Leaving UK Tip 1 Plan Early
Published / Last Updated on 25/08/2023
When thinking about leaving the UK and moving overseas to work or retire, you need to plan early. You may have sorted out your car, sold or renting your home, getting visas and organised other domestic matters but so may people forget to plan their finances early.
Plan 6-12 months before you leave.
- HMRC: completing a P85 to notify HMRC that you are leaving the UK has around a 16-week backlog to sort out your tax affairs. Plan early.
- Pensions in payment – tax treatment of UK government (civil service, military etc) and UK state pensions are taxable in UK when living overseas but other pensions may be non-taxable in UK and taxable where you are going to live depending upon the tax treaty. Plan early.
- State pension forecast using a BR19 from or online via your Personal Tax Account if you have one. It can be difficult to set one up if you have an overseas postcode. Plan early.
- Self assessment – have you registered for self assessment, do you have any taxable income or assets in UK? It may pay dividends to plan early to minimise taxes in UK or overseas. Plan early.
- Wills. Have you made a UK Will? Do you need an overseas Will? Will they contradict each other? The UK signed up to the Hague convention on Wills in the 1960s. Many countries have also but some, large and popular British expat destinations have not. If the UK and the country that you live in has signed the Hague convention, if you need to use your UK pension overseas then it will need a UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office official ‘apostilles seal’ affixing to it to be acceptable in a foreign court. If you plan to move to a non-Hague convention country, you will need to do two Wills. Plan early.
- Mortgages and property – Have you sorted a ‘consent to let’ from your existing mortgage lender? Do you know it may be quite difficult to remortgage your property to a buy to let (or an existing buy to let) to an expat buy to let when you live overseas? Plan early.
Brexit Adds More Issues
Some countries may even ask you to unravel investments or pensions that you set up legally when you were living in the UK but when you are resident in your new country, your pensions or investments do not comply with local laws or even, in the case of France, they suggest that any investment or pension that you set up after the end of the Brexit Transition Period on 31/12/2020 will need to be unravelled.
See: France UK From 2021
You need to do your financial planning early when thinking about leaving the UK.
Our Fees for Leaving UK Financial Advice: Leaving UK
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