Hi all

Has anyone had any experience of transferring a large amount of money (several hundred thousand I guess) from Spain to the U.K. post brexit?

My MiL is selling her holiday apartment and will need to transfer the cash back but it isn’t clear (I’ve done some Googling but not found the answer) if this come with hurdles and or a cost and/or if there are any deadlines to meet post brexit.

Ta
Woody

I believe there’s a Nigerian Prince with expertise in this field, he used to email me regularly

Buy a load of coke with it, import it into the UK, keep half for yourself and sell the other half, spending the proceeds on hookers

I can put you in touch with a friend who is a private money FX guy at Moneycorp… you will get a better rate than anywhere else..this is exactly what he does for people on a daily basis

Transferwise (now just Wise) have been good in my experience of sending several k gbp to France & Australia

Can you not have it transferred into a UK bank with Spanish branches ?

Not sure why this a complicated thing.

Thanks for the advice so far. I am drawn to binners approach but it may not fly with the Mrs 😀

I guess foreign exchange rates are one risk but I was also wondering whether post brexit there is some kind of levy or tax on money transfers

Woody

Can you not have it transferred into a UK bank with Spanish branches ?

Not sure why this a complicated thing.

It’s not complicated at all. It’s just that banks will take a profit on the exchange rate, a small slice of €lots will still equate to £sizeable

Maybe buy bitcoins with the euros, send them to whoever’s and then they sell for sterling, something like a quarter of a percentage point commission on that amount.
It is not without risk however, they do seem to fluctuate a bit

 I was also wondering whether post brexit there is some kind of levy or tax on money transfers

No. Just the same bank charges there always were for non-sterling stuff

Transferwise (Wise).  Do a test transfer yourself to make sure you have everything set up correctly but I use it for Belgium for transferring 10s of k’s to folks who are doing some work so I’m sure it works for 100s as well.   For fun try transferring 1k by bank and 1k by transferwise and see what the difference is.  It’s significant

I use currencyfair, you get the wholesale spot rate plus or minus c0.5c on buying/selling. Costs 3 euros or 2.5 GBP to transfer back to UK.

No restrictions on movements post brexit but if you lump 200k in your UK account I suspect you will get some attention so get some sale documentation.

For comparison the rate now is 1.157e to 1gbp for instant transfers, next bid is 1.155. Wholesale rate 1.153. So it’s a .4c margin.

Woody,

Ask your MIL to check it out with her Spanish bank (sender?) And her UK bank (receiver?)

Charges will be down to her banks. But she isn’t doing anything outlandish. If she can provide paperwork, Spanish solicitor to UK, it should be fine. If her bank or solicitor start being funny… Change fiduciary!

Thanks all

Very good advice

Could you do this with crypto?

Just buy a load of bitcoin or something more stable like tether in coinbase from the spanish account, then cash back out into a UK account.

I’m not suggesting this is a good idea btw, but just wondering if it’s possible?

If she doesn’t actually need the money right away, the interest rates in Spain tend to be quite high compared to ours. Average over 3% last time I checked.

As poolman says, if you do a direct transfer Spain to UK then you will end up getting a terrible exchange rate when it gets back to the UK. Just in the process of doing something similar for my (now deceased) FIL – we’d lose about £10k in the exchange rate alone (think of it like when you try and sell your euros back to the bank).  We will be going down the currency transfer route once we can.

Madame has HSBC Global View with accounts in the France and the UK but you can do it with any country you are illegible for accounts in both countries. You can then move money with the click of a mouse between your accounts. Not the cheapest way to do it but the one with the least to go wrong. It makes tax declarations easy.

@leffeboy, do not do that! Your bank’s Transaction Monitoring system will go mental!

I’d generate a SAR on that just out of principal!

@pandhandj

I’ve been wondering about those SAR things lately, I transfer 200-300 quid from my current account to a crypto exchange and then into a wallet 1-2 times a month. I then move it around and buy/sell in the wallet but at that point it is gone from anything traceable to me, not because I don’t want it to be, just because that’s how I do it. But essentially I’m making a load of my income disappear. I’m employed not self employed

Am I likely to get a knock on the door? Or do the amounts have to be way over that to trigger anything?

I use currencyfair, you get the wholesale spot rate plus or minus c0.5c on buying/selling

I use them too. It’s nominally peer to peer transfers but they mediate it and split and aggregate transfers in each direction so that they match, you never see any of that, just look at the rate on offer and press go. If the rate is more important than doing it immediately, you can set up a transaction at an exchange rate you choose, and leave it available for a week, if the rates drop to that rate it goes through. If not you can renew it for next week – of course rates may go the other way.

If it’s Euros to a Euro account it should go via SEPA payment which is very cheap as there’s a clearing system that the U.K. are still in. Although Spain and Germany banks seem to be doing their own thing on this at the moment and adding in extra (profiteering) charges because of Brexit.

If it’s Euros to a UK GBP bank account then I’d speak to the Spanish bank about sending GBP instead of Eur. They should let you book a rate for the transfer that’s preferential over their basic spot rate. It won’t go via Sepa then – it’ll go via cross border payment. I’d imagine it’s a manual one so they’ll charge around 30-40 EUR. But this will be more than offset by the improved exchange rate.

Yea, back in the day you could just send an international money order. That would go bank to bank, like a CHAPS payment in the UK. We used Barclays international banking in Cardiff and had a euro’s account to send payments from UK to Spain. Easiest way is open a Euro’s account (in UK or Spain) and get the solicitors to pay into that, then change it later.

You do get a better rate over £100k I think. Definately don’t use solicitors or escrow accounts as they will shaft you royally.

I wouldn’t touch crypto, you’ll set off so many red flags with that value, you’ll end up having to prove its not from illegal gains etc.

@chrishc777

No, you wont get a knock (knock, knock) on the door. If you are employed, the chances are the only credits to your account is your salary, yes? So your bank knows where your funds come from. If they are happy it isn’t layering on the way in, then its unlikely (but possible) to be layering on the way out. Why you do it is no-ones business but yours, its not illegal to change monies to crypto – yet, but @footflaps is correct, it may well be seen as a red flag – drugs, terrorism, people trafficking, etc, why do you need to do it? that’s not me asking by the way, that’s what your bank will be thinking…

the main reason banks and govt’s dont like crypto, is because they cant tax it or profit from it, end of.

Interesting, thanks

That all makes sense, but I suppose when I eventually transfer the money back out of crypto into my account I can see that could look a bit suspect. Although I suppose I’d be able to show the deposits I made previously to show its not illegal. Or am I avoiding some kind of tax that way?

Maybe not as straightforward as I had anticipated

Revolute will let you open accounts in both CCYs and charge you not much. Pretty sure it’s free to pay in EUR, but you’ll need to check.

Haven’t looked into available rates lately but shouldn’t be too far off the best transfer wise can do.

@chrishc777, are you buying the crypto as an investment? or changing monies into crypto to hide subsequent purchases? Either way, the volumes and values you have mentioned would not be enough to warrant a second look from any branch of law enforcement in the UK. Unless of course, you are part of a money laundering ring and you are one of many, many, mules, layering funds for Mr. Big! 🙂

Investing I suppose is the technical term yes, I doubt I will see much return on it as I’m not really putting much time into figuring it all out and I’m keeping most of it on safe bets and only risking small amounts

Mr Big has not yet approached me!

Sorry for the thread hijack OP. And thanks for the info pandhandj, I am starting to get why banks don’t like it now!

I’ve found Revolut very good for amounts under €10K. Rate is very close to market and no fees. Not sure what extra costs there are for over €100K but definitely worth a look.