Thursday, October 12, 2023
Another Brexit mess
To be fair, this latest issue with Brexit may not have been on the side of the bus, but those of us opposed to leaving did warn that it would happen.
The Independent reports that British citizens living abroad face being locked out of their pensions because of post-Brexit rules which see bank accounts shut down:
Britain’s exit from the EU has caused some British banks to re-examine which bank accounts they let non-UK residents keep open.
And finance experts are warning that retirees living in Europe are struggling to access their savings as accounts are closed, in yet another Brexit headache.
They say pension providers are less likely to offer services to British expats – leading to “big problems” in moving pension money into drawdown or making other changes to contributions.
Paul Beard, chief executive of Alexander Beard Group, told The Telegraph that dozens of UK expats had contacted him saying their pension provider had refused “point blank” to pay out money.
Philip Teague, of Cross Border Financial Planning, told the newspaper that his firm was “starting to uncover some big problems for our clients who have got these very vanilla regular pensions”.
The financial planner accused pension providers of failing to offer good advice to older expats who have seen their bank accounts shut about how to access their money.
He added: “We’re proactively starting to feed complaints through to them which will ultimately end up with the Financial Ombudsman because of [providers’] lack of communication in this area.”
HMRC rules mean Britons who are a resident overseas cannot move UK pensions to a new company. So expat pensioners are dealing with complicated overseas transfer processes, which can see them lose up to 25 per cent in tax to access their savings.
And moving pension money into drawdown to release an income is considered “cross-border business” by many providers.
They add that thousands of Britons living in EU states were told by UK banks that their accounts would be shut after the initial Brexit transition period ended. Lloyds Banking Group said it had shut 13,000 accounts of expats in Europe.
And to think that people were complaining about red tape when we were in the EU. Since leaving it's got a whole lot worse.
The Independent reports that British citizens living abroad face being locked out of their pensions because of post-Brexit rules which see bank accounts shut down:
Britain’s exit from the EU has caused some British banks to re-examine which bank accounts they let non-UK residents keep open.
And finance experts are warning that retirees living in Europe are struggling to access their savings as accounts are closed, in yet another Brexit headache.
They say pension providers are less likely to offer services to British expats – leading to “big problems” in moving pension money into drawdown or making other changes to contributions.
Paul Beard, chief executive of Alexander Beard Group, told The Telegraph that dozens of UK expats had contacted him saying their pension provider had refused “point blank” to pay out money.
Philip Teague, of Cross Border Financial Planning, told the newspaper that his firm was “starting to uncover some big problems for our clients who have got these very vanilla regular pensions”.
The financial planner accused pension providers of failing to offer good advice to older expats who have seen their bank accounts shut about how to access their money.
He added: “We’re proactively starting to feed complaints through to them which will ultimately end up with the Financial Ombudsman because of [providers’] lack of communication in this area.”
HMRC rules mean Britons who are a resident overseas cannot move UK pensions to a new company. So expat pensioners are dealing with complicated overseas transfer processes, which can see them lose up to 25 per cent in tax to access their savings.
And moving pension money into drawdown to release an income is considered “cross-border business” by many providers.
They add that thousands of Britons living in EU states were told by UK banks that their accounts would be shut after the initial Brexit transition period ended. Lloyds Banking Group said it had shut 13,000 accounts of expats in Europe.
And to think that people were complaining about red tape when we were in the EU. Since leaving it's got a whole lot worse.
