US to UK - Moving money

[hn]

Hello everybody,

I have a question that hoping members will be able to advice and help me with.

My sister is British, but have been living in the US for over 10 years. She is now looking to move back to the UK. Of course she want to transfer her US money (which is from working and saving, all of which she have already paid tax in the US) to the UK.

She got:-
US Bank account
No UK Bank account, as you need to be a resident first.

Can anybody advice on how is the best way to do this. I have tried to look it up, but nothing is clear. Here are a few options I was thinking of.

1) Open an International Bank Account, transfer her money from US Bank to International Account, come over to the UK, open a UK account and then transfer from the International Account into her UK account.

Cons:- I'm assume this is a costly options, fee for the account, fee for transferring and bad conversation rate.

2) Transfer her money from her US account into my UK account, she come over to the UK, open an account and then I transfer from my UK account into her.

Cons: - The only problem with this is that I am self employed, and was wondering if I could be liable for incorrect taxing. Also mostly like bad conversation rate from the bank

3) She know someone in the US that want to transfer money from the UK to the US. So it is possible for my sister to:- Transfer her dollar money to her friend, her friend's UK relative transfer the equivalent in sterling to my account. This would be more direct and no bank conversation rate or fee.

Cons:- Concern on the legal and taxing side.

Does anyone have experience in this that can advice me the best option? Many thanks in advance.

[CR001]

Not sure how much money you are talking about but what about travellers cheques or a foreign currency card.

[ILR4PVM]

Has she considered the 4th option : Return to UK leaving the USA account active, open a UK Bank account after reaching here, then initiate the transfer from the UK either online or via telephone from USA account to UK account, then put in request to close the USA account if needed. This way, you are sure to be on the right side of HMRC with a good paper trail. Dont know which bank is it in USA, but if it is the ones with presence in both countries [Citi, HSBC etc], the transfer can be done instantly between accounts as well with not too bad rates.