Exchanging old style £20 notes

[cashquestion]

For many's years I've been stashing £20 per week in my house, in safe places dotted around.
They are all the older style paper notes, and now the new plastic ones are coming in I guess I will have to exchange my old ones at the bank.
The money is legit, I just don't trust not having enough cash in case of emergencies, and I've paid tax on it (I'm PAYE).
Assuming I don't have to spend it all buying loo roll on the black market in the next few months, how can I exchange the money without the bank asking me lots of money laundering questions?
I can't really prove the money hasn't come from drugs/people trafficking, but it hasn't, I promise!
I want it back as cash, not in the bank.
Anyone know about this?

I know you can change old notes of any age for new but I don't know if they'll question you. How much is it?

Does this help?

It's about £15k
I've seen that info @MrsKipling16 - but I'm not going to post it or take it in person to the Bank of England.
My plan was just to take it to a local branch, a couple of K at a time and exchange it, but I think they will question me hard, I can't really answer where I got it from, other than every weekly shop I get cash back and I save £20 of that cash back, but I can't prove this.

I would ask in my local branch tomorrow, but I'm self-isolating (I live alone) so won't be able to get there for a while, and they might close on the meantime as it's a small branch.

You will be able to keep spending it for months to come. So every time you get new notes from a cashpoint, exchange with some of your stash and whittle it down.

Then whatever you have left when they cease to be accepted in shops, exchange in batches at a variety of different banks. indo bit think there is an end date when they stop exchanging. I did an old note a few weeks ago, and could have done some round pounds at the same time (but I just left those in the charity pot, safe in the knowledge that the branch is happy to process then from there)

If you always get £20 cashback using your card will the bank be able to see this so you can prove it when you explain?

You've been saving £20 per week, every week, for the last 15 years ???

On that amount you'll be questioned, which is the right thing for the bank to do. Just be as open and honest as you can. Bring in as much ID as you have, wage slips that prove you've had regular income and xplain why you've been saving it at home. You may need to pay it into an account rather than a straight swap so it creates a trail on it but then you should be able to withdraw it again later on.

Pay it into your account. Nobody needs 15k sitting in the house.

Yep @BackforGood; I'm a creature of habit and it's only way I save, I don't really trust the banks (especially in times of crisis).
I think it goes on more than you think, I know a few people who have a similar stash.
I have 2 large dogs, and live alone so it feels safe to keep the cash at home.

I hope not @bemoreeverything but it's there if I need it.
I can always spend it down when I retire, I haven't got much of a pension and I'm not too far from retirement age.

It's not the saving per se that shocks me. I think that is an excellent habit to get into. But the ridiculousness of having £15K in cash lying around your home, not only from the security point of view (not just theft, but also flood, fire, other natural - or man made - disasters), but also you could have been earning interest on that and offsetting the loss you are getting through inflation.

Exactly.

It can be saved in an account.

.

They haven't announced when they are withdrawing the notes yet so I would say just start replacing the notes, however it's not the best time to be using paper money.

I think your best bet would be taking it to the BoE to exchange if I'm honest, they don't seem to care too much about where the money comes from:

^Exchanging large quantities
If you would like to exchange a large quantity of banknotes for new £20 notes or you have exchanged at the Bank of England before please email [email protected].

In your email, please tell us how much you wish to exchange and your:

full name
current residential address
contact number
email address
Where possible, attach your ID documentation. Please note: you must also bring the originals of these on the day you come in to exchange^

I think the issue with doing it at the bank is that its linked to an account holder, which is where money laundering regs come in.

I've NCd for this - PIL have just dropped on DH this week that they've been doing the same but now with the impending possibility of lockdown they're panicking how they're going to exchange them without being flagged up for money lsundering.

They have significantly more than what you do OP, so much so that i doubt they'd even simply be able to pay it in without questions being asked never mind exchanging them.

I mean FFS what are we supposed to do with that information!!!!!!!

You wont get interest really, but it would be safer in a bank. Just spend it week by week and put the same amount away in a bank.

Open a bank account and start putting your "new" money in that. Use the old notes to live on. I assume you have a cost of living ?

Get onto it though before the old notes are taken out of circulation and remembering that we are heading fast into a virtually cashless society

It’s madness to have such a large amount of cash in your house. It’s well within the £85k limit for bank protection.

Barclays Bank allow you to pay up to 200 notes at a time into one of their in-branch machines. So that's £4k in one go you can pay in £20 notes. I've paid the max into my account on a few occasions and it's never been queried. No need to deal with any staff at all. May be worth opening an account with them just to deal with this.

Other banks will also let you pay in notes into a machine (e.g. Lloyds is max 50 notes), but their limits are much lower, so it will take more visits.

The £20 notes are the most widely circulated notes, so I believe the time limit for exchanging them will be longer than the £10 notes (Bank of England haven't announced when they will be taken out of circulation, but said it will give at least six months' notice). So you have plenty of time.

Barclays Bank allow you to pay up to 200 notes at a time into one of their in-branch machines. So that's £4k in one go you can pay in £20 notes.

Or OP could walk up to the cashier and pay in all the money at the same time.

I've paid the max into my account on a few occasions and it's never been queried.

Because you are allowed to put money in your own account.

I suspect OP is trying to keep this money 'off the record' hence the reluctance to pay it into their account.

I have a Barclays account so that's useful to know parknit
I would prefer not to carry £15k into town at one time, so would just do it in blocks anyway, but I want to remove the money back out of the account immediately so I still keep my stash.
Be more the money is mine, earned and taxed, so it's not really a case of keeping it off the record - everyone is different and has different perceptions of risk - remember Northern Rock? I'm not doing anything illegal as far as I know.
I've name changed so I have not reason to lie about the money being legit. I understand criminals use high street bookies to launder their illegal money, so I could do this, but I would never give a penny of my money or step foot into one of those places, and my money is not from the proceeds of crime!

How would you go about laundering your money through a bookies? You have to actually own the bookies to do that? Or be willing to risk the gamble.

Money laundering regulations don't come into it for a cash transaction of less than ten k. So just do it in blocks of less than that. I think they will try to get you to pay it in, but from a bank getting a customer point of view rather than a money laundering point of view.

I'm not 100% sure pretzel but I'm sure google will tell you, you loss some of your money to the bookies - but you then have 'legit' proof of where your money came from; eg gambling. I think I heard about it on Radio 4.

You can pay in to most bank accounts through any Post Office.

I've paid in a few hundred at a time and the staff have never queried it. I know that technically the bank could still quiz you on its origins but mine never have.