Elderly relative moving back to UK from Spain - no bank account

[Adrinaballerina]

I wonder if anyone can offer advice.... a relative of my DM married to Spain 50+ years ago when she married a Spanish man, she has dual nationality. Her DH died over a year ago and she is quite isolated in Spain now and would like to move back to the Uk where she has a DC and DGC.

She has been trying to organise things to move when visiting UK and from Spain. She needs a bank account in the UK to do anything but cannot seem to get a bank account in the UK without a UK residence, which she doesn't have and won't until all is finalised in Spain. It seems to be a catch 22 situatuon. My DM has been trying to help without success. I think she needs professional advice about how to go about this, there must be a way!. She will live with her DC temporarily once she has moved over, while she looks for a flat of her own over here. But getting her money over here from the sale of her flat in Spain seems impossible.

If anyone has done this or has any advice it would be much appreciated.

Contact HSBC's customer service- they have bank accounts for people moving from abroad to the UK and will be able to advise which account is best for her

Why can’t she just register at her DC’s address?

Revoult gives you a GBP account with UK sort code and account number.

Lloyds do accounts for non UK residents www.lloydsbank.com/international/international-eligibility-checker.html.

My mum got a basic current account from Santander for a year and then they gave her full banking access

She can open a non-resident account in the UK from Spain
Or use the UK address and organise to get the documents needed to prove the adderss.
A tax document can be anything to do with her NI number so reactivation and providing a uk address,
If she drives she should look to get her Spanish one converted to a UK licence.
For a utility with most service providers her DC can add her as a named person.

She could open an account with a bank which has active branches in the UK and Spain as the Spanish branch will be able to do the anti-money laundering checks on her spanish banking life easier than a UK only bank can. Once the money for her assets is lodged into the Spanish account it will clear faster as the UK branch is receiving cleared funds from a known source by a trusted bank. If she is using a "new" UK bank she will need to be proactive in providing the source of funds documents

Thank you all for this advice, very helpful. I will pass it on. She is not Internet knowledgeable at all and has no devices that connect to the Internet so this is her major stumbling block I think.

Wise is a good option as she can have money in euro and sterling plus account numbers in the UK and EU, though it sounds like she may need one of her children to set it up for her.

If she has a santander account in Spain she can transfer it to the UK (friend did this last year).