EarthlingHatchedInUK

Hello,

Thank you for this valuable forum. I've got tonnes of good advice here

I lived in the USA for years and now have dual citizenship - UK/USA. I work as a remote contractor for USA companies but I am based in the UK. My salary is paid into my USA bank account.

I would like to buy a house in the UK. I am resident in the UK and filing UK taxes (and yes, complicated with the US-based wages and US global tax laws, etc.).

For UK residential mortgages (not ex-pat mortgages) you need to have earnings paid into a UK bank. However, USA companies do not pay direct into foreign bank accounts (at least the clients I have asked cannot do it).

So then I thought an online bank may work. Does anyone know of an online bank that USA wages can be paid into (so acceptable for USA tax stuff) and that the UK recognises as a legitimate bank for mortgages?

A very niche question! so was having no luck searching on the interwebs.

Thank you very much

durham_lad

I’m surprised that a UK resident has to have salary paid directly into a UK bank to qualify for a mortgage. I have a Wise account with US bank routing and account number and have it linked to my US brokerage account, and could have it linked to my pension provider if I wanted. When a payment arrives in my Wise account I get an alert on my Wise app and literally within seconds I have transferred it to my UK bank account. I would have thought that proof of employment and monthly payments going into a UK bank account would be proof enough. How would a mortgage company know that the salary was not being paid directly into that UK bank and why would they care?

When I had to prove income to rent a house a few years ago, copies of US pension payments (to my US bank) plus bank statements showing regular income was quite acceptable. (I know that is not the same as a mortgage)

EarthlingHatchedInUK

Thank you @durham_lad. That info really helped - I've been checking out an account with Wise.

robtuck

HSBC, who are terrible in the USA, have a Global Account set-up that enables you to essentially consolidate a USA & UK account. Not sure if that would suffice or not.

durham_lad

I’ve had that setup since 2016 but this last year HSBC US have been getting rid of their non-Premier account holders by moving them to another US bank. Unless you have either $100k in the US bank or £50k in the UK bank to retain Premier status then I would forget HSBC as an option.

Our daughter is moving from California later this year and has checked with her US bank, Chase, who say that they support UK addresses. She also plans on opening a Chase.co.uk account once here, but has also now got a Wise account as a backup plan.