Keeping UK bank accounts?

[Jon-and-Lou]

Hi,

Well, my grand plan was to keep my Alliance and Leicester in the UK open, with some funds to pay direct debits (life insurance policy). and for relatives to pay into come birthday/xmas time.

So, being good, I change my address to here in NZ .. wait, wait ... and then yesterday got a letter telling me they were closing my account as wasn't allowed it if not resident in the UK :-(

Hubby, whom banks with HSBC has had no problems ....

[clairelouise]

I am with Lloyds TSB and they knew I emmigrated. I kept the bank account open, pretty much for the same reasons as you (and also for my play.com bargains!! )

I offered them my mums address for correspondence and they seemed fine with that. Sorry to hear about the Allience and Leicester! What a pain!!

[IanR]

Hi,


Hubby, whom banks with HSBC has had no problems ....

HSBC's stockbroking arm threatened to close my account when I changed my address to NZ - I changed it back to my old UK address and they allowed it to continue. However I have to prove to them by June that I do have a permanent UK address. It's all about money laundering apparently and insisted on by American authorities not British .

[marcia]

We kept our lloyds TSb cheque account open, used my parents address and aslo my father as a signatory in case we needed to send any cheques etc - people give dad money for birthdays and xmas etc, and it goes into that account - when mum and dad came for three months, they only brought a small amount of money, we kept track of what they had spent (i was giving them dollars and paying for stuff on my cards for them) they then paid the equivalent amount into the uk account once they got back - we still have a life insurance policy being paid by direct debit out of the account so we need to keep funds in it - (we have looked at trying to get one here - but nothing we have looked at so far gives us the same cover for the money.)

So i would suggest if you are keeping a uk account open, try and have a family member or close friend have the statements sent to them - if you have online banking anyway you can still look yourself and make any payemnts directly.

[Georgebulldog]

HSBC seem to fine, kept ours open & just recieved my new Visa card with them & all the junk mail aswell.

[Mickstim]

We have a Lloyds TSB account using our NZ address, and still use UK credit cards with the bank totally aware we live in NZ and sending mail to use here. No problems with them at all.

Bx

[gil]

Hi,

Well, my grand plan was to keep my Alliance and Leicester in the UK open, with some funds to pay direct debits (life insurance policy). and for relatives to pay into come birthday/xmas time.

So, being good, I change my address to here in NZ .. wait, wait ... and then yesterday got a letter telling me they were closing my account as wasn't allowed it if not resident in the UK :-(

Hubby, whom banks with HSBC has had no problems ....

Ditto - Alliance and Leicester HSBC
Gil

[smitjo]

We have managed to keep our alliance and leicester account open - just continue to use our folks address back in the UK. So far no problems!

[TonnyTessa]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with keeping the bank account going if you have no relatives that you can use the address of? I wouldn't want my friends saddled with the resposibility to be honest, and all the rellies live in the Netherlands (using them for my Dutch bank account of course!).

[CJ22]

I just haven't told my bank - while I have the mail redirect in places, it doesn't really matter too much.