sueandjohn

My husband and I are planning to sell our house in the UK and relocate to Coin in Spain using the proceeds. Could anyone advise us on how best and most economical way to manage the money – to get it from UK to Spain for the purchase. I believe if we left it in our UK bank we would pay a lot of commission?. Thank you. Sue and John

Rosemary

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

mikelincs

Use one of the money transfer companies,(not western Union), like Xe.com, Transferwise. They will give you the best rates.

Pulaski

Normally I would agree, but for an amount as large as the proceeds of the sale of a house you may find your bank to be competitive - you would need to speak to the bank and get a "dealer rate" (a quote from the bank's currency dealing desk).

It is hard, .... honestly it's impossible, to be totally sure that you are getting the "best rate" as rates move up and down continuously, and movements of 1% during the day are not uncommon, even if the end of day rates show less of a movement. Try asking for a quote from your bank and then compare that to real-time (as close to the SAME time as absolutely possible, and certainly within 5 minutes) from one or more FX brokers.

Longlegpete

Couldn't agree more, I'm with HSBC and when i was sorting out sending money over for a house purchase i rang the bank just to check the rate, with them (2009) if it was over £14,000 they gave you the dealer rate, they transfer you to the trading floor and give you a rate, this was only 0.6% off the current city rate.
I had an account with a few currency transfer companys and none of they could match it, in fact one very large one said to me "where are you being given that rate" on telling him HSBC he said " well they are huge, we couldn't possibly compete with them", worth shopping around but your bank is a good place to start

teejaydee

Would the solution to this problem be to use a Forward Exchange Contract? It would be easier to check rates from the various forex brokers if a future date was specified as the date for the transfer.

Pulaski

I doubt it. It would add complexity and fees with no guarantee of a better outcome. In any case the future rate is only the spot rate adjusted for differential interest rates, so in practice the forward rate these days is little different from the spot rate.

In practice the spot rate at the foward date is as likely to be better than the contracted forward rate as it is to be worse.

Bahtatboy

It might be worth looking at FairFX. I don't know what sort of deal they'd do on large amounts, but certainly in the interim until you have a local account established with a cash card, FairFX seem to provide an economical and efficient way to pay for things abroad.

Eric S

I had found a couple of web sites that compare rates between FX companies:

http://www.fxcompared.com/

Free International Money Transfers - Money Transfer Comparison


Most of the FX companies will let you check the current rate on their web sites. So you may want to double check the results from the above comparison sites.

- Eric S.

Pulaski

And then compare them to a dealer rate from your bank.

sueandjohn

Thank you all so very much. You have been really helpful and I will go away and digest your replies and look into the different options. We are not planning our move for a while so I am gathering information now as it's not as easy as moving down the road!!!

amideislas

There is a reason why "transfer services" are almost exclusively found in the UK. It's because UK banks are amongst the world's most expensive for international transfers and exchange rates.

A number of years back, We made the mistake of transferring £140k to Germany from Santander UK, total costs with lousy exchange rate was nearly €7k euros. Well, needless to say, we never did that again.

I then discovered Oanda, who, at the time offers transfer services. I set up an account and transferred £176k when I sold my last house. Total costs were about €550, including exchange rate differential from the interbank rate. Big difference.

There is a reason why these services exist, particularly in the UK. And why it's such big business. In the UK.

sueandjohn

Thank you for sharing your experience. Very helpful Frightening how much it cost through Santander v Oanda. I will look into this company... Thanks again!

bobd22

There are swings and roundabouts as they say with all methods of transferring. The main concern currently and going forward is the exchange rate not too bad at the moment but very volatile to referendum. I know when the crash came last time and the £ neared parity it cost me a lot more money than I thought. I was offered a forward contract for monthly mortgage payments at around 1.35 the rate was around 1.39, I declined thinking it would go up and down slightly but even itself out. About 8 months later I was getting around 1.05 and on one exchange got 0.98! So if the rate is good and you know amount and when you need it for, a forward contract could be a wise move. You have time to see what happens after the referendum but rate could drop significantly certainly short term if it is Brexit. I would speak to different currency exchange companies and see what they can offer you most are helpful and will negotiate if you have offers from others.

sueandjohn

Thanks bobd22