Changing Large Amounts of Euro's back to Pounds

kjc2561

kjc2561

Hi all,

I have a large amount of Euro's in cash from a sale of a property abroad. Most of the cash is now in the UK.

Can anyone advise the best way to convert this into sterling at the best rates without large commissions.

Do i need to open a Euro account to put the monies in first before exchange? Or are there ways of paying in in Cash Euro's or exchanging Cash Euro's for Cash Pounds?

Thankyou

agrinnall

I hope you have retained the paperwork from the sale as you are going to face a lot of questions however you try to pay the money in and you will need to prove that the source of funds is entirely legitimate. A visit from Mr. Plod may not be out of the question.

The best option, if it's possible, is probably to find a bank that will offer you both a Euro and Sterling account and allow you to do transfers from one to the other without charges and at a decent exchange rate. Paying the cash directly into a Sterling account is likely to be the worst option. There are methods in between the two extremes, such as using a foreign exchange broker to transfer from a Euro account to a Sterling account that you may need to use if you can't do the best option.

bris

Ouch, this is going to be costly.


Does any EU country allow you to accept a suitcase full of cash for a property? The first thing the bank will do is report it for money laundering reasons, they have no choice if you start putting tens of thousands into an account.

D_M_E

If you had a property in a European country, did you also have a euro account in the same contry?

If so, the cheapest option would be to put the euros in the overseas account then use something like Transferwise or FairFx or someone similar to shift the euros into quids and into your UK account.

I believe HSBC used do a euro account and they did allow you to pay in euros at any branch but you need to check if they still do this and if they do make sure the euros go into the euros account without conversion into quids - I think the account was based in Jersey but you need to check if it's still available.

As has been pointed out above you also need to keep proof of where the funds originated.

eDicky

Subsequent to the series of apparent mistakes in accepting cash payment for a property sale in EU, not depositing the cash euros in a eurozone bank account (assuming evidence of source of funds available), and then bringing those cash euros to the UK, about the only thing you can now do is find the best rates to exchange to cash GBP. There's a 'buyback' function on the MSE tool to do this. Then if a bank finds your paper trail acceptable you could deposit your cash. I don't think there's a UK or CI/IoM bank that accepts cash euro deposits*.

* Perhaps Citibank UK if your funds are sufficient and acceptable (documented).

flower77g

A few UK banks will still allow you to deposit large amounts in euros (eg: Barclays) into a foreign currency account if you have a current account with them. They will absolutely check all the paperwork is in order!