dilby

Thanks everyone but I'm unsubscribing from my own post - I really don't care for online arguments, and it's a shame a reaching out for help has resulted in one about health services. I'll let you all have scramble amongst yourselves.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far, however I'm suprised how health care systems seem to be the primary issue that keep coming up when discussing a move. I suppose a lot of it is to do with the fact that so many expats work in health care, and how it's a favourite topic for the media. My experience is both health care services have enough issues to make neither a voting factor on where I live. My dad in australia was on a huge wait list for a knee operation, so had to go private. Here in the UK we've had excellent fertility treatment (ivf) for years including 4 operations, all free, whereas in aus it would have been capped and only limited hospitals provide it, so a lot of travel would have been involved. When visiting Australia last month my friend had to have his gall bladder removed (literally doubled over in pain when I went to see him, I tried not to take it personally haha!) - although it was an emergency he kept having the procedure delayed because of staff shortages until 5 days later, the whole time he was having to fast and they couldnt tell him when he could be seen to. In the end it was a doctor from the UK - they fly them in regularly, and my parents actually have an Airbnb room which is constantly booked up by these doctors/surgeons flying in from the UK. But in Aus my mum had cancer and had excellent care and speaks highly of everyone involved. So it really doesn't form part of my equations - hope that clears things up for my post!

I'm confused - with respect you sound like the biggest doom monger on here. Appreciate the help but can you please sit this one out? Thanks

Hi everyone - I’m an Aussie expat who’s lived in the UK since graduating in 2006, and I was hoping some kind folks could indulge me while I share a bit of my story and hopefully get some anecdotal insight that might be helpful. I first moved for a role straight out of uni, and got married very young, and the intention was to stay in the UK for a few years, start a family and move back. However things weren’t that easy, and we ended up in a blur of surgeries and IVF treatment, which has lasted 12 years (it wasn’t something we could just walk away from for various practical reasons). Now thankfully we have a little baby girl, and I’m now wondering what our future looks like. I had always imagined going back and living our our lives in Aus, but the longer we have stayed here, the more we have made it home. We have a decent house here on the coast (Gower), a good network of friends and I have a business that pays me well (if it helps to talk numbers I’m on about £75k annually here before tax). But we now have the question of what is best for our little girl who is now 6 months. Here we are near my wife’s family, but they have been surprisingly unhelpful. We are largely independent people but we really have started to notice the need for outside help. And beyond that we want our daughter to have a relationship with them which is so far lacking. Conversely, when my Aus family facetime my daughter lights up, and they regularly call. So we just got back from a trip to Australia, which we treated a little like a recce mission, thinking our daughter would have better family connections if we went and overall a better upbringing. However we realised that no family is perfect and found we had issues there too (although they were much more intentional with her), and didn’t feel any tug on the heart strings. The truth is, nowhere feels like home to me now. What doesn’t help is my family are based between Canberra and another rural nsw town, neither places I particularly love. So if we chose another place to live in Aus it feels a silly move to go all that way to still be hours from my family. My wife is also very happy here and thinks such a move would be silly too. So I’m trying to make sense of it all really. I’d be curious what other’s processes were like when deciding if a country was best for their children, as this needs to be my driving factor. As she’s only 6 months now is that something I need to discover in time by observing, and what are people’s thoughts about a cut off for when is too old to move a child? And has anyone moved to aus to be not-so-close to family and have anything to share on that? And any other input is hugely appreciated. (FYI we still have more IVF to do so the move wouldn't be for 3-4 years yet but I'd need to start getting wheels in motion sooner rather than later.) I realise this has been a huge ramble so thanks anyone who has made it this far. I really do love Aus but am so torn and want to do what’s right for my girl; I wish to put roots down soon as I’m sick of living in limbo.

Hi all - I’m an Aussie dual national that had lived in the U.K. all my working life. I’ve got a pension that I’ve built up through my own business and know that if I cash this out in retirement I’d generally get 25% tax free and then be taxed on the rest according to normal income tax (which is a good old whack). However if I moved to aus and transferred my pension to an Australia super fund does this mean I’d avoid this tax? I’ve read up and can see that you don’t pay tax for super withdrawals unless it’s an ‘untaxed’ fund which as far as I can tell is quite rare and more for public servants. Can anyone help on this at all? Might be another reason to head back! ps. Please note im not referring to the state pension here but my own personal contribution pension. Thanks!

Hi all - I'm Australian by birth but moved to the UK at the age of 21 where I've worked self employed for the past 10 years. My wife and I are likely to move back to Australia in the future, and therefore obviously will need to move our pensions. This whole world is very confusing to me, and I can see there have been some major changes recently that unfortunately confuse me even more! But essentially I'm wanting to know if there is a specific type of pension fund I need to be using here that will allow me to move my pension back to Australia, or if it's actually the Australian fund I'm transferring to that needs to be the specific kind. Our IFA at the time set up a pension for us both 2 years ago, after we stated our requirements. He told us he'd found a QROPS approved account and we paid him to set it up for us. He then promptly dropped off the radar however and the pensions company told us that wasn't accurate info. From what I can read, I can transfer pensions FROM any uk account, but only TO some Australian accounts. Is that correct? Any thoughts, experiences welcomed! Thanks so much!

Hi Andrew - Thanks so much for your reply. I've since seen your other excellent article here (http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/money-finance/222771-uk-pension-transfers-advice-service.html) and here (http://www.pomsinadelaide.com/forum/pensions-mortgages-ask-vista/34766-uk-pension-transfers-information-thread.html). However the 'Ban on UK Pension Transfers' link seems to be not working. We run a limited company, so from what I can see, a good option might be to pay ourselves a pension through that, and then if we move and wish to transfer to simply find a qualifying scheme on the UK. However does the information on the link that isn't working change this? I don't like the word 'Ban'! Thanks again for your help.

Hi all - I'm an Australian (UK and Aus passports) and have been living in Wales with my wife for the past 9 years or so; we have no firm plans when to move back but know we will in the near future, and so all of our major financial decisions take this into consideration. Although I've just turned 30, we are self-employed and therefore (although it's no real excuse) only now started looking into setting up a pension. We had an IFA around to our house, and when he heard we would be moving back to Australia in a few years he was concerned about the complications of transferring pension funds etc. This was however before the reforms so I'm not sure if this would change things? He said in our situation he'd recommend a good stocks and shares ISA. I was hoping some of you could give me your two pence (or cents!) on how you have tackled pensions. Have many of you managed to transfer your pensions over? Did it create issues? And have the pension reforms benefited you? Many thanks - I appreciate any help I can get