How does a non uk resident with a British passport open a bank account in England?

[Littlefrenchmummy]

I am trying to help my father open a bank account in England.

He lives in France but has a British passport. I have just spoken to HSBC who tell me that he cannot open an account with them if he doesn't have a proof of address in England.

So my question is: how can a British passport holder open an account in England if they live in France??

Any help would be greatly received.

Take your dad to lloyds, they'll only need his passport

Thats brilliant thank you very much.

There are so many banks I didn't know where to start !

Thank you.

For your information Anon you have to have proof of address with lloyds bank as well.

They've changed rules, if he has a british passport they won't ask for an added extra proof. Same way if you're German and want to open an account with lloyds they won't ask for proof of address

In the Proof of Identity section it does say a passport should be sufficient. Does he need an account in Sterling rather than strictly one in England?

I just spoke to them ( and hsbc, santander, nationwide) and a passport is not sufficient. You need a proof of address. The websites are misleading and its easy to believe a British passport is sufficient but it isnt.

Hi tribpot. He needs one in ££

So an offshore account in Sterling would do the trick? No need then to prove a residency that he doesn't have. The bank will notify the tax authority of the country he lives in, so that he can be taxed on the money in the account but I assume what he's wanting to do is protect himself against currency fluctuations.

Why does he need the account? You can open a 'basic' account with a French address as long as he has proof of that but it depends on what his circumstances are and where his 'life'is based. So if he will be here for some time, has job etc it will need to opened on UK address but other circumstances may allow it being open on French one...

We live in France. I've researched opening a new uk account in the past, and pretty much all of them had small print stating that only uk residents could open an account. The alternatives were various offshore accounts - but the charges were high, and they seemed to be set up for people with ££££££'s to invest.

We already had a few uk accounts, we've kept them open by using my parents as our uk address. Nationwide said they were fine with this for existing accounts - but they wouldn't let us open any new ones. Northern Rock (as they were) told us we'd have to close the account ASAP once we moved from the uk.

I'd be interested to hear if you find one OP.

You used to be able to open a hsbc basic bank account using a letter from council tax holder along with the council tax bill, the letter had to confirm that they lived there. Not sure if that's still possible? The concern might be more why someone who doesn't live in England would need an English bank account with money laundering checks etc

He can't open one in England. He has to open a sterling account in France.

This doesn't help you sorry OP but I can tell justwondering for certain that some banks will let you keep existing (opened while resident in UK) accounts and change to your new foreign address - Halifax let us do this - just had to go in in person to a branch with the documents. So no need for fibbing about living with parents. Perhaps your bank were different though. I would always keep an account open in any country I've lived in for this reason, much harder once you don't have the address.

Lloyds let us keep our UK accounts as dh has hos MOD pension paid into it, and we have a Lloyds mortgage. Having been HM Forces helps, and that we are coming back.

I had a similar problem a few year back and just opened an offshore account with Barclays - possibly based in Jersey or Isle of Man. Worked fine, didn't cost much as all.