Arrival and Money

In Early 2008, after nearly three years after the decision, we arrived. UK House sold and possessions in transit somewhere on the high seas. We had decided on Adelaide as the place to live as we both liked the area, climate and people. We'd got a rented house organised and quickly settled in. We had transferred just enough money to get us going. The intention was to leave our savings (about £150,000. £100k saved and £50K equity from our house sale) in the UK and build a new life from scratch. The savings would be the basis for our retirement as well as the primary asset for the Visa and my earnings would allow us to steadily build a life here.

As soon as we had our permanent address (if just rented!) I contacted the UK banks our money was with to change our address. To our astonishment they all replied stating that we had to close our accounts immediately as they did not allow account holders to not have UK mainland addresses! I then spent over seven weeks trying to find a UK Mainland bank who would accept our business (I baulked at the thought of putting all our money in one bank, but couldn’t even find one!). Eventually the banks we were with lost patience with us and forcibly closed our accounts, sending our balances in sterling cheques through the post (this angered me a little as I couldn’t think of anything riskier, bar sending cash!). I had considered being a little dishonest and using my Parents address, but being a law abiding citizen to a fault, decided against it.