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Shutting Stuff Down; when emigrating
Topic Started: Jun 13 2007, 05:49 AM (409 Views)
cathnpaul
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Moderator - Croc. the yellow ribbon is for Maddy.x
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I would like to share the last couple of weeks experience with you all. We fly out in 11days and started to ring around to get stuff shut down last week. We have hit barrier after barrier and am therefore thought sharing this with you all may make your lives a little easier. There are easy solutions I wish we had followed.

Council Tax - wanted a forwarding address I couldnt/cant give them. They have stated that we must give them a permanent address before they can give us any monies back, which they have said they will pay into the bank account we shut down last month??? I offered them my new account details for the credit to be paid into for them to advise issuing a cheque!! I said we will be in Australia and have a 2month keepsake in place and wont be able to cash the cheque without a chunk of it being swallowed up. They stated - not their problem. No resolve.

Solution - Make sure that your council tax is only paid up to the leaving date by contacting them a full month before.

Sky - refusing to close the account down on June 22nd, but have said that it will finish on July 5th. We said but we are then paying for 2 weeks unnecessarily and wont be using the service. Thats unfortunate they have said!! again no resolve here.

Solution - Make sure cancel the account a full month before.

AOL - same as sky, but with a little bit more. I use my email address for international counselling reasons and my address book as approx >200 people in it including businesses, I therefore wanted to keep my email address open - but if we want to keep it open it will cost me £5.99per month. I have refused to do this and will take a couple of months to contact everyone. A big job for me as its all over my CV's too!!

Solution - Make sure you cancel the account a full month before and that you have a back up free email account with maybe hotmail/yahoo??

Car Insurance - (both of us) - basically they will not accept it over the phone that we are cancelling our car insurance and have to put the cease date in writing. Just another pain in the backside.

Solution - nothing could do about this.

Life Insurance - same as car
Buildings and contents - will not refund monies into any other account other than the one we closed down. Having to pay a full year for the sake of 2 days via a debit card and they will refund 363days worth back on my debit card on day 3????

Car Breakdown - dead easy, just cancelled it.

Amenities - easy as anything as expected.

Tax Office - we have filled in the form for us to claim this years tax back, but they cant send that too us either until we have an ozzy address and they will send us a cheque!!!! I give up with that one.

A loan - took a 3 month holiday break to give us a bit of breathing space. Easily done.
--------------------------------------------

Its been unnecessary stress we dont need. All the above on top of our house sale which is on track for completion 2days before we fly, good timing thankfully. Then moving in with sister for 2 nights.

Suitcases, make sure you have enough - we have found that we have had to buy another lot of cases and are now up to 7cases plus hand luggage.

---------------------------------------------

Todays calls are to Manchester Airport regarding hand luggage size as on the website it says a particular size, but on the singapore airlines info they sent me, the hand luggage size is twice the size. Therefore, which do we take notice of???? we shall wait and see.

The goodbyes are now coming up thick and fast. Today should be our first chill out day as we have packed and got everything in place now (fingers crossed).

anyway, just thought would share our experiences with you.
LATE JUNE 2007, IS THE START OF <span style='font-family:Arial'>A NEW LIFE DOWN UNDER</span>
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*Paul*
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Croc
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Thanks for that Cath.

Sometimes I find it incredible that information like this, and you see stuff like it in one way or another or various forums, is shared by someone who learned the hard way (didn't get a full refund for a silly reason, for example). Many would go into their shells and not bother to tell. This is a classic example of a quality posting - something so obvious that we all have to do it but no one ever hi-lights the pit falls of doing it late, or in the wrong order.

Top of the class! :D

Paul.
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jo90
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Really useful info mate!

Thanks again for sharing it!

Jo x :P
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airconkid
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All the 'things' you have to shut/close down where money is going to be coming back to you, just leave a UK account open. We have a couple of K coming back to us from various tax, insurance's etc and we told them to put it in said account. No probs.............

