Brits Lose £900m

I visited a Property Exhibition at the Novotel in Hammersmith last week. It was a bit muted compared to others i have been before. Seemed Londoners were still recovering from the excesses of the past weeks. All in the spirit of the festive season.

The main revelation is that Spain is no more a viable option for the new investor or bleary eyed retiree looking to cash in on the strength of sterling and relative affordability of properties abroad. Spanish house prices are now neck to neck with what obtains here.Thanks(or no thanks)to the unrelenting invasion of foreign investors in Spanish properties. A considerable number of whom are British.The new states of the EU are the hotspots now.With Bulgaria and the Adriatic states topping the list. Riga has a good ring to it!

There i was lumbered with all sorts of brochures with all sorts of architectural delights. Most were promptly offloaded into the nearest recycle bin.However the Overseas Property TV magazine proved to be a good read. One particular article quoted the currency specialist company HIFX as saying that the big banks charge up to 4% higher than specialised brokers thus emigrating Brits potentiallly lose up to £900m yearly transferring money through them rather than through the
small concerns.
In a mystery shop of high-street banks and currency
dealers,there was a massive £4,932.22 difference between the highest and
the lowest costs when buying 150,000 euros
. The wise thing is to seek sound financial advice from independent brokers before transferring any sizable amount of money abroad.

Property Millionaires

It's official London now has 46,668 millionaires.Thanks to the exponential increase in property prices over the decade. London is not the only area where many people have been rocketed into the millionaires` league.It`s a country-wide phenomenon.

This has serious implications though. Not least the issue of inheritance tax and capital gains tax.The former being the major thorn in the flesh of most home owners.The Inheritance Tax was designed to re- distribute wealth- basic argument for most taxes,whereby the Treasury creams off the estates of deceased wealthy people.Now that is not the case any more because more and more of us now fall in the `wealthy` category based on the threshold where the tax sets in.Presently,an estate(read property,since that is the single most valuable asset most of us have) worth less than £285k does not incur Inheritance tax,but go any higher than that and the taxman hits you with a whopping 40% charge. And there is the rub of the whole matter. Why should people work all their lives to pay the mortgage,renovate and maintain their properties then forfeit most of the accrued equity on such holdings to the government after their demise. The irony is the superbly wealthy for whom the tax was designed do not always pay.Why? How?

They have experienced professional tax advisers who handle their financial affairs. Chief of this is how to minimise their tax liabilities or even to pay nil tax where possible.Tax avoidance is not illegal.Tax evasion is! So get planning how to keep that profit from the taxman.