Unable to open even one UK mainland bank account we finally took the decision to transfer our money to Australia. Having paper cheques in the house was nerve wracking as well as daft. So I opened an account with Ozforex, a Money exchange company, and started looking for the best/safest way to transfer our savings. It quickly became clear that I had to have a Sterling account to be able to transfer the money from. So the search started again.
After much searching and making enquiries it turned out that I’d have to open an ‘Offshore’ bank account. A couple of the UK banks had suggested this but I’d always considered offshore banking as a little shady and used by the wealthy to perhaps hide some of their moneys. But after a load more research (and money starting to run very low in Australia – all this had meant I’d not been able to go and find a decent work position here yet) I finally plumped on a bank called Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander on the Isle of Man.
Kaupthing Singer and Freidlander (or KSF as i'll now call it) had good credit ratings, didn’t appear to be caught up in the flow of lending to people who would never be able to repay and had a Parenteral Guarantee to cover all monies if the worst should happen. The Isle of Man had a 'Depositor Compensation Scheme' but the BCCI collapse (where folk who lost money in that were still receiving the odd £10 cheque years later!) showed that to be more sound-bite than a real safety net. No, the money would be there a very short time and the credit ratings and guarantee were good enough for me.
In mid September 2008, I opened a current account with KSF and, using the securest - and costliest! – postal method I could find, sent the cheques to KSF) . As soon as they cleared and the money was available I would exchange the money and bring it to my Australian account before spreading it around a bit here. I was a little nervous at having ALL our money in one place, but it would be for a very short time and we would be very unlucky indeed if the bank went bust as there were no signs whatsoever! Not quite so for its UK sister bank, but that was an entirely different business.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, October 1, 2004
Making our minds up to Emigrate
So we started to think about moving Australia or New Zealand. We both knew Australia (and Aussies) quite well but didn’t know New Zealand well at all. So in 2004 we decided to take a 8 week break to travel around New Zealand with a quick one week stop in Australia. Costly, but we looked at it as a bit of an investment.
Nearing the end of 2004 we had made our minds up and had decided to emigrate to Australia. The overcrowded feeling in the UK had finally done it for us. We went to an Agency and started the ball rolling. We knew it would be a hard slog with many ups and downs but we felt well equipped with the knowledge of where we were going and problems that might be involved.
Nearing the end of 2004 we had made our minds up and had decided to emigrate to Australia. The overcrowded feeling in the UK had finally done it for us. We went to an Agency and started the ball rolling. We knew it would be a hard slog with many ups and downs but we felt well equipped with the knowledge of where we were going and problems that might be involved.
Tuesday, January 1, 2002
Background
I'm Jack (not my real name, but so that some folks identity is protected.), a software developer/architect with nearly 30 years of hard graft behind me. Aged in my late 40's and with a quite young (wife in her late 30's and two great kids turning double-digit) family.
We lived had lived the last 20 years in the South of England, with me working away from home (returning weekends) a lot of the time. About five years after the kids were born, in 2002, my wife (Penny) and me started to talk about life in the UK and a possible change. Before we had met, both of us had independently backpacked round Asia and Australia and I had been brought up in Botswana where my parents had been teachers. In 2002, we really started to notice that both of us were working our socks off (Penny teaches Pilates) just to pay the mortgage - not that we had a very large mortgage - and bills with no real life. Added to that, our confidence in the UK economy was on the slide as more and more 'pre-approved' offers for loans (we're not 'borrowers'...) and other hard-sell-credit came through the letterbox; if everyone in the UK was getting these then the bubble would eventually burst.
We lived had lived the last 20 years in the South of England, with me working away from home (returning weekends) a lot of the time. About five years after the kids were born, in 2002, my wife (Penny) and me started to talk about life in the UK and a possible change. Before we had met, both of us had independently backpacked round Asia and Australia and I had been brought up in Botswana where my parents had been teachers. In 2002, we really started to notice that both of us were working our socks off (Penny teaches Pilates) just to pay the mortgage - not that we had a very large mortgage - and bills with no real life. Added to that, our confidence in the UK economy was on the slide as more and more 'pre-approved' offers for loans (we're not 'borrowers'...) and other hard-sell-credit came through the letterbox; if everyone in the UK was getting these then the bubble would eventually burst.
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