or school and then everyone buys an arial for their house. Some villages are getting 70MB this way. (I never thought I'd know this much about broadband!!)

BT is also rolling out their Infinity service to a lot more areas over the next few years. I'm hopeful that things will be a lot better 2 years from now.

sallysimmons

Oh yes - this brings up the other problem I found out! Besides the download speeds which are measured in MB, most providers have this usage limit you mentioned, which is stated in GB. We would go over 40GB halfway through each month! The two cable services (Virgin and BT Infinity) have no monthly usage limits.

Tr1boy

Talk Talk has unlimited as well, it just costs more than I pay that's all. I 'think' it's about £36 per mth.