Expat- Saving and Investment Options- Vanguard LS

thecooler13

As a non UK resident ( living in Asia) I no longer have the option of ISAs open to me.

I am looking to start a Vanguard LS investment plan for the long term and I am unsure of the best way to do this.

It seems like as a non resident, investing thru a UK platform is not possible.

I would be grateful for any advice regarding expat savings and investments.

PenguinJim

Hi, I was in the same boat a couple of months ago. Assuming you're not a UK resident for tax purposes, it seems you shouldn't worry about ISAs as you shouldn't owe the UK any tax on your investments anyway (as far as I've seen - can someone correct me if I'm wrong, please?).

If you still have a UK bank account, access to a UK address (parents or siblings, for example) and you have a British passport, there are some limited (but legitimate) options available to you regarding investing through a UK platform. Do you have these?

thecooler13

I was born in the UK but have an Irish passport, a UK bank account and UK address.

I am currently based in Shanghai but could move internationally in the future

In Shanghai I am regularly cold called from unregulated investment companies with high fees and high penalties.

I am looking to invest thru a low fees platform (like Vanguard) and be a little more hands on. I am just not sure the best way to do this be it thru a UK or international platform.

BeachNut

As stated above, if you have a UK address and bank account you'll be able to open an account with HL etc. to access Vanguard funds (ie. you pretend to still be UK resident). However, you'll need to declare any taxable gains to HMRC (CGT applies to non-residents) even if you give HMRC a non-UK address as a non-resident.

If you have any ISA's already you don't have to close them. You shouldn't contribute to them as a non-resident (except for any interest earned each year which gets added to the balance) but you can transfer them to other providers.

Porcupine

If you can live without the LS products, Vanguard's ETFs should be available on any platform that offers London shares. There's also the US ETFs. If your platform offers US mutual funds there's LS and the 'Target Retirement 20xx' funds that are a bit like LS but with a given risk for your target retirement date.

It all depends what currency you'd rather be in. I suspect a platform that sells US funds/shares is going to be more likely to be offered in China than UK funds/shares.