Money coming from abroad into the UK

Tiggy777

Hi all.

Looking for some information on this please.
My son in law is from abroad, having come into the UK back in 2020 to study.

We have supported them heavily with buying cars, rent every month etc etc.  They dont earn a lot.  

My son in laws family have now indicated they would like to help and send us some money to repay some of the money we have given them over the years.

Is it a simple case that l can give them my bank details and then they simply transfer the money or will it be blocked, also are there any tax applications.

Just want to get it right

Appreciate any advice and thank you for your time reading this 

Regards 

Tiggy.

TadleyBaggie

No tax implications but money laundering checks may be encountered.

eskbanker

Whereabouts 'abroad', specifically?  Some countries are more likely to ring alarm bells than others....

MyRealNameToo

You can just give them the bank details, though it will need to be the international account details not your sort code and account number. This is probably the worst FX rate though. 

There are plenty of money transfer services, eg Wise, which will still put money into your account but will have lower fees and/or better exchange rates but as they are the senders you are a little dependent on them being willing to put the effort in unless they are already regular users of such services. 

grumpy_codger

MyRealNameToo said:

...

There are plenty of money transfer services, eg Wise, which will still put money into your account but will have lower fees and/or better exchange rates but as they are the senders you are a little dependent on them being willing to put the effort in unless they are already regular users of such services. 

If Wise is available in their country the son in law can open an account with Wise, recieve the money there and use Wise card for UK spending.

SiliconChip

grumpy_codger said:

MyRealNameToo said:

...

There are plenty of money transfer services, eg Wise, which will still put money into your account but will have lower fees and/or better exchange rates but as they are the senders you are a little dependent on them being willing to put the effort in unless they are already regular users of such services. 

If Wise is available in their country the son in law can open an account with Wise, recieve the money there and use Wise card for UK spending.

The money is to go to the OP, not to their son-in-law, so I don't think the Wise card will be suitable for that, although I'd agree with using Wise (or an alternative) to do the transfer at low cost.

CliveOfIndia

There won't be any tax implications, but depending on the country of source and the amount involved, you may find you get delayed by anti money-laundering checks.  No big deal in itself, but it can be a little frustrating while the bank do their due diligence.

As others have said, if the money is being paid into an "ordinary" account then you may find yourself at the mercy of fees and rubbish exchange rates.  Again, it largely depends on the sum involved - but it may be worth looking into the more "specialist" FX services if it's a reasonable amount.

Tiggy777

Appreciate all the replies 
If money was to gets into my account would that suggest AML checks have been completed or could it get 'frozen' later ?
Many thanks again
Regards
Tiggy 

Notepad_Phil

Tiggy777 said:

...
Just want to get it right

Appreciate any advice and thank you for your time reading this 
...

Just one suggestion from me as I assume this is going to be a largish payment and international account numbers are not the easiest of things to work out, so before they send any large amounts first make sure the son in laws family do a test payment to ensure that it gets correctly routed to your account.

Edited to add the following:

Tiggy777 said:

...
If money was to gets into my account would that suggest AML checks have been completed or could it get 'frozen' later ?
...

There's always a chance that it could get frozen later, and I'd suggest those chances would be increased if a large amount arrives from a foreign country and it's then forwarded on out of the bank account within a shortish period of time.

Sam_666

OP has strategicly avoided to say from which country is money coming from.
And approx value of transfer.
All very relavant facts, which would help provede more precise answers.

Newbie_John

Yeah there is a difference of getting £500 from France and £100k from Russia..