Banking and gifting in the UK while living in another country?

mbzon

For the last 2 years I have been living in Spain, and my adult son also. We both have UK checking accounts, and both have the majority of our money in those accounts.

I would like to give him 20,000GBP from my UK account to help a business he plans to start in Spain and my tax consultant here has told me that it would be better to do this to his UK account, and for him to take it from there rather than giving it between Spanish bank accounts. I'm double checking if his advice is good on the Spanish side. But am just wondering if this would cause me any problems on the UK side? 

Especially as I'm not even sure if we are allowed to have our accounts there after Brexit...

To move/exchange the money he plans to move it to his Revolut Premium account, exchange it and transfer to a Spanish account, possibly in 2-3 parts in case there are any issues and some money gets temporarily flagged or locked.

So would me transferring this amount to him cause any problems?
OR, would he have any problems moving it out of his account (around 35,000GBP total)?

p3ncilsharpener

Ultimately any transaction could cause you problems in so far as the bank might deem it to be "suspicious" and request that you turn up in a branch with documentation, which is clearly going to be difficult.   How likely that is to happen, nobody can say.

Absolute worst-case scenario is that they close your account as they don't like what you've done.  Obviously being non-resident you wouldn't be able to set up a new UK account.

mbzon

p3ncilsharpener said:

Ultimately any transaction could cause you problems in so far as the bank might deem it to be "suspicious" and request that you turn up in a branch with documentation, which is clearly going to be difficult.   How likely that is to happen, nobody can say.

Absolute worst-case scenario is that they close your account as they don't like what you've done.  Obviously being non-resident you wouldn't be able to set up a new UK account.

Hmm, so what would happen to my money if the account was locked or even shut down? And wouldn't I be able to handle things via telephone?

And is there any way to decrease the chances of it being flagged? Maybe doing it in smaller chunks a few days apart for example?

Btw the bank accounts are both Santander.

PRAISETHESUN

I would avoid Revolut like the plague, especially for sums of that amount which will almost certainly be investigated. They have a reputation for poor customer service. A service such as Wise, Fineco or any of the ones listed here would be better: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/foreign-currency-exchange/

I can't comment on the Spanish tax implications of a gift of that size, but I can't see anything wrong on the UK side of things as best I understand it. Apart from banks deeming it "suspicious" the only concern might be IHT, but that's usually not a problem as even if you were to pass away tax would have to be paid anyway regardless if you gifted the money or not.

p3ncilsharpener

mbzon said:

p3ncilsharpener said:

Ultimately any transaction could cause you problems in so far as the bank might deem it to be "suspicious" and request that you turn up in a branch with documentation, which is clearly going to be difficult.   How likely that is to happen, nobody can say.

Absolute worst-case scenario is that they close your account as they don't like what you've done.  Obviously being non-resident you wouldn't be able to set up a new UK account.

Hmm, so what would happen to my money if the account was locked or even shut down? And wouldn't I be able to handle things via telephone?

And is there any way to decrease the chances of it being flagged? Maybe doing it in smaller chunks a few days apart for example?

Btw the bank accounts are both Santander.

It ultimately depends on what they think is going on as to what methods they'll allow you to use to rectify things

Anything you do to make it less suspicious is probably going to make it look more suspicious.  Banks are well versed in the various methods those up to no good use to mask what they're up to.

My point is if you're asking what could go wrong, having to fly back to the UK to unlock the account or having the accounts closed permanently are the worst-case scenario problems you could expect.  I'm not going to comment on how likely that is to happen, as I don't know.

mbzon

p3ncilsharpener said:

mbzon said:

p3ncilsharpener said:

Ultimately any transaction could cause you problems in so far as the bank might deem it to be "suspicious" and request that you turn up in a branch with documentation, which is clearly going to be difficult.   How likely that is to happen, nobody can say.

Absolute worst-case scenario is that they close your account as they don't like what you've done.  Obviously being non-resident you wouldn't be able to set up a new UK account.

Hmm, so what would happen to my money if the account was locked or even shut down? And wouldn't I be able to handle things via telephone?

And is there any way to decrease the chances of it being flagged? Maybe doing it in smaller chunks a few days apart for example?

Btw the bank accounts are both Santander.

It ultimately depends on what they think is going on as to what methods they'll allow you to use to rectify things

Anything you do to make it less suspicious is probably going to make it look more suspicious.  Banks are well versed in the various methods those up to no good use to mask what they're up to.

