HELP - Paying in a $80.000 into an UK bank account??

weimaranermerlin

I need some advice... My husband has just sold a lot of his company shares and will be send a US$ cheque over about $80.000.

We have done a similar transaction about 5 years ago when I had no idea about money matters. Upon presenting a similar size cheque to Natwest they took about 2 weeks to send us a letter with a "proposed" exchange rate which we accepted. Sadly I have to confess that I have no idea if that was a good exchange rate at all..

I am hoping to be "more on the ball" this time so is there any advice out there as how to exchange the cheque into £? We will need the money in the next few months to pay off debts, add an extension and put some away for a rainy day (I am already studying this board for the best way to do this!).

Thank you very much for your help.

Sandra (Weimaranermerlin)

Cook_County

Sandra

You have not mentioned tax at all. Do you need to keep 40% of the money to pay tax?

Are there tax advantages to keeping the money offshore (for example are either of you US citizens)?

If none of this applies then ask his employer, as most employers in similar positions will negotiate the FOREX for you.

EdInvestor

One thing to do is to check the UK "correspondent bank" of the US bank which cheque is from.It it's not Natwest, but another one - say Barclays - then you can cut out one lot of charges by taking the cheque to Barclay's and getting them to cash it, rather than Natwest.

Of coruse you should negotiate the rate with them too.The pound is nicely low at present I see.

rozeepozee

I did a similar thing with Aus$ and shopped around online (and then called the brokers) for the best rate. I can't claim to know loads about it. Just that there are companies who do this and offer a better deal with a large lum sum and way more than my regular bank was offering me!

KTF

Couldnt you open a Citibank US$ and UK£ account, pay the cheque into the $ account then move it over to the £ one?