How could a financial advisor help you as an expat?
19.01.2012

A good financial advisor can help with all sorts of things, and that can even extend to moving abroad! Obviously, we’re not suggesting you let us pack up your crockery, but, here at Guardian Wealth Management, we can certainly help ship your investments overseas when you move to pastures new. A financial advisor can even help with QROPS . Of course, you might not have heard of QROPS, so we’d like to explain why they can be so important.

If you’ve been paying into a pension scheme whilst working in the United Kingdom but now plan to move abroad, a QROPS may well be of interest to you. QROPS stands for Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme – a bit of a mouthful, it’s the taxman’s mechanism for allowing you to transfer your accrued benefits to another country, which could save a lot of hassle in the long run. If it’s your aim to retire abroad, then it makes a lot of sense to get your pension plans in place as soon as you can, and that’s where a financial advisor comes in handy.

QROPS can be complicated, so don’t get caught out

There are a multitude of regulations that govern QROPS. They include explaining which countries and schemes are QROPS eligible, which is mostly governed by which countries Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have agreements with. The current QROPS rules also offer significant advantages to an expat, including being free from any tax liability in the UK – and that includes protecting your investments from inheritance tax liability after five years. It also gives you the freedom to invest your pension funds as you (and your financial advisor) think best, rather than restricting you to schemes in the UK.

Of course, to make the best of QROPS, you need to get help from a financial advisor  who knows how the scheme works. We’re in a great position to advise you on whether QROPS will work for you, because we have a long history of working through all the financial challenges people face when planning a move abroad.

We’ve got the right experience to help

QROPS are something that isn’t often discussed in the mainstream media, primarily because it doesn’t affect a large proportion of the population. This is understandable, but it does mean that you need an expert financial advisor on your side when trying to figure it out. At Guardian Wealth Management, we have extensive expertise in dealing with all sorts of expat issues, so feel  free to contact a GWM financial advisor to help you make sure you get the best out of your QROPS arrangements.