My point is if you're asking what could go wrong, having to fly back to the UK to unlock the account or having the accounts closed permanently are the worst-case scenario problems you could expect.  I'm not going to comment on how likely that is to happen, as I don't know.

Oh, when you said suspicious I thought you might have meant like account hacking or something like this.

If it were to happen, could they really hold my money and insist on me to return in person? According to their website (https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/customer-support/brexit-and-santander-uk-plc) there is nothing wrong with us keeping our accounts there even if we are not residents, so surely they can not expect non-residents to just pop into a branch when they want? 

p3ncilsharpener

mbzon said:

p3ncilsharpener said:

mbzon said:

p3ncilsharpener said:

Ultimately any transaction could cause you problems in so far as the bank might deem it to be "suspicious" and request that you turn up in a branch with documentation, which is clearly going to be difficult.   How likely that is to happen, nobody can say.

Absolute worst-case scenario is that they close your account as they don't like what you've done.  Obviously being non-resident you wouldn't be able to set up a new UK account.

Hmm, so what would happen to my money if the account was locked or even shut down? And wouldn't I be able to handle things via telephone?

And is there any way to decrease the chances of it being flagged? Maybe doing it in smaller chunks a few days apart for example?

Btw the bank accounts are both Santander.

It ultimately depends on what they think is going on as to what methods they'll allow you to use to rectify things

Anything you do to make it less suspicious is probably going to make it look more suspicious.  Banks are well versed in the various methods those up to no good use to mask what they're up to.

My point is if you're asking what could go wrong, having to fly back to the UK to unlock the account or having the accounts closed permanently are the worst-case scenario problems you could expect.  I'm not going to comment on how likely that is to happen, as I don't know.

Oh, when you said suspicious I thought you might have meant like account hacking or something like this.

If it were to happen, could they really hold my money and insist on me to return in person? According to their website (https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/customer-support/brexit-and-santander-uk-plc) there is nothing wrong with us keeping our accounts there even if we are not residents, so surely they can not expect non-residents to just pop into a branch when they want? 

It's not really popping into a branch when they want, it's off the back of a suspicion of most likely money laundering.  It's a UK bank account, it's not unreasonable to expect customers to be able to pop into a branch if the need arises.  If you can't do that, the obvious answer is to do your banking with a local bank.  That will most likely be the stance they would take.

They're not getting rid of you as a customer because you're non-resident, but I wouldn't expect them to bend over backwards to accommodate you either, especially when you have other options.

colsten

mbzon said:

For the last 2 years I have been living in Spain, and my adult son also. We both have UK checking accounts

In the UK, we don't use the term checking account. Are you American citizens? In which case, you should probably be more concerned about the American authorities than the UK ones.

In the UK, you can make gifts of any size without breaking any laws. However, you should be aware of potential Inheritance Tax implications.

Transferring money from the UK to Spain should not be an issue as such. As already mentioned, I would give Revolut a wide berth. A fully verified Wise account strikes me as an infinitely better choice. Keeping your transfer amounts below approx £15k (or lower) for any single transfer seems sensible, in any case, as currency transfer firms don't have a cast-iron deposit guarantee.

J_B

p3ncilsharpener said:

Ultimately any transaction could cause you problems in so far as the bank might deem it to be "suspicious" and request that you turn up in a branch with documentation, which is clearly going to be difficult.   How likely that is to happen, nobody can say.

Would it be 'safer' to move small quantities of money each time?
 

Thrugelmir

mbzon said:

 my tax consultant here has told me that it would be better to do this to his UK account, and for him to take it from there rather than giving it between Spanish bank accounts. 

Is this in an attempt to avoid something? 

p3ncilsharpener

J_B said:

p3ncilsharpener said:

Ultimately any transaction could cause you problems in so far as the bank might deem it to be "suspicious" and request that you turn up in a branch with documentation, which is clearly going to be difficult.   How likely that is to happen, nobody can say.

Would it be 'safer' to move small quantities of money each time?
 

No, because as I said banks are not stupid, they know the tricks people use to fly below the radar.

To be clear I'm in no way saying this is a certainty, or even close to it.  Merely answering the OP's question of if it could cause problems.

It might, and the ultimate problem is they lose the account, which has happened many times on here.  The problem the OP has over a UK resident is that they would not be allowed to open a UK account elsewhere, as they're not a UK resident anymore and I've yet to see a current account that doesn't require the holder to be UK resident at the time of application.