[hels1977]

Hello,

Right my brain has now now moved onto money matters and so I shall try and clarify what I think I would like to know. I guess all the information is here but I'm being utterly rubbish and working it all out (sorry).

Question 1! (It's like being back at school) - Both myself and my partner are thinking of keeping our houses in the UK initially and renting them out providing we can build up enough of a fund before we go to relocate and rent for a bit before buying in NZ. It is likely that we will hand both properties over to an agent to manage 100% on our behalfs. Sounds good in theory and I'll know they will take a hefty cut but it's less stress. For this reason we will both want to keep a UK account for managing them. Now given that I already bank for FD and they are going to be a pain and start charging I don't know what to do. I liked them when I was abroad before but now I'm not sure. Any recommendations for a UK that are happy for you to be an NZ resident and let you keep a "floater" bank account in the UK all online and non snail mail?

Question 2! Has anyone in the UK actually done this with their houses? And if so how did it work out for you? Was it less stress or was it nice knowing you had the security and the rent was covering the mortage?

Question 3! Recommend me a NZ Bank! This has been asked before but I'd like to ask an extra question. I'm erring towards ABS, I've checked their site and they seemed geared up for non-natives. They say we must bring a passport (fair enough) but what else as we may well rent a property initially and so won't have the statements etc. Birth certificate?

Question 4! Taxes? Declarations? Huh? :confused: Sorry really dense on this one and possibly quite clueless. If we both want to work in the NZ and keep the arragement outlined, how does tax work, what do we need to declare, answers on a postcard please! Sorry that was a terrible question, I just don't know what to ask. All the posts that have tax in the title are scaring me, I was kinda hoping we wouldn't have to worry about that and it's dealt with through PAYE as in the UK but I guess I'm just uninformed. Absolutely any help guidance would be appreciated.

Erm I'm done! Going back to searching for these answers now, any links would be appreciated. Sorry to repeat material. :uhoh

Thanks
Helen

[Caroline and Dave]

Hi Helen,
I can't answer all your questions but here goes.
We own several properties in uk and rent them all out. We will be moving to Albany ,Auckland in March after a two week tour of NZ.
We will continue renting the properties out in UK and over the next two years we will sell them off. Caroline has to be out of the country to start selling property to avoid Capital gains tax. We use alliance and leicester and will carry on doing all transfers on line. Our son will still be in England for another year and will handle the running of the property.We will only pay tax on the rental income of our property in the uk because of an exemption www.ird.govt.nz/yoursituation-nonres/move-nz/temp-tax-empt-foreign-inc.html I am sure mandy (Trigirl) will be able to advise you on taxes. She is very good on these matters
If you would like to know more please pm us

Kindest regards

Dave and Caroline

[hels1977]

Thank you - that's very very helpful. I have no idea on any of this, bit of a crash course in taxes, exemptions and law. Much appreciated :)

[KerryS]

I've been renting my house in London for the last 5 years. No problems whatsoever with it. I use an agent, as I don't have anyone reliable to be on call for tenants and fix things when they go wrong (the central heating broke this winter, for example). I have insurance that covers big things like this going wrong, so I don't have to worry about it. I have a UK bank account with Woolwich, because I never bothered to change it when I left. The rental goes into the account the mortgage payment and insurances come out. Simple and I can call them whenever I want - their call centre people are pretty friendly and helpful. I have online banking so I can check my account whenever I need to, and still have a bank card. I never actually planned to emigrate, as I was only planning on being away for a year travelling, so I didn't tell them I was leaving. They have been fine conducting my account from abroad - although being an online account I guess it doesn't make too much difference to them?

My rent covers the mortgage - I've owned the house since I left Uni, and being in London it has increased in rental value tremendously, whilst my mortgage payments are still reasonably small.

I bank with Westpac here. They are fantastic - great customer service and I've never had any problems with them. (I won't bank with ASB, as I have OCD about the colour yellow - yes, I know I'm a freak!)

Taxes I have no idea really. I look at stuff, then give them to my accountant to sort out... I could save money and do it but really can't be bothered with the stress, time and faff - it's only a couple of hundred bucks to pay someone to do it.

[sarahw]

Q 3. ASB bank is excellent - our friends who have lived here for 20 years have been through all the banks & they said that ASB is the only one where you feel like you're in their front-room rather than in a bank when you go in!

They were right - we've had superb service from them - all you need is your passport to get a bank a/c - it was v. straightforward - not like the million bits of paper you need in the UK!

