In Focus News & Insights

Private school education offers many benefits outside of the obvious statistical performance advantages. As much as anything it is about allowing for personal growth, developing confidence, providing opportunity and building beneficial networks and skills that will last and serve for a lifetime.

But it can be expensive, and this is why intelligent use of expat regular savings together with a holistic wealth management strategy can help both parents and grandparents make the necessary plans to ensure that their descendants are able to enjoy a first-class education with only the minimum of stress.

Of course, the cost of fee-paying schools varies depending on which school is attended, whether the pupil is a boarder and, indeed, whether the pupil is living in the same country as its parents. But regardless of whether the cost is just €5,000 a year for a single pupil or €60,000 a year for two pupils, meeting these costs is going to require you to optimise your expat regular savings towards your education fee planning needs.

Expat pension needs are one of the major reasons behind the £15.3 billion the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) say was was taken from pensions during 2016/17.

The high level of withdrawals is no doubt attributable to the increased flexibility afforded UK pension savers by the introduction of landmark reforms over the past few years.

The £15.3 billion figure was disclosed following a Freedom Of Information request to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and is a massive 173% increase on the £5.6bn that was withdrawn in 2012/13.

In fact, the second quarter of 2017 saw the highest quarterly level of pension withdrawals in five years – no doubt including many expat pensions withdrawals – with more than 40,000 people withdrawing £4.3bn from their pensions.

As it stands, its been nearly a year that expat retirement transfers of pensions have incurred a charge when moving to or between Qualifying Recognised Offshore Pension Schemes (QROPS), with only expats living within the European Union or a select group of 13 other countries immune to this charge.

However, British expats across the world have recently joined forces to question the fairness of the charge and to lobby parliament for its removal.

It's easy to see why they have taken this course of action – the charge for overseas expat retirement transfers comes in at 25% of the value of the pension fund; plainly a crippling and punitive amount for people who have already worked hard and paid their taxes in order to prudently fund their retirement.

The defined benefit scheme – whereby the employer promises the employee a specified payment upon retirement, the amount of which is calculated based on several factors including the years the contributor has been in the scheme, their age, and their salary at retirement – is no longer viable in today's world.

Recently, the high-profile collapse of the construction firm Carillion has served as yet another example of why this is the case.

The collapse means that, just like in the heavily reported case of retail giant BHS, thousands of employees are likely to have their carefully laid out retirement plans affected. Now that the company has gone into liquidation, it cannot afford to pay employees their expected pension amount, leading to yet another sizeable pensions black hole with a deficit of around £580 million (although the BBC reports that the final figure could be as high as £900 million).

In September 2017, it was announced that the Portuguese Government, following pressure from Sweden and a number of other European countries, was looking to water down the country's non-habitual residency (NHR) tax regime, potentially bringing to an end a programme that has worked in the interests of expats since 2009. The uncertainty this proposed move provoked certainly threatened to put a dampener on the financial plans of quite a number of expats and would-be expats as they moved into 2018.

However, the budget proposal presented by the Portuguese government in November seemed to allay these fears. There was not a single mention of the scheme, which would have seen the introduction of a flat rate of tax of either 5% or 10% on income drawn from the pensions of NHRs.

In all probability any such move would have seen the pensions of existing expat NHRs unaffected; however, it would have presented a significant stumbling block to the retirement plans of many looking to move both their wealth and their residence status to the country.

Buying property, whether in the UK or abroad, is rarely straightforward, so it's important to find out which countries and regions will suit you best and to look into property prices so that you can be as certain as possible that you're making a good investment.

Luckily, there's a lot of information out there, and according to current reporting, it seems as though now may be the perfect time to buy property in Spain.

Several property industry commentators are, once again, urging those who have been hesitant about moving abroad, to do so now because the favourable property market has turned Spanish houses into a worthwhile investment.

What do you miss most as an expat?

Of course, there will be no shortage of new experiences available to you in your expat environment, especially if you are moving overseas to retire, but sometimes, it's the smallest things that might bring a lump to your throat…or a rumble to your stomach, maybe.

Perhaps this was the case for one group of British expats who chartered a plane to fly in a large delivery from their favourite curry house in Portsmouth.

James Emery, an aviation assessor for trainee pilots in France, piloted the small aircraft which flew 89 meals from Solent Airport all the way to Bordeaux.

"I'm a chilli addict, "he said, "and an aviation geek, so I thought I would combine my two hobbies to get my favourite meal to me in France."

January 2018 will see the French government introduce several legislative, tax and other financial changes, some of which will be of interest to British expats living in France. First and foremost is the change to the wealth tax – also known as the Impôt de Solidarité sur la Fortune (ISF – or the "solidarity tax on wealth"). We touched on the topic last year when discussing the number of French job opportunities rapidly increasing.

The country's president, Emmanuel Macron, who was elected in May 2017, has introduced the change as part of a push to attract more wealthy investors to France. The change is just one of many in what he called a "profound transformation of France" in his new year's address.