Hi everyone

My family is in the process of relocating back to the UK after 15 years in the US. I'm currently working through the Transfer of Residence process to exempt our household goods from Customs Duty and VAT. As I understand the rules, it's generally possible to exempt everything except for unused items or items purchased in the 6 months before travel. My guess is this is to close any loophole to prevent stocking up on things that would otherwise have been bought once back in the UK.

I'm therefore trying to work through what would not qualify for the exemption, and would therefore be left off the TOR application, but presumably declared to Customs separately for Duty and VAT purposes.

However, from a practical point of view, while it's easy enough to identify bigger ticket items (e.g. we bought some furniture and a cellphone a couple of months ago), I'm not currently seeing any de minimis exclusions. So for example, a fairly high proportion of toiletries would have been purchased within the last 6 months (my daughter has a lot of skincare products), and I'm sure we have a random selection of clothes less than 6 months old since we have two growing kids - but listing/putting a value on this will be difficult - so would a consolidated description and estimated value be OK? Has anyone been through the process and got any advice/practical experience?

I will ask our shipping company once I've had an account manager assigned, but I want to get ahead of the game with the TOR application and splitting everything between the exemption claim and the things that will need to be declared.

Thanks
Martin

We completed our TOR last month and didn’t put any value for the items. It was approved within 3 days ( and there was a bank holiday in the UK). TBH, we were overthinking it but some friends who are also moving back shared the format they used.

When I was doing my TOR 'inventory' I didn't even consider how long I'd owned stuff and I'm fairly certain I had items that were <6 months (though for the most part I was getting rid of rather than acquiring major items....) I don't recall putting any values on the TOR, it was just general descriptions and counts (home linens 50, books 200 etc.) I did have to provide values for my shipping company, for insurance purposes. Try not to overthink and overcomplicate....if you're not bringing in unused goods with the explicit purpose of reselling after you get here, you're probably ok.

You are waaay overthinking and over engineering your process.

Bear in mind there are thousands of people arriving the UK, and likely hundreds have brought a 20ft container or more of household possessions. If you bought anything within the last six months, [1] make sure it isn't a newly-launched model that you could only have bought in the past six months, and [2] don't ship it in it's original box/ packing.

In short, it's unlikely that the six month rule is being used to charge duty on anything other than cars, and mostly by expats returning from the Middle East.

Likewise, I didn't provide any values, just quantities/descriptions, along the same general lines as you. I never even considered that HMRC would be concerned with any half-used bathroom products, or the slippers I bought a few months ago, or even the few jars of Tasmanian sauce I brought home with me. They aren't looking for that kind of low value stuff.
Don't overthink this, a general list will do -and is usually approved in a matter of a few days.

Thanks - I had a hunch it didn't need to be that complicated, but it's hard to tell how precise/strict we need to be. Good to know TORs have been accepted without values.

I'll group in broader categories for the TOR and pick out the main things that are genuinely new for separate declaration. Sounds like the experience to date is that Customs aren't looking for the smaller items given that's likely not the purpose of the rules, which I'm sure saves work for them as well as us.

Appreciate the thoughts.

Rgds
Martin

We've just sent all our household items back. The TOR listing should be 'comprehensive' - but as others have noted, it would be impossible to list absolutely everything, and in the information with the TOR it does say to group things (like cutlery) - so just putting down 'toiletries' would be fine (I don't think we even did that!). I guess the role of the TOR form is just to ensure you're not bringing in a container of new washing machines/etc.

Exactly, they aren't looking for bottles of shower gel

From memory, part of my list was:
Toiletries (open) 20 bottles
Toiletries (unused) 10 bottles
Bottles of Cooking Sauce (open) 5
Bottles of Cooking Sauce (unopened) 20 - local stuff I couldn't get in the UK

I also had other food stuffs, unopened laundry liquid, all inexpensive stuff. All declared, TOR approved, nothing inspected on arrival.

I am selling up in France (owned home France 35 years, first as holiday home then retirement full time). My son moved back to UK in 2022. He wants his old books (10 boxes)and a couple of pieces of furniture (gifts from UK mother in law) that initially came to France from our home in UK 25 years ago. I filled in the Tor1 form and explained all. I can see that one is meant to ship within 12 months of moving back. Is it likely they will waive that requirement and, if not, how can I know what the charges will be.

There is very little value to these items. If it was me I would be donating all but son finds sentimental value in them.

We moved back in a phased way, in that my husband was here about 9 months before we sold up and moved our stuff. The system set up his ToR date from when he moved, meaning that we knew before the full move the expiry date was too soon. There was no issue in changing it.