# Banking and buying property



## chriggy (Dec 18, 2012)

Hi all,

I'm from the UK but I'm planning to relocate in the Americas somewhere soon. 
I'm selling my house and intending to buy property where ever I end up. 

I was hoping someone could advise on how best to handle the logistics of transferring money etc.
I'll have the house proceeds in a UK account in the interrim but will obviously no longer reside in the UK. Will I be able to set up an account overseas without a permanent address? Then is it possible get the UK funds transferred into the overseas account remotely?

Another alternative would possibly be to get the UK lawyer to hold the funds and transfer them into the overseas account when ready? However, the thought of leaving a large sum like that scares me!

Any input would be appreciated


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## MangoTango (Feb 8, 2020)

There are 35 countries in the Americas and the monetary decisions you make will likely differ from country to country.

Similar questions to yours have been asked (and answered) a gazillion times on this and similar forums. There are even Youtube videos which discuss the topic.


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## Stevenjb (Dec 10, 2017)

Suggestion: you may want to leave the funds in your UK account and draw off that as needed until you have established yourself in an area you like and have setup banking relationships


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## chriggy (Dec 18, 2012)

I realise that MangoTango but there wouldn't be much life in the forum if only new questions were asked! I asked on this forum because it was one of the busier ones and general principles would probably still apply. 

Thanks Stevenjb, I wasn't sure if they allowed for doing that with larger sums remotely, what I had researched suggested for North American citizens, they generally had to fly back. I guess I can query my current bank, though the intention was to transfer into the (new) native account before buying a property.


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## Stevenjb (Dec 10, 2017)

chriggy said:


> I realise that MangoTango but there wouldn't be much life in the forum if only new questions were asked! I asked on this forum because it was one of the busier ones and general principles would probably still apply.
> 
> Thanks Stevenjb, I wasn't sure if they allowed for doing that with larger sums remotely, what I had researched suggested for North American citizens, they generally had to fly back. I guess I can query my current bank, though the intention was to transfer into the (new) native account before buying a property.


From what I have read in the forums, a US bank account holder is best to keep a US address with the bank or may be at risk of the bank closing the account. Don't know how UK banks would respond with a foreign address on file.

If you find a property you like and want to buy, the option may be to wire the money from your UK bank.


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## LoggedIn (Nov 21, 2017)

Habib1214 said:


> Hello Guys My Name is Habib. I'm Fro Dubai here I'm new to this site.


Hay there, Dude.


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## [email protected] (Nov 12, 2017)

Stevenjb said:


> From what I have read in the forums, a US bank account holder is best to keep a US address with the bank or may be at risk of the bank closing the account. Don't know how UK banks would respond with a foreign address on file.
> 
> If you find a property you like and want to buy, the option may be to wire the money from your UK bank.


 do your homework with wiring funds AND tax . . . here in Mexico IVA, locally referred to as the impuesto al valor agregado . . . worth learning if that would be applied to your funds . . . ((( currently 16 percent )))

con una sonrisa


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Your mileage may vary, but IVA isn't going to be a huge part of the cost of a property transaction.

When I bought property here in addition to the payments to the sellers, I had to make a number of other payments.

There were two payments related to setting up the fideicomiso. Both were made to the bank, but one was sent on by the bank to the government (the application fee) and the other was the fee to the bank (including the first year payment). If I recall correctly, the application fee was a flat fee of around 15000 pesos, no IVA. The bank's fee was around US$300 and I don't remember if that included IVA, but it probably did. 

There were also two payments to the notary. One was an up-front payment to cover some of the expenses they were incurring. That was basically a down-payment on the full set of fees to the notary. Then at the end I got a full statement from the notary listing all the various fees and taxes ("impuestos y derechos", "otros gastos" and "honorarios"). There were about 10 in the first category, one in the second and one in the third. Only the "Honorarios Notariales" fee had IVA added. That is basically the real fee to the notario for them doing their work, all the rest of it is pass-through taxes and payments that don't get taxed.

