Negotiate to keep your UK holiday allowance

Also ensure that your National Insurance contributions are continued whilst you are on an expat posting; if you are still under the auspices of the London office then your company should continue to arrange for this.

I have known expats to be made redundant during their assignments and have had to return back to the UK and their home countries. If the NI contributions aren't up to date then it may negate claims for unemployment benefit (which is not to be confused with Income Support, which is not based on the most recent NI conts).

Repat flights home only have to be paid for if on H visas, not on L visas

We were on H and didn't get any flights paid apart from initial one.

(Probably missed out).

Misunderstanding here. Repat flight costs (not visiting flights,) so if you lose your job the company have to pay to get you home on H visas, they don't have to on L visas.

Ah I didn't know that.

Realized it's my eyes, I thought that said 'repeat flights'.

Me neither, until we needed to know

So if my husband gets the chop now we have to find our own way back!

Not such a big issue when you can legally stay in the country. When you have to get out within 14 days, and pay for yourself and all your crap to get back to the UK, that's the fun bit

Oh yeah that was horrible.

Now that you mention it, I do know they have to pay for H1's to get back, because the subject came up with the Indian guy working in OH's lab.

Some good points here as I am looking at the move aswell. Looks like I will be on a business visa for some time and then local contract.

I will check the tax situation on the relocation as the company wants to make it just a lump sum and we can sort everything out. Maybe not so bad as we will probably come out with very little.

Always try and go for things that dont crop up in the accounts/bottom line but benefit you.
I am trying to wangle car insurance at the moment. Not sure how it will work but worth a go.

Never hurts to ask. I came out with a promise of a hire/lease car for a period and then managed to convince the company it wasn't a good use of money and a company car was a better investment (which also meant my insurance got covered!)

One question to ask is the time frame you must work at that company before you are responsible to pay back any costs to relocate you.

My husband had been with the company for donkey's years, but in tiny print on a different page, it said he had to stay 5 years or had to pay back all relocation costs. He pushed back on that; it went to 2 years.

Ours was a negotiation. We did not ask for any flights back, even in emergency. For one thing, he/we go back 2-3 times a year for his job anyhow. Secondly, we didn't want to be entirely beholden to the company or job. (We may have been in a different situation as we chose to get hubby a US Spouse visa, instead of his company arranging visas. So they knew that he could walk once he was in the USA.)

As folks mentioned, any cash provided by the company is taxed. We were offered 10,000 GBP to ship our stuff; we negotiated that they pay the bill directly instead.

Your package offered isn't so bad. Folks here are lumping in everything possible and not all companies can offer everything... for examply, many offer education benefits only to top management. The company that I worked for and had relocations provided for me only gave education benefits if I worked in resource-poor places (meaning anything other than USA/Canada or Western Europe.)

Did you write, "eek" in your subject line as you think its a bad relocation package offer?

Healthcare? Dunno who you work for but that could be an issue.

This is the problem of being on a work permit, and why I'll never do it again (in the US or anywhere else). They have too much power over you. Giving them the finger isn't an option because then you have to leave. Okay they say they'll sponsor you for LPR status - will they? And even if they want to - can they?

Fortunately in my job now I qualify for TN-1 which is dead easy to get, just a job offer letter from the employer, so I suppose if I was in the US on TN-1 and I didn't like it I could relatively easily get another letter from another employer.

And plus I can drive to Canada.