Euros to Pounds

Cheshiregirl_2

Can anyone advise - Ive just sold my house in France and have the Euros in French bank account but looking to put it down as deposit for property over here later this year. As I have a few months I wondered what was the best way to transfer the currency from Euros to Pounds without losing too much on the currency exchange? Is it best to do large lump sum or bit by bit? Plus dont want to get stung on capital gains tax as Ive already paid tax on it in France. Any suggestions? :rotfl:

Fire_Fox

Welcome to MSE!

Either capital gains tax is due or it isn't, you can't simply avoid (evade!) it by transferring money in a clever way. I would suspect it isn't due if you have already paid tax in France, but you should check with the inland revenue website.

missmilly

Hi there Cheshiregirl,

Congratulations on selling your property in this tough market. We sold our property in France at the end of April and like you left the money in our French bank account while hoping the exchange rate would rise again. While we were waiting I registered online with a couple of currency exchange companies so that everything would be up and running when the time came. I also told them the minimum rate I was hoping to acheive.

Both companies called me fairly often, but one of them kept asking me to lower my expectations, but I held out! When the rate hit my 'target', my contact from the other company called me immediately. I agreed a rate with him (this then becomes the contract) all the paperwork followed by email, I then instructed my French bank to transfer the money to the currency exchange company.

Although I was very nervous about the whole process, having never done anything like it before, it was all very straightforward and the money was in my UK bank account within 48 hours. There was no charge from the currency exchange company, and just a small charge (about 20€ if I remember correctly) from the French bank.

I can absolutely recommend the company I ended up using which was Moneycorp, but not the other as they did not call when the target rate was reached, but called a couple of months later to see if I still wanted to exchange my euros!

If you have paid capital gains tax in France, you shouldn't have to pay it in UK, we didn't.

Good luck!

nollag2006

Yip - no matter how you transfer the money, you will need to tell the bank in the UK what the source of funds are due to money laundering regs.

I have had a bank account open in USD, EUR, and GBP with Nationwide Intl for years (http://www.nationwideinternational.com/) and found them to be excellent for large size, low cost transfers

roger196

You will need to look at the "double taxation agreement for capital gains for France" on www.hmrc.gov.uk.
DT agreements usually take one of two forms. Either the gain is wholly taxable in one state but not the other. Or relief is given for the overseas tax paid against the UK tax due. DTA are written in horrible goobledy-gook, best of luck with reading one.

missmilly

prudryden wrote: »

How did your rate compare to the actual interbank rate - also known as the spot rate which fluctuates every second?

Hi,

I had been watching the interbank (spot) rate since we sold the property and the rate I accepted compared very, very favourably. I continued watching it too, glutton for punishment I know, and luckily I am still very happy with the result.

LenanMayers

congratz for starting