Aircon ;)
Grab the cane toad by the legs and go for it, life is too short to wander "What if...." or "If only...."


Now LOVING "A New Life Down Under"
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cathnpaul
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airconkid
Jun 18 2007, 09:44 AM
All the 'things' you have to shut/close down where money is going to be coming back to you, just leave a UK account open. We have a couple of K coming back to us from various tax, insurance's etc and we told them to put it in said account. No probs.............

Aircon ;)

Its not been that easy. We have 3 main current accounts - Pauls, Mine and a Joint one.

The joint one is where all the bills came out of and therefore we cancelled all DD's and shut it down, so all refunds would go back into our own accounts -NOOOO not that straight forward at all. The insurance companies want to put it back into the joint account and wont accept our sole accounts. We have given over bothering.

Update on handluggage: we had a reply and they have said go off the airline handluggage size.
LATE JUNE 2007, IS THE START OF <span style='font-family:Arial'>A NEW LIFE DOWN UNDER</span>
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nanook4
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thanks cathnpaul

this is exactly the type of stuff that i am looking for at the moment.
I'm kinda getting a little freaky at the moment as I dont know what to start with :huh:
we havent sold the house yet, so everything depends on this. we have to activate the visas before 20.06.08 and dont know whether to book a one way or return ticket, coz we havent sold the house.
again I dont know how I will let work know a month before leaving, as if the house hasnt sold we will only be able to holiday in oz, and then come back to sell the house, but I' dont want to tempt fate and give work a date, finsih and then be without a job :blink: :blink:
oh god is this making any sense, I just read it back to myself and realise how complicated is sounds.

any advice, calming words of wisdom will be really really really appreciated. the OH is laid back and not as stressy as me, good bloody job :P
bec
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cathnpaul
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nanook4
Jan 20 2008, 04:46 PM
thanks cathnpaul

this is exactly the type of stuff that i am looking for at the moment.
I'm kinda getting a little freaky at the moment as I dont know what to start with :huh:
we havent sold the house yet, so everything depends on this. we have to activate the visas before 20.06.08 and dont know whether to book a one way or return ticket, coz we havent sold the house.
again I dont know how I will let work know a month before leaving, as if the house hasnt sold we will only be able to holiday in oz, and then come back to sell the house, but I' dont want to tempt fate and give work a date, finsih and then be without a job :blink: :blink:
oh god is this making any sense, I just read it back to myself and realise how complicated is sounds.

any advice, calming words of wisdom will be really really really appreciated. the OH is laid back and not as stressy as me, good bloody job :P
bec

Hey there,

Try not to stress about the house. I would buy a one-way ticket. You can sell a house in the UK from here no problem. Ours only settled after we had gone. We talked it through with our solicitor (in the UK) who said if it hadnt sold before we came out then he could fax the contracts through and then settle for us 'in our absence'. I couldnt believe how good it was hearing that. We sold the house a few weeks before we came out and it only settled 2weeks after we landed.

It depends on your savings I suppose, we had money to get us into a rental and get jobs too. So maybe worth weighing up the bank account really x x but the house side of things isnt a problem I promise x x
LATE JUNE 2007, IS THE START OF <span style='font-family:Arial'>A NEW LIFE DOWN UNDER</span>
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*Paul*
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Wise words.

But listen to this horror story that relates to what happened to my parents when they came out here.

Visas were granted and the house, after a few years of neglect, was attacked to put into some sort of order for sale purposes. Time passed and the house was slowly coming together - it was an old place built in the 1870s or 1890s, I can't quite remember, but old enough to need a few vital repairs.

Well time went on and the repairs were completed. But by then the housing market had started to decline. The house would not sell. The price was dropped. Still the house would not sell. The closing date for visa entry was fast approaching. The price was dropped. An offer made and accepted. With days left before their visa expired they left the country and a house sale in the hands of their solicitor....

