Selling Assets In The USA And Repatriating The Funds Back Home

You decide to sell your property.

In some ways, the process will be similar to what you are used to back home.

In other ways, they sure do things differently over the pond.

You will decide to either DIY the sale, probably using some app on your smartphone, tablet or PC or you employ the services of an agent to market the property, organise the viewings etc. Their titles might be different, for example, estate agent in the UK and real estate agent in the USA but they carry out the same function.

You will need the services of a solicitor to draw up the contract for sale and make sure from a legal point of view, everything is above board.

Regardless of whether you DIY the sale or leave it all in the hands of local or nationwide property professionals, one thing is for sure.

You want to make sure your funds are secure, and you want to maximise your return from the property sale.

All organised, you will then depart, go home, and wait for news.

Fast forward x-number of weeks and success, you accept an offer, the lawyers do their due diligence and congratulations, you complete on the sale and the closing agent then sends you the Dollar sale proceeds, net of costs.

This could be by cheque (the vast majority of business transactions in the USA are still settled by a cheque) or the agent wires the funds to your USD account in the USA or elsewhere.

At this stage, it’s easy to think that you are virtually ‘home and dry’.

Sadly, for lots of property sellers, that is far from the case as quite often, the ‘fun and games’ are just starting.

Back home, you then receive the USD funds.

If by cheque, you can simply go to your bank and pay the cheque in. The bank will process the clearance of the cheque, which can take up to 10 weeks to complete, during which time you can’t convert the funds as they are not cleared. Once cleared funds are available, the bank will automatically convert the USD funds to GBP at their going rate.

You the client have zero control over the timing of the transfer and with this option have to simply accept whatever charges and costs the bank has applied.

You could ask the closing agent to send the funds direct to your USD account in the USA, if you have one. That will certainly not take 10 weeks to complete, more like 5 days.

Your issue now is that even if you have online banking access to your USD account, in the USA this only works domestically, not internationally.

Do you really want to go to the hassle and cost of flying back to the USA to attend a bank branch, fill out a form and send the funds back to the UK.

Again, unless you have a USD denominated account in the UK, you will again have to leave it to the bank to do everything for you and charge accordingly.

Once back home, you could open a USD denominated bank account at your local UK bank.

They are available with the major high street banks in the UK but there are set up fees and monthly account charges.

You may be comfortable with using modern tech apps. There are dozens available, some better known than others. This option will at least cut down the timeframe but again when it comes to convert your Dollar funds back to Pounds sterling, it’s still just as reactive a system as the banks employ. You log into your account with the app, ask for a quote and either accept it or not as the case may be.

Feeling tired, stressed, and anxious just reading this.

Sadly, it’s an all-too familiar scenario, even in this day and age but there is an alternative that combines the best of the ‘old-school’ with the best features of the up to date.

The Cosmos solution

You do not need your own Dollar account.

We are the currency brokers.

Leave that to us.

Everyone is an individual so how about you get treated like the individual you are. How about forgetting the ‘one size fits all’ approach so endemic these days and getting looked after in a bespoke way that makes sense to you because Cosmos will simply craft a currency payment solution that is unique to you.

You register with Cosmos on our usual no cost no obligation basis. For a personal account, it’s a 90-second form that needs completing. For a business account, it usually takes 3 minutes.

A personal or a business account will give you access to over 35 currency accounts in London plus some local collection accounts including a USD account in New York.

So now, at any point before you complete on the sale, you simply instruct the closing agent to wire the USD funds to our USD client collection account based in New York. As this is a domestic transfer, it can be done online so no need to be at the branch; no need to incur bank charges in transferring the funds and certainly no need to fly back across the pond to deal with the banking of your property sale proceeds.

Your funds arrive and are safely held in our protected client safeguarding accounts in full accordance with FCA rules and regulations.

We will then actively monitor the currency markets for you to alert you to opportunities for you to maximise your Pounds Sterling return from the sale of your US property within your chosen timeframe.

What’s more, the funds are completely in your control and will only ever be converted back to Pounds Sterling on your say so, when you are happy with the rate of exchange.

Add to this the fact we are not a big City firm which cuts down on our overheads and thus we don’t need to charge the margins the banks and mainstream brokers have to.

Sounds too good to be true.

Check us out.

Do your due diligence. Speak to us. Yes, we don’t have chatbots. We are available as often as you need us to be. Want to facetime and see who you are dealing with? No problem.

Want to meet us in person. Great, spend a few days in beautiful Cornwall where we are based and tear yourself away from the beaches and countryside to meet with us over a coffee.

In summary, the Cosmos difference: -

- Relationships not transactions

- Personal not self service

- Proactive not reactive.

- The local currency payment solution around the globe.

There is lots more info including numerous case studies and client reviews on our website www.cosmoscurrencyexchange.com feel free to take a look.

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