An example of how easy they are to deal with is that we wanted to add a new car for me onto our mortgage but on a flexible deal different from our actual main mortgage - I phoned our mortgage lender at the bank & left him a quick message - he phoned me back 10 mins later & told me (whilst I was buying veggies in Pak n' Save!) that he approved it no worries - had a 10 minute chat catching up on what was going on in our lives & he told me that the money would be in our a/c by lunch-time (this was 10am when he phoned!!) good as his word the money was there. I'd say excellent service!!!

Just check re. renting out your properties what the time period is before you're due for capital gains tax... If you're looking to sell the properties in the future you may not want to pay that!!

[Jax]

For this reason we will both want to keep a UK account for managing them. Now given that I already bank for FD and they are going to be a pain and start charging I don't know what to do.
Helen

I think as long as you have one other product with them (in addition to your current account) they won't charge eg savings acct, credt card etc

http://www.firstdirect.com/faqs/index.shtml

[hels1977]

I've been renting my house in London for the last 5 years. No problems whatsoever with it. I use an agent, as I don't have anyone reliable to be on call for tenants and fix things when they go wrong (the central heating broke this winter, for example). I have insurance that covers big things like this going wrong, so I don't have to worry about it. I have a UK bank account with Woolwich, because I never bothered to change it when I left. The rental goes into the account the mortgage payment and insurances come out. Simple and I can call them whenever I want - their call centre people are pretty friendly and helpful. I have online banking so I can check my account whenever I need to, and still have a bank card. I never actually planned to emigrate, as I was only planning on being away for a year travelling, so I didn't tell them I was leaving. They have been fine conducting my account from abroad - although being an online account I guess it doesn't make too much difference to them?

My rent covers the mortgage - I've owned the house since I left Uni, and being in London it has increased in rental value tremendously, whilst my mortgage payments are still reasonably small.

I bank with Westpac here. They are fantastic - great customer service and I've never had any problems with them. (I won't bank with ASB, as I have OCD about the colour yellow - yes, I know I'm a freak!)

Taxes I have no idea really. I look at stuff, then give them to my accountant to sort out... I could save money and do it but really can't be bothered with the stress, time and faff - it's only a couple of hundred bucks to pay someone to do it.

Ah brilliant, that's exactly what we'd like to do, although I doubt we'll get the same house increase since both the houses are in South Yorkshire not London but it makes sense to keep property as long as the housing market keeps climbing. Good point on the insurance, the last thing I want is a 2K bill for central heating, my boiler is old.... I'll check out the online woolwich acounts as your setup fits the bill perfectly if I can find an agent that won't rip me off - so not blundells then :no. Thanks for the reply :nice1

[hels1977]

Q 3. ASB bank is excellent - our friends who have lived here for 20 years have been through all the banks & they said that ASB is the only one where you feel like you're in their front-room rather than in a bank when you go in!

They were right - we've had superb service from them - all you need is your passport to get a bank a/c - it was v. straightforward - not like the million bits of paper you need in the UK!

An example of how easy they are to deal with is that we wanted to add a new car for me onto our mortgage but on a flexible deal different from our actual main mortgage - I phoned our mortgage lender at the bank & left him a quick message - he phoned me back 10 mins later & told me (whilst I was buying veggies in Pak n' Save!) that he approved it no worries - had a 10 minute chat catching up on what was going on in our lives & he told me that the money would be in our a/c by lunch-time (this was 10am when he phoned!!) good as his word the money was there. I'd say excellent service!!!

Just check re. renting out your properties what the time period is before you're due for capital gains tax... If you're looking to sell the properties in the future you may not want to pay that!!

Great, I've heard good things about ABS so it's nice to hear those are backed up by "real" people. I'll look for the yellow one :) The million bits of paper was what I was dreading :roll. So just passport, well that's easy enough, reminds me, need a new one of them before we kick this off. I need it for December though so it will just have to go on the list as I think it expires in about a year.

Hmm capital gains tax... sounds expensive. Another forummer pointed out a tax point that we can probably take advantage of for the first 4 years of renting our houses to get it tax free so I don't want to get stung on some other tax point that I'm not clued up about. I shall be off to Google then :p Thanks for the reply :nice1

[hels1977]

I think as long as you have one other product with them (in addition to your current account) they won't charge eg savings acct, credt card etc

http://www.firstdirect.com/faqs/index.shtml

Yes I am exempt becuase I have over the amount going in a month but the principle of it still burns a little!! The finance departement were not amused when I asked if I could be paid in cash because I wanted to proove a point to my bank.

the annoying thing is they have been utterly brilliant up to this point so perhaps I should just stop complaining and pay up for the excellent customer service and accept that a current account is a product and not a freebie. :roll

[Miggy]

Top 3 banks in NZ statistically - Westpac, BNZ, ASB

All are very good - we bank with BNZ and our PB has been great.

[hels1977]

Cool thank you. Will do some ground work and then take it from there. :)