What happens my accounts on leaving UK

cacton20

Hi,

I have a few questions I hope someone can help.
I'm leaving the UK this weekend to live abroad. I have a number of accounts across different banks. An regular saver and ISA with ING, current accounts with First Direct and Barclays and a BA Amex.
I uderstand that for tax reason I cannot put any more money into the ISA which is fine, but I do want to keep it as it is. So I rang ING to give them my new address who said that I must be a UK resident to hold any account with them.
Now I'm worried, is this the case with all banks?
I have property here and will be collecting rent into a current account to pay the mortgage. I really have to keep at least one account for this.
I don't want the statement coming to my old address but am afraid to tell them I'll be living abroad in case they insist I close the account.

Thanks for reading.

skyrider007

cacton20 wrote: »

Now I'm worried, is this the case with all banks?
I don't want the statement coming to my old address but am afraid to tell them I'll be living abroad in case they insist I close the account.

You'll be pleased to know that most banks will be able to accept an overseas statement address. Your accounts can remain active while you are living abroad. The only complication being the fact that they can't send you renewal cards via mail once your existing bank cards have expired (for security reasons, obviously).

As you hold an AMEX card, call AMEX in the country you are moving to and they will happily set you up a local AMEX card.

occamsrazor

skyrider007 wrote: »

You'll be pleased to know that most banks will be able to accept an overseas statement address. Your accounts can remain active while you are living abroad. The only complication being the fact that they can't send you renewal cards via mail once your existing bank cards have expired (for security reasons, obviously).

As you hold an AMEX card, call AMEX in the country you are moving to and they will happily set you up a local AMEX card.

Most UK banks will no longer accept NEW APPLICATIONS from non-UK-residents.

SOME banks will accept a previously UK resident customer to move abroad and continue the accounts using a foreign address. Others will not and may decide to close your accounts because you have become a non-resident (at the end of the day they can do what they want regarding this, there are no rules to say they must keep it open or must close it).

They can send you renewal cards by mail to a foreign address if they choose to do so, it depends on their policies - Citibank UK have done this for me many times over the last few years.

If you are able to keep the accounts open but with a foreign address (and assuming you are not trying to change your domicile) then I highly advise that you do this. Once you become a non-resident it is becoming VERY hard to open new accounts with UK providers.

Your other option is to just keep them open with a trusted UK address (parent's, relative's address etc who you trust to open mail for you) and don't tell them you are abroad. But the disadvantage of this way is you won't be able to receive interest as gross without paying tax, which you should be able to do easily as a non-resident. This is less of a problem for current accounts where you don't care so much about the interest and care more about the banking facilities.

Hope this helps.....

Cranston_2

Keep your accounts open.

FD will forward statements, cards, cheque to your foreign address. I think barclays will too.

skyrider007

occamsrazor wrote: »

Most UK banks will no longer accept NEW APPLICATIONS from non-UK-residents.

SOME banks will accept a previously UK resident customer to move abroad and continue the accounts using a foreign address.

They can send you renewal cards by mail to a foreign address if they choose to do so, it depends on their policies - Citibank UK have done this for me many times over the last few years.

.

I did not suggest the OP to open new account with a foreign address, the OP clearly stated that s/he will be moving abroad. So I wasn't talking about new application at all.

Renewal cards *depend* greatly on the bank you are dealing with, AFAIK American Express UK will not send renewal cards abroad but will advise the cardholder to contact the local AMEX office in the country they are residing in to arrange a renewal card.

occamsrazor

skyrider007 wrote: »

I did not suggest the OP to open new account with a foreign address, the OP clearly stated that s/he will be moving abroad. So I wasn't talking about new application at all.

Hi Skyrider, I did realise you weren't talking about that, I only added the info about the difficulty of opening new accounts as a non-resident in order to inform the OP of the advantages of keeping his existing accounts open... Cheers, Ben

cacton20

Thanks for the responses. Yep, it seems it might be INGs policy but not the policy of the main banks. Will get to keep them!
Thanks again.