Avoiding high bank charges when moving large sums of money out of your bank.

Hello, 

I am hopefully selling my apartment but am horrified at the bank charge associated with transferring the money out of my  bank account after the sale cheque is lodged. They don't charge for putting the money in but charge 0.35% to transfer it out say to another bank account or a foreign exchange company. 

Can anyone advise me on how to avoid this extortionate fee if I choose to take out he money. 

Thank you 

Tom ...

You were lucky.  

Sol bank (now incorporated into Sabadell) charged me 0.5% which amounted to over £800 to transfer a Sterling deposit  to sterling account in another  Spanish bank.  That was despite me knowing of that possibility and trying to negotiate a better deal.

Managers can vary the charges.   After chatting with my manager, the now charges a flat 0.30 € for any amount.

So chat with your manager.

ossie1

Surely if you have online banking they don't charge this to make a transfer? If it's a large amount try breaking it down in to smaller chunks. If you are needing a currency exchange have a look at sending the money to transferwise online

You can't escape the charges by doing the transfer on line, as we found out to our cost last year. At least, we "only" ended up paying 0.3%. That was with Sabadell.

I'm interested to know why GB45?

I feel sure I could transfer money from my Spanish Bank account to another Euro account online without charge, in fact I have done

I had the same thought.  I regularly make online transfers myself occcasionally a large amount and frankly I would go through the roof if they wanted to charge me for doing so.  Perhaps you need to change banks GB45!

I am with Sabadell, can I transfer online without charges. I am very sceptical that they may lie to me in the branch. I have had terrible trouble with their predecessor Lloyds.

Tom ...

Try it with a small amount Tom.

You will be asked for the recipients Name, IBAN and BIC code it should then be a automated process under the newish SEPA system.

Tom, this is only for the EURO, if there is any kind of currency converstion of course the bank will charge, this is why I recommended to send it to someone like transferwise IN Euros

Thank you,

it it would be in Euro, I will try a small amount first ...

Maybe because we have a non residents account? Otherwise we have no idea. We are always charged for an online transfer, admittedly it's usually a small sum. We tranferred in Euros to Moneycorp and incurred the 0.3%. No point in changing banks now as we are only waiting for our retention money and will then close the account.

Don't believe that's right GB45 - mine is a non res account. 

Presumably it depends on the deal agreed with your bank - I pay an annual fee these days, unlike the good old days with Barclays.

Solbank charge whether you do the transfer online or not. Worse, when I asked my branch manager a couple of years ago, he told me to my face that he would NOT charge me at all, but then I got charged. When I confronted him about it, he denied ever saying he would not charge me, and asked "Are you calling me a liar?" to which naturally I replied in the affirmative. Unfortunately, I never had it in writing from him. However, he no longer works there! When I called Solbank's customer service, they gave me a different figure than the one I found (buried deeply) on their website, which was also different to what I was actually charged. 

I think if you ask the receiving bank to make the transfer (as a direct debit) you may be able to avoid charges by the originating bank. Not sure though.

I had exactly the same experience with Lloyds Bank when I bought the property before I transferred the money, the bank manager then went back on the agreement asking me if I had anything in writing. It was disgraceful, 

That is why I cannot trust a word they say ... 

Tom 

They charges too high so would avoid it as much as possible.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbours, however Harold MacMillan once said that when a dinner guest kept on professing their total honesty, that he was minded to instruct his butler to count the silver before they left the premises.    

Ossie, just a thought. Can you not pay the cheque into the bank where you want it to end up?  However, if you are going to do that ask the receiving bank about charges and exchange rates before you do anything.