(Lulu, the Leaf)
Carvana made selling our Nissan Leaf sound so easy, but when the time came to do it they were no longer offering to pick it up, and their nearest place to drive it to was well over 200 miles away. (As you know, with an electric car, this would have been very difficult to manage)
This left us scrambling. Out of desperation, I called the local dealership and was assured that they'd offer between 4 and 5 thousand dollars for it. I wasn't surprised that when I showed up with it, three thousand was the best they were going to do. (Dealerships...)
Anyway, Facebook Marketplace came to the rescue! As the car would normally fetch around $8k, our ask of a firm $5k brought in probably nearly fifty inquiries within a day. Sure, a few were scams, and more were from people who really didn't know what an electric car was, but one was from a local Leaf owner who wanted to buy one for his son, and we were thrilled to sell it to him!
(saying goodbye to our beloved car)
Actually Facebook Marketplace was useful for selling a lot of things. Don't give out your phone number to anyone and meet them in front of the town's police station. Also, cash is king!
(counting the CASH out…twice)
Similarly, selling our house seemed like it might have been easier than it turned out to be. We had multiple offers, but the one we went with turned out to be financed by a VA loan. At just a few days before closing, the VA brought up objections to the structure of the water association on our street. Though perfectly legal by Vermont standards, it was threatening to be the end of the whole deal, and we were going to have to start over from the beginning.
We were amazed that the lady who runs the water association was willing to jump through all of the hoops the VA was asking for. (Thank you, Mary!!) She applied to turn it into an LLC, filled out an affidavit...both were initially rejected, and she did it all again!
Our realtor Kathy Hale was instrumental in getting all of the parties together so we could get all of the above accomplished in time. Had our closing happened just one day later, we would have owed several thousand dollars more in taxes as we would have been considered UK tax residents by that point.
Along those lines, we also had to sell some US mutual funds that were not part of retirement accounts, because the UK would have taxed them as income. Up front it's a lot to pay in capital gains taxes, but it will be worth it in the long run.
In addition to becoming acquainted with two countries' tax codes (and which kinds of investments to use and to avoid), you'll find that how trusts are set up can be a problem between the US and the UK. They can be modified (or they can be done away with entirely), but if you do nothing, what you thought would one day be a simple inheritance might actually be viewed as taxable income.
Calculating what you're likely to pay in income taxes in the new country is also difficult, but there are websites that can help with that. Comparing individual taxes won't give you an accurate picture (some places have high property taxes but no state taxes for example), so you need to find websites that can really give you (roughly) the overall picture. Health care costs also need to be included as well as any local and state taxes. Then you need to balance these expenses against what you're actually getting for the money!
Many countries have a double taxation treaty with the US (up to a certain amount), but not all do. Most other countries do not recognize Roth IRAs. (The UK does.) For many moving abroad, retirement is a long time off, but these differences can really cost you down the road if you don't know what you're getting into. Instead of all that tax-free money coming out of your Roth IRA, you might end paying taxes on all of it as if it were income!
Tax rules are changing all the time, so you also need to research what the likely futures of each country will be. What are some of the stronger political movements within them likely to lead to? How much general stability is there?
We realize this isn't the most interesting stuff of all time, but we wanted to give you some of the important topics to consider for such a move. There are a lot of moving parts, and it is fairly overwhelming!
On the UK side, Citrus Relocation Services has been great for us and has smoothed over the many difficulties of trying to rent a house from overseas. With their help we were also able to get a UK bank account while still in the US. I don't think that would otherwise have been possible.
We're very happy with the house we're renting, and we'll post pictures in a subsequent blog post.