5-year bonds if moving abroad?

snootyagouti

Hi everyone. I am hoping to move to South America early next year to teach English but am struggling to work out the best thing to do with my savings, the interest on which I hope to use to supplement my income. In total I have just over £200k in savings as a result of selling my house (am currently renting), most of which is spread over a number of fixed term accounts which are due to come out at various times over the next 3 months. I would like to keep my savings with UK banks or building societies if possible as I am worried about the safety of deposits in offshore accounts, but I realise that this may be difficult to achieve if I am living abroad. Although I am rather reluctant to lock away the bulk of my savings in lengthy fixed term accounts at the moment (due to the possibility of substantial interest rate increases in the years ahead), I am wondering if maybe 5-year fixed term bonds such as Barclays , Yorkshire Building Society or Aldermore for at least half of my savings would be the best option. At least I could open these while I’m still in the UK, and would then not have to worry about trying to open new accounts from abroad for the next 4 to 5 years. Does anyone have any advice on this as an idea?

From previous threads I have gathered that some banks such as Barclays and Citibank will let you keep an existing UK account with them if you move abroad while others will not, meaning that I would then have to use a friend’s UK address if I wanted to keep those accounts open. Another question then arises: if I complete a form R85/R105 for interest without tax, wouldn’t this give the game away to those banks that I was pretending a friend’s UK address was my own? Would it be better to be paid net interest and then claim back the tax at the end of each year?

Any opinions or advice will be gratefully received. Thank you.