The post office only allow a 2 year redirect (or did a few years back).
Most banks will encourage you to go completely non paper but i think mortgage annual statements have to be paper based ? Certainly that was the case when we had a mortgage in the UK
Niece owns ground floor flat. Barclaycard know not to send anything there - weāll deal with the card renewal process in a couple of years, when we get to it.
Yes go paperlessā¦and any thoughts on whether this trade deal will impact on the banking regime,ā¦it seems that there will be individual state by state negotiations on reprocityā¦or am I wrong ?.
Iāve been reluctant to use a UK āpostal addressā since I moved to France, although I have a tenanted property over there. I realise a lot of people do this for the likes of bank accounts and driving licences, but I donāt want to be caught out. I gave the Clydesdale Bank my new address when I emigrated and also my French tax number when they asked for it. They said they had to pass it on to HMRC. The bankās website says they have no plans to close the accounts of non-UK residents but are monitoring the situation. If they close my accounts, so be it. Iāll just rearrange my financial affairs in France. The reality is that I no longer have a residential address in the UK and am a touch paranoid about claiming I have.
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Certainly with Barclaycard I made no attempt whatsoever to deceive. I told them exactly what I was doing - providing a UK address which we owned but where I do not live. They had no problem with this. So Iām not sure where the ācatching outā is supposed to be?
Banks probably take different approaches to this. Mine makes clear it wants to know where I live. Their customer service people are easy to deal with and, if the worst comes to the worst, I might ask them if a simple contact address would be enough.
Think that this issue will become clearer and provably more favourable in next four months, as it seems post trade deal financial services is going to get discussed furtherā¦probably in the area of āequivalenceā.
Not related to brits in France specifically but an interesting development. M&S Bank, which is basically HSBC with a different name, closing its current account. Oddly they say itās because people are banking online instead of in bricks and mortar with the pandemic and such, but if so surely thatās a reason to close the in-store ābranchesā and go online only not the whole current account operation. Unless their customer base is entirely bricks and mortar diehards, but since Martin Lewis has promoted the account a lot Iād expect that not to be the case.
No problems with Lloyds Bankā¦ been checking the small printā¦ but theyāve not blinked yetā¦
Lloyds are fine about customers having French postal addresses and phone numbers once you fill in the form telling them which country you are a tax resident of.
In fact the only contact Iāve had from Lloyds since late 2018 was their informing me that they wouldnāt automatically be replacing either of my debit or credit cards as I hadnāt used them in 18 months. They did assure me that I could have replacements if I requested them.
Fully expecting my Lloyds MasterCard to get cancelled any minute as I no longer have the U.K. property nor U.K. income it was secured against.
When we moved to France, our Lloyds Branch Manager told us that we could no longer benefit from Car Hire/whatever at special rates ā¦ as we did not live in UKā¦ but that sort of thing didnāt matter to us.
They did write last year and ask if I wanted my own DCard renewed at that time, since I hadnāt used it in the previous period. Told them to cancel it as we only ever use OHās card.
and OHās Debit Card was renewed in May 2020ā¦ no problems.
I recently received my renewed debit cards from the Coop and Nationwide and Credit card from the Coop and both banks know Iām resident in France with no UK address at all.
Interesting that I am keeping one of my UK accounts basically so thereās somewhere for my small private pension to go (State one comes directly here) as nothing else was possible at the time I reached pension age. However, my partner has just been informed by the same people that his pension is about due and they have sent him a form so they can pay directly into a French bank account. I think Iāll see if they can change mineā¦
Isnāt it better to move it yourself when the exchange rate is good?
For a private pension what Tory suggests is generally good advice as they genrally use 3rd party companies as intermediaries (who take their share of it) .
State Pension on the other hand is best done direct to your French bank by HMG as the rate is often the closest youāll get to interbank.
But I think Tory meant waiting for a time when the exchange rate in general is favourable - not just getting the best rate available at one time.
That is certainly what Iāve been doing until now but itās quite a faff. I thought (naively) that the pension companies would do the same as HMRC but perhaps not!
Apparently M&S are closing all current accounts, bricks and mortar and online, by the end of summer. They will in future concentrate on credit cards and lending.
We wouldnāt ever close a UK bank account, so long as we can continue to keep them open that is. We never know what the future holds and whilst we are very happy in France there may come a time when whoever is left may want to go back to the UK. Trying to open a bank account in the UK if you have been living abroad for years is not easy, because you have no credit record.
I would suggest Angela you keep your UK bank open, even if you move your pension into a French account. You never know.
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We have a small amount in Lloyds in UKā¦not much, but it lies there untouched until we want to buy presents for the familyā¦ that sort of thing.
it has come in useful over the yearsā¦
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As do we (keep some pension paid in sterling in a UK account) @smw and one UK account which had a legacy monthly DD has now finished. I was tempted to close the (now defunct) account but advice from @SuePJ about holding on to it prevents me from doing so - not that either of us would ever consider going back to the UK to live. A bird in the hand, so to speak.