Buying UK house -- transferring down-payment from US account. Any tips?

We are about to buy a house in the UK, and we are transferring the downpayment money (over $100,000) from our US account.

Are there any pitfalls I need to avoid as I look at the best ways of doing this? The exchange rate just got a bit more favourable, which is great, but in terms of moving the money, all advice is welcome.

Hi,

Look at specialist currency exchange specialists like HiFx and MoneyCorp etc. These specialists get better exchange rates compared to the high street banks and it's imperative you use such a specialist when large sums of money are being brought over.

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

+1 to the idea of a specialist money exchanger.  I've used HiFx in the past for sums as high as 75,000 GBP but they dropped me a couple of years ago since I don't have a UK address. (email said they they were dropping all customers with a USA address)

    We used Currency Solutions to transer a chunk of money after we were advised by our US bank that a specialist currecy trader would give us the best price. They will give you a confirmed agreed upon rate they'll transfer the USD over as, so you know what you're getting, which I found reassuring. We were worried about it, as we hadn't used them before, but they were very helpful and everything was completed without issue. Good Luck!

We have just used Forex, the rate was good and the money was in our UK account within 24 hours. You will need to send UK Forex 2 official documents to prove identity and address and, in our case, we needed to be in the US to make the wire transfer. This may not be true for all US bank account holders but we did not make arrangements with the bank before we left the US 5+ years ago. Happily a planned vacation meant that we incurred no extra expense or inconvenience.