Converting hugh amount dollars to pounds?

Hi all,need some advise.

My plan is to buy a vacation home in the UK by the end of spring.Have not as yet decided on the area of the UK to settle in, but would like to be ready to make a decision when the right property is found.To date have learn only two ways of transfering money.Exchange companies which charge high conversion rates or bank wires.

What is the least expensive way to convert dollars to pounds and wire the funds into a UK bank account? Have any of you considered opening an account with a international bank such as Barclay which is located in both UK and America?Would a international bank allow me to avoid conversion fees? Because of the sketchy banking conditions at the moment I'm thinking of putting the money in more than one international bank so that way the deposit is protected by the government.

I think the amount deposit protected by the government is 250k in America. Is it the same amount in the UK? Btw,my total transfer is in the high seven figure range.

All advise is welcome and appreciated

Thank you

Are you a movie star?
I mean to say with that kind of money.

Seriously, I think you are on the right track putting it in Bank of America because they have an arrangement with Barclays and from what I have read on here they will not raid your money. Their charges are very reasonable. Best to double check though.

As for the amount insured, I don't know the answer.

The amount insured in the UK has recently gone up from £35K to £50K.

The FCA says 50k in pounds though not that long ago (before the crunch) it was only 35k pounds as we checked when doing job interviews. So the amount insured is nothing compared to the US, even under the old $100k limit. The US now insures up to $250k

If you don't need immediate access to the money, I might check what the insurance deal is on having a bank account and something like short term (3-6 month) CDs.I don't recall if the bank account and CD get insured separately to $250k or in total. If it's in total, you're going to want to spread money across multiple banks.

(and we checked because selling a house in Southern California that was bought many years ago will result in a tidy profit even in a slow market).

Thank you all

Btw I meant to type,high six figures as my transfer amount not high seven figures.Guess I would need to be a well paid celebrity to afford a vacation home worth that tidy sum.I'm a little surprise how low the insured money amount is in the UK.Have any of the UK banks failed to date? Thanks for the tip on Bank of America's connection with Barclay, will look into the possibilities.I'm curious to know if any of you think the UK property taxes are any worse than here in the States? also are property taxes varied from neighborhood to neighborhood like in the states or is there a blanket percentage amount for county or nation wide?

Thank You

Have any of the UK banks failed to date?

Northern Rock has been Nationalized which means no one lost any £££.  Several banks are getting capital injections from the UK govt.

I'm curious to know if any of you think the UK property taxes are any worse than here in the States? also are property taxes varied from neighborhood to neighborhood like in the states or is there a blanket percentage amount for county or nation wide?

This is called council tax over here and varies based on which "Council" you live in.  They are not a straight percentage but are based on the value of the property (values are in banded ranges, with Band A properties the cheapest).  Example link:

http://www.upmystreet.com/local/council-tax/l/se10.html

This link has other useful information about the different regions in the UK.

If you are UK resident for tax purposes you will owe UK tax on the currency gain, you may also have to account for tax generally on the underlying income & gains if held in a mixed fund.

There are both US and UK tax implications here, do take professional advice.

Hmmm.i wonder if there might be a way of networking with or meeting someone who wants to swap money the other way and doing a deal?

I think that route, if you are talking about large amounts of money, could have money laundering implications.

Vicky

I think that route, if you are talking about large amounts of money, could have money laundering implications.

Vicky

Hmm..hadn't considered that. wouldnt it be just two guys meeting in a bar and doing a mutually beneficial deal?

http://xe.com [nofollow] do pretty good rates, though it's a bit of a nuisance setting up an account. I used them to transfer money to the US from the UK. Really the fees aren't what you have to worry about - what you need to look at is the spread (the difference between what they'll buy for and what they'll sell for).

Chris

Hmm..hadn't considered that. wouldnt it be just two guys meeting in a bar and doing a mutually beneficial deal?

I guess that depends who the other guy is....


Vicky

Get accounts with a bank that offers both dollar accounts and sterling accounts. Open one of each.

When you are ready to transfer funds, wire transfer your dollars into the dollars account. Then do an internal bank transfer into the sterling account.

No worries that way if you have a trusted bank.

Tax advise would definitely be in order. Or a ton of research on your part.

Get accounts with a bank that offers both dollar accounts and sterling accounts. Open one of each.

When you are ready to transfer funds, wire transfer your dollars into the dollars account. Then do an internal bank transfer into the sterling account.

No worries that way if you have a trusted bank.

Tax advise would definitely be in order. Or a ton of research on your part.

The only thing to watch with this is the spread on the rates. People rarely look at the FX rates on these types of trades, so it's a wonderful opportunity to extract money from customers.

The easiest way to establish what they're creaming from the rate is just to ask how much you'd end up with if you transferred the money, then immediately transferred it back again.

Chris