If you are buying a home in Spain, sooner or later you are going to need to change and transfer your Pounds in the UK to Euros in Spain. The chances are the biggest transfer you’re likely to make will be for the payment of the property you are buying. You are also likely to have smaller monthly or regular transfers to make to cover your bills or mortgage payments in Spain. Not forgetting your spending money while you are enjoying your place in the sun. After deciding which Spanish property you want to buy, deciding where to buy your currency is next important financial decision to make.
These are the four main places where you could buy and transfer currency for the purchase of your property in Spain.
Bank/Building Society
This is often the first place people think of if they need to transfer money anywhere. This is because we all know how to contact our bank, we probably have faith in their services, and if truth be told, we are probably a bit too lazy to think about the alternatives. My advice would be to get a quote to compare with other means of currency exchange from your Bank/Building Society, and check what the bottom line is; the Bank/Building Society may well make charges to transfer money to Spain, so watch out for this.
Travel Agent
Some High Street Travel Agents offer Foreign Exchange services. You may have visited them many times to pick up your holiday spending money. This option is likely to be very expensive and the exchange rate not very competitive at all. Again, satisfy yourself by asking for a quote.
Post Office
The Post Office offers a very similar service to those of the Travel Agents. Again, this option is likely to be expensive and not very competitive at all.
Foreign Currency Specialists
Choosing a good, established Foreign Currency Specialist is almost certainly going to be the most sensible option when it comes to transferring the money to pay for your home in Spain, or for the regular payments to your bank account in Spain. There are several companies operating in this field. Moneycorp are one of the most established. They will typically save you up to 10% when compared to High Street Banks/Building Societies.
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Yep, I learnt the hard way! Not that it was a vast amount of money but from Bank to Bank can cost you an absolute fortune, if I remember rightly it was a 2 or 3% charge and that can hurt if it is a large deposit that you are sending over. More recently I used a currency group to move money over, though I still felt that I had lost out.