Changing country and investments in UK

RobHT

Hi,

if I switch country, I mean living there for at least 180 days per year, how will it go with my Vanguard account?
I think this is not up to Vanguard, but up to the OCSE regulations, seen that you have a ROI from your investments, that can be negative or positive.

For my knowledge, they would just close my account and I would loose all my investments, unless I cash out and be happy with it  

bowlhead99

RobHT said:

if I switch country, I mean living there for at least 180 days per year, how will it go with my Vanguard account?

If you spend 180 days outside the UK you don't automatically cease to be UK tax resident. But if you do stop being a UK resident or start to be tax resident elsewhere, Vanguard can either restrict you from making new investments or (only if your account isn't a pension) sell your investments and close your account.  See their terms and conditions for details.

I think this is not up to Vanguard, but up to the OCSE regulations, seen that you have a ROI from your investments, that can be negative or positive.

Vanguard UK are not regulated by OCSE, whoever that is - they follow UK law and FCA/HMRC regulations and set their own terms and conditions as they see fit. It's true that your return on investment can be either negative or positive over any given year or decade, but I have no idea what you're getting at with this sentence.

For my knowledge, they would just close my account and I would loose all my investments, unless I cash out and be happy with it  

If they close your account they would sell/redeem your investments and give you the sale or redemption proceeds. Your investments wouldn't be set loose, or lost - simply converted into cash.

If you are planning on leaving the country it may be wise to cash in your investments yourself first, at the time of your choice, rather than have them do it for you at a time of their choice. That would also give you the opportunity of transferring to another provider (which might be particularly useful if it was an ISA account and you wanted to retain the ISA wrapper during a period of absence from the UK and come back to the UK later).

RobHT

Thanks a lo for the answer.

If I spend 180 days outside the country, yes, I will be considered taxable on another country, and after a certain time I will loose my permission to stay in UK, I'm from EU and I'm with a pre-settled status, as of now I don't remember how long I can stay outside UK, not a long time though.

OCSE is about the 180 days of residence in 1 year, taxes wise yes, it's HMRC inside UK.

The question of the day is: how can I avoid to loose my investments if I change country?
Is there any platform friendly for such matter? Or any particular way?

I'm not afraid to loose the cash, I need to avoid to loose the investment on longer term, aka nest eggs.

RobHT

bowlhead99 any idea?

bowlhead99

RobHT said:

OCSE is about the 180 days of residence in 1 year, taxes wise yes, it's HMRC inside UK.

The question of the day is: how can I avoid to loose my investments if I change country?
Is there any platform friendly for such matter? Or any particular way?

I'm not afraid to loose the cash, I need to avoid to loose the investment on longer term, aka nest eggs.

I still don't understand what OCSE is in relation to regulating Vanguard on what accounts they can offer you. If I search that abbreviation, Google only gives hits for Office of Child Support Enforcement in the USA, or Off-Campus Study & Exchanges.  But as I mentioned earlier, Vanguard make their own rules on what services they want to offer in the UK to what people, within the parameters of UK company law and FCA / HMRC regulation.  I expect OCSE is a 'red herring'.

But anyway:
- if Vanguard say you can no longer be their customer because you are no longer UK resident, then you will still have the money that resulted from your time investing with Vanguard in the UK, and you can take that elsewhere. You will not lose the ability to own investments for your 'nest eggs'. Most other countries you might move to will have their own financial services businesses, that can offer investments in similar types of funds - either Vanguard ETFs, Vanguard open-ended funds or funds from managers other than Vanguard.  So you can just sell what you had at Vanguard, and buy elsewhere. It may be better to use products designed for residents of those other countries, as they may be more tax efficient for you (e.g. their equivalent of our ISA or pension)

- You may prefer to use another platform to Vanguard who would not automatically close your account. For example I use AJ Bell Youinvest, who will only open a new account for you if you're a UK resident, but if you already had an ISA here and tell them you are no longer UK resident, they will simply stop you making further contributions to the account (HMRC rules), but you are allowed to keep the account (unless you moved to US or Canada). That might be a useful feature if you were planning on returning to the UK later, because your investments would still be in the account and you wouldn't have lost access to them while you were away.  If you had a normal Dealing Account with them instead of an ISA, they say "if you hold a dealing account and you cease to be resident in the UK, you must inform us immediately. We reserve the right to close your account but would normally only do so if as a consequence we had to provide any additional services or undertake any additional work that does not fall within the normal scope of the services".

There are probably other platforms with similar rules, for example Hargreaves Lansdown's FAQ says that if you stop being UK resident but stay in the EEA, you can keep your existing account and continue to trade in it, but not add new money : https://www.hl.co.uk/help/managing-your-online-account/moving-overseas/moving-overseas/can-i-still-add-money-to-my-fund-and-share-account-if-i-move-abroad .  So with HL or AJ Bell you would be able to keep all your old investments with them, and you would only need to find a solution for new money you wanted to add after you had left the country.

- If you are already planning to leave the UK then maybe you shouldn't make lots of contributions to a Vanguard account when you know you may need to sell the investments to take the money away and invest elsewhere. You could simply find a different non-UK platform right now. For example DeGiro is Dutch, Saxobank is Danish, or Fineco is Italian, Interactive Brokers is American, but they all service customers from around Europe including the UK.  The negative point is that they are not building their products specifically for UK investors so they don't offer ISA and UK pension accounts, meaning they may be less tax efficient for you while you are here. Most UK customers don't use them because most UK customers with significant money to invest would want to use their ISA or pension allowance first, before using general investing/dealing accounts that are outside a tax wrapper.