The notario honorarium is officially a percentage of the value of the transaction, but it can sometimes be negotiated down a bit for more expensive properties. My notario charged a little less than 1% of the purchase price for the honorarium. Of all the "stuff" that was the only part that I am certain had IVA applied on top of the charge listed. Everything else was either not taxed or the tax was built-in to the quoted charge. Altogether closing costs paid to the notario were around 3% of the total. 

I also paid money separately to my Abogado and the real estate agent. Paying them separately reduced overall cost as it kept that part out of the headline transaction price which other fees and taxes were a percentage of. I had to add IVA to the amounts charged by those other people so that they could declare the income, pay the tax on it, and give me a receipt for their work. 

The real estate agent would have been perfectly willing to just take and keep her agreed fee as an under-the-table cash payment without declaring the income and without charging me IVA on top as long as I didn't need a receipt, it was strictly up to me whether she cheated on her taxes or not, she didn't care as long as I paid her taxes for her.

I've never had IVA applied to the principle when I wired money from outside Mexico into Mexico. Mexican banks that charge fees to receive a wire will add IVA onto their fee, but you don't pay IVA on the amount sent, just the service fee. Just like if you withdraw money from an ATM that charges you a fee, there's IVA in the ATM fee, but it's a percentage of the bank's ATM fee, not your withdrawal.

Always wire money to Mexico in Mexican pesos, not foreign currency - i.e. have the sending bank (who you are a customer of) do the conversion, don't let the receiving Mexican bank do the conversion or they will generally rip you off on the exchange rate. The handful of mexican banks I've wired money to haven't charged anything for receiving the wire when the funds are wired in pesos.


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

As to whether you need a Mexican bank account to buy property...

You don't, but it's going to require you to wire money a handful of times, so if your home-country bank charges a fortune for an international wire, you might be better off with a Mexican account.

I had to make two wires for the main payment to the sellers because it was a man and his Mom that co-owned the property and were being each paid half. Others might only need one. The preliminary payment to the notario and the final payment to the notario had to be wires (they insisted). The payments to the abogado and the real estate agent were wires, so six different wire fees. My bank, Schwab, was waving them for me, I think all of them. Eventually I ran out of 'free wires' and they started charging me for wires I sent for other purposes, but they only charge $15 for a wire, and not every time, so its no big deal. My other US bank wants $45 for an international wire, with no freebies, so if that had been my only bank it would have been a different story.

The 15000 peso fideicomiso fee I paid by using my ATM card and pulling out cash and then handing it to the bank. The bank's fee for setting up the fideicomiso I paid on my credit card (so they can just charge me their yearly fee annually automatically and I don't have to remember the date). 

US citizens who set up foreign bank accounts and put large amounts of money in them (over $10,000 US) have extra paperwork requirements - see FATCA, FINRE and FBAR filing rules. I avoided all that by sending all the big payments as wires. If GB has no such rules then things may be simplest to open a Mexican bank account in your name and wire all the money to it up-front.

Once you own a property, you're soon going to want a Mexican bank account to use to pay all the associated utility bills anyway.

However part of the reason I delayed getting a Mexican bank account was my bank of choice wouldn't give me an account until I had permanent residency - which I didn't get until six months after I bought the property as a temporary resident. So if you _cant _easily get a mexican bank account, rest assured you can still buy property, you just might have to pay wire fees a half dozen times - just a small part of all the fees you'll pay to buy property, so best not to obsess about it, do what's most convenient.


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## surabi (Jan 1, 2017)

I have always used xetrade to transfer money from my Canadian bank account to my Mex. bank acct. It is electronic transfer, not a wire, so no wire fees and as they are a currency exchange house, the money gets sent in pesos, so my Mex. bank charges me nothing.

The only Mexican bank I know of where those on a tourist visa can open an account is Intercam.


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