Expat returning to UK

lhah

Hi there – My parents are returning to the UK, having sold their home in New Zealand where they lived for quite a few years. They want to rent a flat / home, and ideally live off their pension and the interest they will earn on the money from the sale of their house.
Does this sound feasible? Or are they being unrealistic? I think once the money is exchanged from dollars to pounds, they should have around £200k.
Has anyone else done anything like this? Or your parents / friends?
Any advice and information welcome!

celtic123

sounds feasible to me mate.

darkpool

why not just buy a home? that's what i would do.

celtic123

darkpool wrote: »

why not just buy a home? that's what i would do.

yeah but they want liquidity in old age. suppose could work if they wanted to sell an equity share of it.

jennifernil

Depends on their pensions.

We are retired and can live very comfortably on £15k, but do own our home outright.

That is just everyday living, not including holidays, but we do have a fair sized house to heat, pay council tax on etc.

We do have more income than that, and savings, so can afford holidays too.

If renting a modest property, I would say they would need £15k to be comfortable.

RetiredInThailand

At the moment the interest from the 200K wont even cover inflation, so that's bad news for a start. Every year they will have less savings than the year before, even if they reinvest all the interest. And that's ignoring tax. No one knows what might happen over the next few years but I doubt if the situation will get a lot better.

If they are fairly sure that they will want to live in one place for at least 5 or 10 years, then buying sounds like a better bet.

missile

It may seem callus, but I would suggest you consider how long they have left to live?

Divide £200K by X and plus their pensions is that enough for them? £15K is enough for one poster but your parents may require more or less.

Linton

lhah wrote: »

Hi there – My parents are returning to the UK, having sold their home in New Zealand where they lived for quite a few years. They want to rent a flat / home, and ideally live off their pension and the interest they will earn on the money from the sale of their house.
Does this sound feasible? Or are they being unrealistic? I think once the money is exchanged from dollars to pounds, they should have around £200k.
Has anyone else done anything like this? Or your parents / friends?
Any advice and information welcome!

A lot depends on how old they are, and also how much UK (or New Zealand) state pension they are entitled to.

Lets assume:
1) they are 65
2) they both get a full UK state pension
3) they have no other income
4) they want a guaranteed inflation proofed income for the rest of their lives

£200K would buy you an index linked annuity of around £6k a year. So add that to state pensions of around £10K you get £16k to live on. That will have to include housing costs. So at a first pass that is doable but it seems a pretty basic existance to me.

I would suggest that they use their own data to put together a proper plan.