Quite apart from JohnBoy who needn’t worry but while we’re discussing protection clauses, seems to me it might be dauntingly stressful selling in France while buying in UK. When buying a property in UK there is a fraught month or two between having had the offer accepted and arriving at completion, during which the seller can receive a better offer and back out or demand more to complete?
Meanwhile, French house may or may not be selling. If the French house is not yet sold, is a bridging loan in UK feasible? If the home is quickly sold in France but no new home in UK yet found or completed, where will all the furnishings be stored? Is there a time limit for transferring a household to UK tax free?
When I needed storage I found that regular UK insurance companies will not insure houshold goods for more than 3 months, rolling over the one that existed before you sold your property.
Maybe a French policy will roll over. You’ll find out. And/or they may not insure stuff in store in UK.
Beware the storage companies like Big Yellow box and the like. They will only take you on if you have a contents policy. If you can’t get a policy from a ‘normal’ insurance co, you have to take the storage co’s policy. These are very expensive.
And the rate at which they jack up the premiums is eyewatering. It’s how they really make their money.
My broker, in UK, swung it so my contents policy did run until due date - about 9 months. Then, the rate that the storage co came up with was horrendous. I moved out to a facilty renting shipping containers - cheap, no policy req’d. There’s lots of those in UK now.
Beware paying storage for stuff that you bought in shops and could buy again in UK, if your time in storage drags on. Friends ended up ‘buying’ all their nice furniture - 5 bed/3 recep worth, bought in UK antique shops - many times over because it spent so long in store.
Hi Helen - Why are you not just going to use Wise? Much more straightforward than TorFx ! You should make contact with them in advance (by phone or email), and you will get personal assistance. In addition, they give a special rate for any transfer over €22,000.
They - and all banks - do need to obtain supporting info from you. With Wise this is simple - just proof of where the money is coming from is usually all that they require. They will also give you a clear quote for costs & rates.
I personally wouldn’t attempt it, Susannah. Too stressful, as you say.
Our Plan A would be to buy a little house in the UK for cash. Then sell the French place.
But if that doesn’t work out (there are only so many house-hunting trips to the UK I am prepared to make), then it would be a question of selling up in France first, put the stuff in storage and stay in an Airbnb in the UK until we find a rental.
Bosendorfer,
I have in fact been using Wise for years. Very successfully.
But I just thought TorFx might be better for very large sums. The idea of having a dedicated account manager in those circumstances sort of appealed to me. So I decided to do a trial run yesterday.
Would you feel happy using Wise for sending the entire proceeds of a house sale? I might end up doing that. Or split it up a bit.
As a trial run, I did a transfer yesterday. This simply involved me sending euros from my French bank to their German bank. They would then put the agreed amount of sterling in my UK building society account.
I did an instant transfer from the French bank yesterday but this morning when I checked the TorFx app, the transaction was still pending. I queried it with my nice dedicated account manager who explained that the compliance team were looking into it because they needed to know who “‘Epargne” was. And what was my relationship with this Epargne?
I explained that “EPARGNE” was just someting I had to enter in the mandatory field “Motif du virement” when doing the transfer using my French banking app. And NOT some dodgy third-party remitting the funds.
How could their German bank not see that the money had simply arrived from the Societe Generale?
They really thought some weirdo called EPARGNE had sent the money.
I wish you’d have a word with my husband. I’d happily walk away with just a suitcase.
@tim17 - the rates are indeed onerous now. We almost certainly wouldn’t be able to claim back the extra stamp duty for non-residents. But eventually we’d be able to claim back the second home surcharge. Takes ages, though, apparently.
We did, I’m not sure if hubby rang or emailed them initially but we did have a bloke we could contact if needed. Pretty straightforward really, that was 2019, but I don’t think much if anything will have changed.
You could contact them now and ask them to explain the process and what they need from you, might be one less thing to worry about if you know in advance.
Once you’ve been living in the UK for six months you can claim back the non-residents bit of the stamp duty costs, HMRC reimbursed us within two weeks of putting the claim in. You do though, only have two years from the time you bought the property as a non-resident to claim the stamp duty back.
That’s why we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to separate the two events. We’re buying a house in the UK that we both like, so either of us will be happy living there. In the meantime, we can continue to live in France and only sell when it becomes too much for the one. At that point, a quick sale should be possible because we can be very pragmatic about the selling price, having already got a place in the UK.
Oh I see, a bit more complicated than my normal transactions then, from UK bank to French one. I did try Wise before I ended up with TorFX but with all that palaver of standing on one leg while rubbing my tummy with one hand and my head with the other, I couldn’t make the grade.
Not really, more simple than that, taking a selfie while holding my passport, for some reason not acceptable.
Just to say I am reading all comments and as time progresses I will post our experiences.
I have been researching for many months to get up to speed with procedures which I hope, when I get to each one, will be as I have understood, we will see.
Non resident stamp duty was the first obstacle to come to terms with
Agreed, however my understanding is 12 months, not 2 years.
As Tim says, when you have arrived in the UK you remain non resident for 6 months so best to keep as much evidence as possible of your arrival date.
For us we will arrive in December but will not start the 6 month clock ticking until 1st January which will mean a tidy cut off point for the French tax year.
It has also been mentioned buying a house in the UK before selling in France which is quite doable but you have to remember that you have to declare any property you already own worldwide so there is no avoiding second home stamp duty surcharge.
I will try to post separately on the various hurdles we will encounter as our new adventure progresses.
I think the 2 years straddles the purchase date, ie you must have spent 183 days in the UK in any continuous 365-day period:
starting no more than 364 days before the effective date of transaction
ending no more than 365 days after the effective date of the transaction
So if you hadn’t spent 6 months in the UK in the year before the purchase, you would pay the surcharge. With the possibility of claiming it back if you were able to spend enough time in the UK in the year following the purchase.
You must apply for the refund within 2 years following the purchase.