What happened next is a bit of a blur. The contract was sent, signed and returned, that much I remember. It was posted to Australia. It should have been sent by airmail. It wasn't...

There were a few problems in eastern Europe. President Gorbachev was in some sort of trouble for a while and the money markets went into a spin. The rate my parents were expecting from the Nat West. Bank was amount X and with no sale contract in sight after a couple of weeks the rate it looked like they were going to get was in fact Y, where X is far greater than Y.

Phonecalls to the solicitor amounted to little - after all they'd posted the contract so it must have just gone missing. With the help of a solicitor this end the contract was faxed, witnessed signed and returned. Yes, I know, why not use this method in the first place? Anyway, my point is that the UK solicitors stuffed up. They didn't admit that they'd neglected to leave off a simple airmail sticker or pay the extra pence above the normal shipping postage rate. It was only when the contract turned up some two months later that it became clear what had happened. You can imagine the anger that day.

I'm not sure how much my parents lost due to the solicitor's negligence, but it ran into many thousands. Money they could well have done with, as it turns out. Sure, they opted to sue the pants of the solicitor but financially they had stretched themselves in Australia and after initial solicitor costs this end, to fire letters back and forth, the case just seemed to run out of steam. My parents would have to return to the UK to fight the case and air-flights in the very early '90s were a tad expensive.

Yes, by all means leave it with your solicitor. Just make sure they know what they're doing!

P.
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cathnpaul
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*Paul*
Feb 2 2008, 12:26 AM
Wise words.

But listen to this horror story that relates to what happened to my parents when they came out here.

Visas were granted and the house, after a few years of neglect, was attacked to put into some sort of order for sale purposes. Time passed and the house was slowly coming together - it was an old place built in the 1870s or 1890s, I can't quite remember, but old enough to need a few vital repairs.

Well time went on and the repairs were completed. But by then the housing market had started to decline. The house would not sell. The price was dropped. Still the house would not sell. The closing date for visa entry was fast approaching. The price was dropped. An offer made and accepted. With days left before their visa expired they left the country and a house sale in the hands of their solicitor....

What happened next is a bit of a blur. The contract was sent, signed and returned, that much I remember. It was posted to Australia. It should have been sent by airmail. It wasn't...

There were a few problems in eastern Europe. President Gorbachev was in some sort of trouble for a while and the money markets went into a spin. The rate my parents were expecting from the Nat West. Bank was amount X and with no sale contract in sight after a couple of weeks the rate it looked like they were going to get was in fact Y, where X is far greater than Y.

Phonecalls to the solicitor amounted to little - after all they'd posted the contract so it must have just gone missing. With the help of a solicitor this end the contract was faxed, witnessed signed and returned. Yes, I know, why not use this method in the first place? Anyway, my point is that the UK solicitors stuffed up. They didn't admit that they'd neglected to leave off a simple airmail sticker or pay the extra pence above the normal shipping postage rate. It was only when the contract turned up some two months later that it became clear what had happened. You can imagine the anger that day.

I'm not sure how much my parents lost due to the solicitor's negligence, but it ran into many thousands. Money they could well have done with, as it turns out. Sure, they opted to sue the pants of the solicitor but financially they had stretched themselves in Australia and after initial solicitor costs this end, to fire letters back and forth, the case just seemed to run out of steam. My parents would have to return to the UK to fight the case and air-flights in the very early '90s were a tad expensive.

Yes, by all means leave it with your solicitor. Just make sure they know what they're doing!

P.

That sounds awful Paul!!!

To add about 2 years ago there was a change in legislation to houses being sold in absence. I cant guide you to what it is, it was mentioned to us when we went to check what happens if we arent in the country by our conveyancing solicitor. Good point to add is to check that they can do it as not all solicitors can (thanks for reminding me Pau) settle in absence. So please check beforehand with the conveyancing solicitor you use. x
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