Relocation Negotiation - What to ask for?

Hey Everyone,

I'm in the midst of negotiating my relocation and contract for a job in the UK and was wondering if anyone had any advice to provide me?

Here's my deal - I'm going to be accepting a job in London with the same company I've worked with for the last 5 years.  The job in London is not temporary, it's a long term job and we are moving to London on a permanent basis (until we get homesick) so this isn't a temporary gig where the company pays for anything.  They've laid out some relocation details (stated below) but we haven't finalized anything yet but will shortly.

Here is a list of things I'm going to ask for:
* Visa - I know that they are going get me a visa for work but I'm also going to ask them to help with the settlement visa for my new lovely wife but is that something that can easily be done by ourselves?  I've heard something about paying to expedite this process?
* Tax advice as well as UK & US filings while I'm there. 
* Real estate agent to find us a rental place. Any specifics I should be asking for here?
* Freight - the offer they gave me originally was to move 4,000lbs of my stuff over there. I don't know if I'm going to have that much as we are not going to take much big stuff outside of our bed.  They also offered to air freight some stuff over, like another 1,000lbs.
* Trips back to US? I'm wondering if anyone else in my situation able to get annual flights back to the US?

I think that is all we've covered thus far so I'd be very interested to hear opinions or anything else that you an offer up.

Thanks in advance!

Daniel

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your move .

* Visa - I know that they are going get me a visa for work but I'm also going to ask them to help with the settlement visa for my new lovely wife but is that something that can easily be done by ourselves?  I've heard something about paying to expedite this process?

The company should sort out the job sponsorship paperwork for you (as you can't get the visa without it) and give you your Tier 2 sponsorship certificate, but then it should be up to you to apply for your Tier 2 ICT visa online (http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/applyonline/) and also to apply for the dependent visa for your wife as well.

However, she will not be getting a settlement visa, because settlement visas are only for people who are married to UK citizens. She will need to apply for a Tier 2 ICT dependent visa, which will be tied to your visa (it will give her permission to work in the UK). You should apply for both visas together and the process is: get all your sponsorship paperwork and evidence for the visa application together, apply online for each visa, book and attend biometrics appointments for both of you (fingerprints and photo) and then mail all your visa documents together to the NY consulate for processing. The visas will cost £400 each, so £800 for both of you.

There is a priority processing service available on the Worldbridge website (https://www.visainfoservices.com/Pages/Welcome.aspx - United States -> Additional Services), which costs $150 per application for 48 hour processing (as long as the applications are straightforward, otherwise it could take a bit longer).

Your wife's visa will be tied to yours as a dependent.  If your company can handle it for you and pay for it, I would let them.

Help with your taxes is key.

By real estate agent, do you mean a relocation agent?  Real estate agents are called estate agents here and they are VERY neighborhood specific.  Something more beneficial, would be to ask for a couple of weeks to a month or more of temporary housing while you search for a neighborhood you like and a place to live.  As far as relocation agents, some people find them very helpful and some people find them annoying.

You say the job is long term but something else to consider is getting them to agree to repatriate you should things not work out or at the end of whatever
"long term" ends up being.

After a good clean out, we moved all our stuff over and they paid for it including a few months of storage in the US while we found a place to live.   I have no idea how much it weighed but 5000 pounds sounds at least sounds like a lot.

We had 1 round trip per year paid for by the company.

I suggest ask for whatever you want, well don't go crazy, and they can only say no.  I don't think anything in your list is unreasonable.

*ETA:  I defer to ks on the visa stuff since things have changed a lot since my husband and I went through the process.

As perm transfer, you are unlikely to get annual entitlements.  You will be much more successful if you try to keep it to the current year.  Things to consider (on top of visa, tax prep, shipping and the rental assistance):

The actual trip over
Temp housing for 4 -6 weeks
Are you having any losses from leaving (selling car, foreiting lease)
An allowance of money to account for you having to purchase new things - anywhere between £2k -£12k is normal

Thanks for all the advice and visa information.

We'll research the ICT dependent visa, thanks for the heads up ksand24. I think that my company will be helping out with both our visas but it's good to know that we should apply together.

Gretl44, what I meant by real estate agent was someone who will help us find an apartment to rent.  Are those still estate agents?  We have a decent idea of what neighborhood we want to live in and I'm hoping to get at least a month of temp housing in london while we look for a place.  We've been checking out websites for places to stay and most go through agencies, are there costs associated with securing a lease through an agency that I should consider having the company pay?

Thanks for the updates everyone!!

The estate agents we've used have never charged us anything like a finding fee. The only fees we've had to pay when securing the lease have been for us to be reference checked. Sometimes they do that in-house and sometimes they outsource it to a different company. Both times we've gone through letting agents the cost of the reference check has been about £150, though some flats we looked at stated those costs as being around £250 or £300. They should be up front about what the reference cost will be, either in the description of the flat or if you ask the estate agent. The one time we rented privately we didn't have to pay for a reference check. Also, the majority of leases we've seen have been for an initial 6 months. Every 6 months our letting agent bills us about £45 to re-issue the lease and coordinate it getting signed by us and our landlord.

We are looking into going the other way and negotiating with my dh's company.  One thing that they offered to do for us which I had not thought about but will be useful is they would act as guarantor for a lease on an apartment since by now I won't have any US credit still and my dh never has had any.  It might be worth an ask if you find you are struggling to get an apartment over here.  

As perm transfer, you are unlikely to get annual entitlements.  You will be much more successful if you try to keep it to the current year.  Things to consider (on top of visa, tax prep, shipping and the rental assistance):

The actual trip over
Temp housing for 4 -6 weeks
Are you having any losses from leaving (selling car, foreiting lease)
An allowance of money to account for you having to purchase new things - anywhere between £2k -£12k is normal

This! Oh how I wish I got 'home visits' included! But you don't know if you don't ask- so go for it!!
I pretty much got the stuff Sara listed, trip over, temp housing, assistance with shipping/rental assistance, tax help for the first year- if I had a house, they would have helped me sell it. After the first year though, I was just a normal employee, which suits me fine!  

What a fun adventure!! Keep in mind though, an Inter-company transfer visa though isn't permanent anymore- so you're gonna probably need to go traditional Tier 2! (until they decide us economic migrants aren't worth keeping in the country and kick us all out  )