Originally Posted by dunroving (Post 9977653)

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.

Originally Posted by sallysimmons (Post 10036734)

We called to ask questions but we did open the account online (they told us to). But at various stages we called for help - for example, to apply for UK credit cards.

Originally Posted by sallysimmons (Post 9977458)

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

---------------------------

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.

Originally Posted by sallysimmons (Post 9978511)

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.)

Originally Posted by sallysimmons (Post 10009992)

If you have HSBC accounts in two countries, you can transfer money from one to the other with no charges, so no need to use any other company. We're moving over money from our house sale in the next few days so I'll let you know if we run into any problems, but we've already transferred a few thousand pounds with no problem. There's a web-based interface that lets you make instantaneous transfers.

Originally Posted by SadInStates (Post 10082746)

Wow, thank you for that Sally.
It would never have occurred to us to do that, and with multiple teens and a techno-geek DH we need fast internet! :eek:

It was a huge source of frustration when we were over briefly in March and it kept crashing on us! DS is going to need a good service as he'll be connecting to a US school online to finish out 12th grade and this has been one of our biggest concerns!

Originally Posted by sallysimmons (Post 9977458)

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

---------------------------

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.

Originally Posted by Celticspirit (Post 10107061)

Sally.....banking was easy, but because I have been married twice and changed my name between ( back to maiden name ) Nationsl Insurance has been a litte trickier. They were able to tell me I existed but required that I download a form to fill in and mail to them. I also sent them a certified copy of my birth certificate which thank goodness I decided to get when on my trip to Moscow and Belfast in April.
I truly appreciate you giving such sage advice as to where to get started.

Originally Posted by sallysimmons (Post 10107202)

Yes, I had to fill out the form too as did my husband. I think that's just par for the course. Just FYI, I found I had to call 3 times before I actually got the letter they said they had posted, so if you don't have it in a week or two, call again. Eventually it will come!

I'm having a similar problem as you with my driving license. I got married and left the country in the same weekend, so in the UK I was never known by my married name. And I lost my old green license, so I am applying for a new one. I've had to send them birth cert, marriage, cert, passport and a signed statement by someone who has known me a long time. I'm hoping this is enough!