Jobs & Money Detail
Money moving headaches
We have all heard what the financial experts have told us about the stresses and strains of moving our money from the UK to Oz
But what is it really like from a personal perspective and what are the unexpected things that can catch you out through no fault of your own?
Liz and Rob Noble had a flat in Blackheath, London only last year but have since sold up and moved everything to Mosman, on Sydney's North Shore, in a quest for a better standard of life. "We were living in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia as part of our work for the British Consulate out there but our home was the flat in England," says Liz. "Being in Malaysia, we took a number of holidays out to Australia and felt it would be a great place to put down roots. We loved the lifestyle, the climate and all the other things that everyone loves about the country," she adds.
But things didn't go as smoothly as they could have for the Nobles. In fact, upon deciding that they were going to move Liz recalls that they were looking forward to how far their money was going to take them. "When we first decided to move here and made the first steps of the process, the exchange rate would have given us close to three dollars to the pound," Liz recalls. "By the time we had sorted everything, got our visa and were ready to exchange the money, the rate had dropped to closer to AUS$2.3 to the pound. I haven't figured out what that cost us in real terms but it really makes me sick to think about it," she says. The process of moving was made all the more complicated by the fact the couple had to do two moves but they managed to scrape together some valuable extra cash by having a clear out in both countries. "In Kuala Lumpur we had a bit of a boot sale – we sold all of our electrical equipment and similar items to colleagues and Brits who were turning up in the country to work just as we were leaving," Liz continues. "In London we had a hectic few days unscrewing all of our Ikea furniture and sending it over to Australia. The rest of the stuff we sold off to junk shops and whoever would have it really. At one point we looked into keeping our flat in London but in the end with all the tax implications it proved to be too much of a hassle.
The same can be said about our pensions which we have left, frozen in the UK ready for when we turn 60. That way if the worst comes to the worst and we don't like it in Australia we can simply sell up and buy a new place in London. In the mean time, the pension will be taxed more by remaining in the UK but it should also grow more" Liz adds. Once they had arrived, the Nobles found that they had to face more financial headaches. Says Liz: "A lot of things went smoothly but there were little things that kept causing us problems. Luckily we had little problem setting up a bank account when we arrived because Rob already had his job in place and, because we had been in Malaysia, it had been very cheap to get all our documents certified. However, when it came to transferring our money into the account it proved to be a real problem."
"When I contacted my English bank from Australia and told them I wanted to transfer over all my funds they told me they couldn't do it as I had to sign for that amount of cash in person. For that I would have had to return to England, something I wasn't willing to do."
"In the end I had to use my Internet banking to transfer the cash over £10,000 at a time. Of course this flagged my account up as engaging in suspicious activity so I spent a great deal of time on the phone trying to sort it all out" says Liz. Another hidden cost that popped up almost as soon as they arrived was the cost of living whilst they attempted to sort out a permanent home.
"Accommodation on arrival proved expensive as we were looking to buy very quickly but the shortest rental period for a flat in the meantime was six months and they were mostly unfurnished. We ended up having to pay for a furnished holiday let which cost around AUS$600 a week. Luckily we found a house in the first ten days and managed to move in within a month but the whole process could have been a lot more expensive otherwise" says Liz. The couple found that there was a number of things that popped up that they hadn't budgeted for, ranging from the cost of placing their cat in quarantine to the unexpected amount of the stamp duty that needed to be paid on their new home.
Despite this, Liz and Rob have settled in well and now claim to be enjoying a cheaper cost of living over all. "Rob now catches the ferry to work, which is much cheaper than the UK trains, and we recently bought a car that was £4,000 cheaper than its equivalent in the UK. Also, so much of life's entertainment here is spent outdoors on beaches and so on which is free" says Liz.
The Nobles moved their money through Currencies Direct
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