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Hi all, planning to move to Costa Teguise on non lucrative visa. Should I transfer all my savings to Spanish bank?
I ask for 2 reasons a) I have heard Spanish banks take money out of your account
b) we will be moving lock stock and barrel so as we do not have British address presume our British bank accounts will be closed when we move outside uk.
There are some British banks that will permit you to change your address to overseas as long as you´re an existing customer. We´ve done this with Lloyds and Nationwide. I believe HSBC also permit this. It would need to be a basic account though, not a savings or other ´fancy´ account! We also opened a Spanish bank account with Sabadell although there is a quarterly fee for this (the rules change from one year to another as at the moment we get most of the fee reimbursed). BBVA do an on-line account which I believe is free. Please note that the Spanish Santander bank is not part of Santander UK (lots of people get confused with this), Talk to your existing UK banks and see if they will permit you to keep an account open with a foreign address. (Do not use a friends UK address as this would be fraud).
As we´re not of pensionable age just yet, we have our private pensions paid into our UK bank and then convert to Euros via our Wise accounts when the rate is good. However, we have been told that when we are in receipt of our UK old age pension it may be best to have this paid straight into our Spanish bank in Euros - the UK Government get a very good exchange rate apparently. Always pay into your Spanish bank account in Euros otherwise they you will incur changes for the bank doing the currency exchange and this can be expensive.
Spanish banks do not take money from your account willy nilly as some scaremongers would have you believe, unless of course you owe the money in unpaid taxes/water/electricity bills, parking fines, etc... Once settled, get yourself a digital signature then you can check on-line if you owe anything at the Ayuntamiento or Traffico etc.. Also set up online accounts for your electricity and water. I´d also recommend using the services of your lawyer, accountant and/or paperwork specialist (there are several good professionals on the island) to help you get your digital signature and any other paperwork you need.
Hope everything runs smoothly for you, but my best piece of advice would be to prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised when everything goes to plan!!
Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2024 4:13pm
ginny23 wrote on Sun Jan 21, 2024 2:07pm:
There are some British banks that will permit you to change your address to overseas as long as you´re an existing customer. We´ve done this with Lloyds and Nationwide. I believe HSBC also permit this. It would need to be a basic account though, not a savings or ot...
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...her ´fancy´ account! We also opened a Spanish bank account with Sabadell although there is a quarterly fee for this (the rules change from one year to another as at the moment we get most of the fee reimbursed). BBVA do an on-line account which I believe is free. Please note that the Spanish Santander bank is not part of Santander UK (lots of people get confused with this), Talk to your existing UK banks and see if they will permit you to keep an account open with a foreign address. (Do not use a friends UK address as this would be fraud).
As we´re not of pensionable age just yet, we have our private pensions paid into our UK bank and then convert to Euros via our Wise accounts when the rate is good. However, we have been told that when we are in receipt of our UK old age pension it may be best to have this paid straight into our Spanish bank in Euros - the UK Government get a very good exchange rate apparently. Always pay into your Spanish bank account in Euros otherwise they you will incur changes for the bank doing the currency exchange and this can be expensive.
Spanish banks do not take money from your account willy nilly as some scaremongers would have you believe, unless of course you owe the money in unpaid taxes/water/electricity bills, parking fines, etc... Once settled, get yourself a digital signature then you can check on-line if you owe anything at the Ayuntamiento or Traffico etc.. Also set up online accounts for your electricity and water. I´d also recommend using the services of your lawyer, accountant and/or paperwork specialist (there are several good professionals on the island) to help you get your digital signature and any other paperwork you need.
Hope everything runs smoothly for you, but my best piece of advice would be to prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised when everything goes to plan!!
Thanks for taking the time for this very informative response. Best wishes Jim
Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2024 7:37pm
Hi we moved to Puerto del Carmen in December we went with caixabank on the strip they are a safe bank we went to other ones they didn't want to know because some of them are business related we were given bank cards you can use them anywhere try them good luck in your new home and all the happiness together
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