Once Visa is in hand....Which bank? And which freight firm
 

As the topic suggests;

I am hoping that I will have around £20,000 to transfer, perhaps more depending on how the EX wife plays ball, but am currently with the Nationwide for those that are familiar with them...lender and bank and whilst they will do a one off fee of around £25 to transfer not sure about any other costs at the moment as I am just starting to look into this and I wondered who others have used or will use because of the service the provide?

I know this is months down the line and subject to approval of the visa and nothing is planned up to this stage yet, but like to be proactive as I have with my paper work...All I am waiting to do is my police report once we are a few months into the pettition side. At least my certificate will be as up to date as possible with time on my side.

Also when the move actually happens what sort of costs have others paid?

Just to give you an insight to what I will be wanting to ship.....

Mainl clothes possibly 10-12 medium sized boxes a box of important documents and possibly a box of non brakeables so in all no more than 14 medium size boxes, perhaps just a tad bigger than that of the boxes macdonalds use for their fries and stuff? if this helps

Re: Once Visa is in hand....Which bank? And which freight firm
 

Hi Wolfy,

I'm a British expat based in the New York area. I'm a banker, with experience in both countries and I specialize in expatriate banking for UK expats in the States.

I'll send you a PM with my contact details, I'm sure I can help you.

Phil

Re: Once Visa is in hand....Which bank? And which freight firm
 

Hello Wolfy,


We banked with Nationwide in the UK and made several transfers from the UK to the US. We didn't do it through Nationwide and didn't incur any fees from Nationwide. We used a foreign currency exchange service called UKForex. There are others, such as XE.com, and many people on this site have used them both. UKForex doesn't charge any fees for a transfer of over 3,000 pounds - of course, they make their money through their exchange rates, so shop around and see which place can give you the best rate. We were happy with the rate UKForex gave us, though, and it was an easy matter to electronically transfer money from Nationwide to the UKForex account. There was a flat fee at our US bank to receive the wire transfer but it was only $12 regardless of how much was coming in.

I think we ended up paying about 4,500 pounds all told for shipping, and we had about 450 cubic feet of stuff. The charge was higher than we had been quoted.

Re: Once Visa is in hand....Which bank? And which freight firm
 

stop spamming, share your experiences and be part of the community and have a link to your own personal business.

To the OP, have a search on the numerous threads on shipping, quite a few threads on using various postal services if you don't have all that many boxes too..and the banking, use xe.com and get that set up before you move.

Re: Once Visa is in hand....Which bank? And which freight firm
 

Yes, as Bob says for the that amount of stuff you could just post it or pare it down and take a couple of suitcases. I would keep the important documents with me anyway.

Re: Once Visa is in hand....Which bank? And which freight firm
 

For your belongings, with only thatmany boxes i'd say DHL them. Definitely. I've had all mine go with DHL, well actually through a parcel company that offered DHL services for rates much lower than the actual DHL website.You arrange it all online, and within a couple of hours, DHL are on your doorstep to collect! Every shipment of mine so far has arrived within 24 hours of pickup.

With regards money transfer, as others have said, using a currency broker like UKForex and Currencies Direct is the best option in terms of rates.

Good luck!