Selling Property Abroad and Bringing the Proceeds Home

Selling a property abroad ends with a large payment in the local currency that has to become sterling before it's much use back home. Between agreeing the sale and the money landing in your account there can be weeks or months, and the exchange rate rarely sits still across that gap. On a sum the size of a property, a small move on the rate is a real amount of money.

This page is about the sale and what happens to the proceeds: converting a lump sum back to pounds and deciding when to fix the rate. If the money is coming to you because someone has died rather than because you chose to sell, our repatriating an inheritance page is the better starting point, since the estate and tax questions run differently. If you're buying rather than selling, our buying property abroad guide covers that side.

The friction is timing more than cost. The proceeds are usually your largest single transfer, they arrive on a date you only partly control, and the rate on that date decides how much sterling you actually end up with. Sorting the currency side while the sale is still going through, rather than on the day the funds clear, is what protects the figure you were counting on.

The decision that matters is when to fix the sterling value of the proceeds. You can wait until the money is in your hands and convert then, which suits you if you're relaxed about the rate and happy to watch it. Or, once you have a completion date, you can fix the rate ahead of it with a forward contract, so you already know what the sale is worth in pounds whatever the market does before the funds clear. Because the proceeds are a single large amount, our guide to large transfers is the place to start on how the bigger payments are priced and handled. And if you'd rather hold out for a particular rate with no date forcing your hand, a target-rate order waits for that level and converts only if the market reaches it.

The document that counts most is proof of where the money came from, and for a property sale that's the sale deed or completion statement: the escritura in Spain, the acte de vente in France, the equivalent notary statement elsewhere. That source of funds evidence is what our compliance team needs before a sum this size can move, alongside the photo ID and proof of address for opening the account. There's no fixed cap on the amount, though larger sums go through additional checks, so having the deed and the completion figures ready keeps things moving when the funds arrive.

Tax is the part to get advice on early. Selling an overseas property can create a capital gain, and if you're UK resident that gain can fall within UK capital gains tax as well as being taxable where the property sits. Where both countries tax the same gain, a double taxation agreement, or unilateral relief where no agreement applies, can set the foreign tax against the UK bill, up to the UK tax due on that gain. The country-by-country specifics sit in each corridor guide, and how it all lands for you is a question for an accountant.