jasper123

Hi J.J.
When the US post office forwards your mail to your UK address do they charge you for any additional postage?
That sounds a great way to receive your mail, just leave it to the US post office, I wonder how long they do it for --- I think its only one year though,

dunroving

No charge, even for international forwarding, and (I think) it is for 6 months only, but certainly a year at most if I remember correctly.

The other thing is that if you move address within the UK, you can't ask USPS to change the forwarding address again (so you'd have to rely on US forwarding to your original UK address, and pay for British Mail to forward within the UK). This may affect what UK address you ask USPS to forward to (maybe to a relative rather than to a short-term initial UK address).

I think I filled in and signed the USPS forwarding form, with the address left blank. I then asked a US neighbour to collect my US mail for the first couple of weeks or so, and send to me in a single big bundle (she used a shoebox). Then, when I knew where I was going to live in the UK, I emailed her (US neighbour), asked her to fill in the UK address, and she then left the forwarding form in my old US mailbox for pickup by the mail deliverer.

trottytrue

Does anyone know if you have to pay income tax on the money from the sale of your house. I know if you buy another house in the US you are exempt from that if you buy within I think it is 18month of selling the old one. I think it is a one time event. But not sure if they make you pay taxes on the money made from the sale of your house before you transfer the money to the UK.

jasper123

Thanks Dunroving for the info,

ex brummy

Congratulations Barb. So glad for you. May things go your way from now on.

Mummy in the foothills

You no longer have to buy another house in the US with the profit from your main home so long as you've been living in it for a set number of years (I forget is it 3 or 5) You can make up to $500,000 profit without capitol gains as a couple in this climate I doubt anyone's making anything.
Heres more, I googled Capital gains tax rate on home sale

sallysimmons

We would actually make money on our house if we sold it, but we've been in it since 1998. It appreciated so much that even with the big drop over the last few years, we'd still make a nice amount. I think the people who lost out are the ones who bought more recently - at least that's true here in the NY area.

The problem around here is the amount of inventory on the market. If we decided to sell, I think we would have to set the price deliberately low - well below what everyone else is asking. I don't really have a problem with that, but I half think it makes sense to wait.

The problem is that many economists predict a further recession now that governments around the world have said they will start slashing spending. So the housing market may have further to fall.

dgjamison

thanks Lestagirl, yes I am home and am starting to feel better now, I was very tired. We are off to Cork for a few weeks, with my other daughter. Yes I do have my house here, but it is rented out and the people are so good and love it, we have decided to let them stay until we know exactly where we want to live. hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will decide either the north or south of Ireland or even spain, we will see. The weather has been beautiful here, really lovely to come home to sun, we had a bbq tonight with the family and it was lovely just being with family again I really missed that

trottytrue

What I need to know is when we take the money from the sale of the house to the UK will the US government want us to pay tax on it. As we will not be staying in the US do they have different rules.

Mummy in the foothills

that makes more sense.
I remember someone on here saying so long as they had all the paperwork from the house sale and could prove the money wasn't being laundered they transferred using xe.com straight to the bank and had no tax due on it. Maybe it was in the USA section I read that. I can't remember now.

DDL

That's our situation - we bought our house 4 years ago and in those 4 years it has received 4 different appraisal amounts. Ridiculous -since nothing was taken away from the house during that time and actually, some improvements were made to it.

Sadly, the highest appraisal was at the time we bought it. It has steadily decreased every year and for no reason, I might add. It's still the same cute house on the same nice lot in the same nice neighborhood.

Go figure.

DDL

Just saw this in the USA thread and thought I'd repost:

The old 20 pound note is not legal tender from tomorrow (but will still be accepted for a "few months"). Bank of England will exchange them for the new type. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/bankn...ntyv/index.htm

dunroving

Same here in the UK. Around here, a house that cost £200k 3 years ago would now probably fetch £160k.

jasper123

Hi trottytrue,
I have tried to google your house tax issue and unfortunately all I have read is of little help to you,
But I was thinking, why dont you go to the main IRS site and there should be awnsers there to your question,
Failing that I would just get a free one time consultation with a lawyer who specializes in that kind of thing,
You could google those lawyers in your own neck of the woods,
Sorry I cant be of more help, hope you get an awnser soon,
Rodney.

Fish n Chips 56

Dunroving, That's the way I see it too, if we wait till prices go up here they will also be higher in the UK to so you really cant win.

If we could sell high here and buy low in the UK it would be perfect, but whats the chances, Not likely, Id say chances are the UK will recover soon than the USA.