Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Immigration’ Category

Not so long ago there were all kinds of restrictions on transferring money abroad due to currency controls that lots of countries had in place. They’re almost all gone now and it has become more of a natural thing for “ordinary people” to need to transfer money abroad.

Most of the time it’s due to holidays, of course, but an increasing number of us are becoming small scale international jet setters with homes in more than one country and with both of those come a need to transfer money abroad.

Holidays usually involve a different category of currency conversion in that you are on the spot when you need the money, the amounts involved are smaller and you probably don’t have a local bank account. However, whilst the amounts may be smaller individually, added up over the years they will come to quite a hefty sum. Also, many of those who holiday in the same country each year may be considering the purchase of a property there and so have that local account too.

Most people ignore the costs of all those international transactions to their detriment. One friend of mine found that almost 10% of his entire salary was going in such bank charges simply because he was living abroad and using his “home” account in exactly the same way that he always had ie lifting small amounts frequently.

Saving money on those transactions is usually fairly easy. If you don’t want to change your bank, check out exactly how they charge for use of credit, debit and cash cards abroad. You will usually find that debit and cash cards are more economic ways of getting cash than credit cards are in that you won’t be paying interest on the money. However, that’s not to say that they are cheap. Typically a withdrawal of £100 in the local currency will cost you £4 to £5 but note that this includes a fixed transaction charge so withdrawing £20 will cost you around £2 ie 10% whereas £200 would be about £7 ie 3.5%. You can eliminate these charges altogether if you use the UKs Nationwide Flexaccount as it has neither transaction fees nor foreign exchange charges.

It’s slightly better if you buy things, usually. Using a typical Mastercard or Visa card will only incur the foreign exchange charge ie buying £100 of goods will cost you £2.75 and that £20 item would be 70p. Therefore you should buy things with the card directly rather than lifting the cash to pay for them.

What about larger amounts ie if you’re living abroad or have a holiday home abroad? Well, if you follow our advice and get the Nationwide Flexaccount you can lift £500 per day which means that it’s quite viable to use that card in conjunction with a local bank account to transfer amounts equivalent to several thousand pounds. You certainly couldn’t buy a house in that way but it’s enough to fund the payments for electicity bills and the like.

If you are talking thousands, then the usual way is to ask your bank to do a SWIFT transfer. This will cost around £25 plus there’s a currency exchange charge (which isn’t widely available). However, that too can be eliminated in some circumstances. For example, if you bank with HSBC then you can do free transfers to an HSBC account elsewhere in the world but the HSBC Premier account that you need to avail of this costs £20/month (unless you have £50,000 or more on deposit with them) so it’s not as useful as it first appears. However, if you are buying in Spain, the Halifax run to a free account which offers free transfers from Halifax UK accounts to Halifax Spain ones. What’s less obvious is that this route gives you a pretty much free way from pounds sterling to euros anywhere in Europe as banks are required to transfer euros at the same level of charges in other European countries as they do domestically ie to get euros in an account in France, you could transfer from the Halifax UK to Halifax Spain and from there to a French bank.

Other options include the use of the specialised money transfer services such as HiFX (there are lots of similar services around.

When we had the first little guy I was the one working as Wendy was at home looking after him but by the time we had the second little guy we were both working from home.

Since Wendy’s from Sydney and I’m from Belfast, that has had an unexpected effect on the accents of the two. James, the oldest, speaks with a mainly Sydney accent but with a Belfast sprinkled in amongst it whilst John speaks largely with a Belfast accent but with Sydney words in it.

Of course, that’s why they refer to your first language as your mother tongue in that, in times gone by, it was always the mother that was around the children the most. That’s obviously still the situation for most people these days but there are a growing number of families where it’s the mother working and the father at home or even both at home.

Obviously it’s not as noticeable when both parents are from the same place but when they’re not it can produce an interesting mix of accents in the speech of the children.

If you’re considering relocating and you have a choice of time in which to do it then chances are that you’ll follow the crowds and do your searching between Spring and Fall.

Ironically, that’s probably the worst time of year to search for a new home. Aside from ending up following crowds of people around the homes for sale and thereby complicating the scheduling of your visits.

However, the worst aspect of timing your visits for the Spring to Summer is that the weather is totally different. That place that looked really cute at the bottom of the valley might have howling winds right through the Winter. The lovely way that the sun falls upon the garden of your ideal choice might not happen at all in the Winter: indeed, if you’re unlucky enough, you might find that the sun doesn’t reach the property at all during the Winter.

So, if you want to find the perfect property you need to either visit it in the Summer AND in the Winter or just in the Winter. If the house market is moving along it’s usually not possible to visit a particular property in both seasons of course so in reality, most of the time, you’re limited to seeing it in the Winter or at least late Autumn/early Spring if your chosen area has a Winter that is just a little too serious to face house hunting then.

A long time ago, I was brave enough to ask the question which many are afraid to ask: do you need to speak French if you want to live in France?

It’s not such a simple question to answer as it might appear. For one thing, there are many expat enclaves throughout France where, by and large, English is the only language used. Within these enclaves, the shopkeepers and so on can be expected to speak English and indeed even if you speak French to them, they’ll reply in English. So, yes, you could live in France without speaking French.

However, in many other areas (most of France in fact) you couldn’t do that. The locals either cannot or will not speak English. After all, why should they be expected to? It is France after all. Except that everywhere else in the world the locals DO speak English: that’s why people expect to be able to move to France without speaking French.

Funnily enough, just a few miles south in Spain the locals won’t speak Spanish and actually insist on using English. Well, to be fair that’s Catalonia and few people outside it ever have the opportunity to learn Catalán which tends to dictate the use of English with foreigners.

Buying a house isn’t just your ordinary purchase, it’s about buying a place that will become your home.

People often overlook that in the rush to buy a place to live and end up with a house that’s not really suitable for their needs or one which is in an area that doesn’t have the amenities that they need. For example, if you have kids, it’s important to consider the schools in your chosen area and think about how your children will get to the school that they’d be going to.

For that matter, will the school even accept them? You can be very unlucky if your house is at the wrong side of the road in some areas as that can mean a different school district. As regular readers will know, we didn’t follow our own advice here and instead of being able to go to the school 1 mile away as we had assumed, junior has to go to a school over 20 miles in the other direction which is down to our house being at the wrong side of the road!

These complications make real estate one of the most complicated purchases that you’ll make and therefore it’s best to do as much research on an area as you can before you start narrowing it down to looking at specific properties.

If you’re looking at specific areas eg Atlanta Homes for Sale or Charleston Real Estate, think carefully about the search parameters that you are using. Don’t think that you can squeeze into a place with fewer bedrooms than you’d planned because you probably can’t and likewise think about adding another bathroom to your requirements if your children are approaching their teens.

Likewise, watch how you specify the area. Zipcodes are great things to narrow the search but they can change when you cross the street so try those for neighbouring areas too. Sometimes you can find fantastic bargains that way eg move outside the Beverley Hills zipcodes (90210, 90211 and 90212) and you’ll find that the prices drop dramatically whilst the quality of area remains high.