Interesting curation of Blacktower Financial Management news

Over the years, the trend for South African nationals to seek out new lives and experiences in Portugal has continued to grow and grow; I myself made the move back in 1988 as a fresh-faced economics graduate from Witswatersrand University in Johannesburg, and I’ve never looked back. It’s easy to see the appeal for South Africans – the year-round sunshine and vast expanses of Atlantic coastline are a familiar part of daily life, just as they are back home – but the secure location and easy access to the rest of Europe is something really special. Being as there’s over 11,000 KM of distance between the two countries, a mere 12 hrs by plane give or take, there are going to be some big differences in the way of life, even if there are those obvious similarities. It’s probably advisable for any emigrant to arrive armed with a willingness to accept how things are done in their new home country rather than try to carry on as before and hope for the best. This is never more true than when dealing with your finances.

Good news for UK expats with regular savings; lenders are introducing more buy-to-let mortgages specially designed to provide for the needs and circumstances of British expats. Until now there has been a shortage of viable deals, despite the fact that demand has been, and continues to be, strong.

Surprisingly, it is not expats from traditional destinations such as France and Spain who are likely to be the main customers of the buy-to-let deals. The United Arab Emirates and Dubai are reported to be the major markets for UK expat buy-to-let mortgages.

However, the mortgages will not be available to all expats. For example, expats resident in Australia, South Africa, Kenya and 89 other countries will be ineligible to borrow from the main provider, Skipton, and as such will have to look elsewhere before using their expat regular savings to make a buy-to-let investment.