<p>Ehem…</p>
<p>just to summarise, I was an immigrant who turned into a local who turned into an expat who turned into a local. But I was never a repat… nor did i ever have a hardship posting…</p>
<p>Ha! Ha! Ha!</p>
<p>Spoke to my daughter this even for a few minutes. She doesn’t have a written offer as of yet, but knows it is coming. Looks like the offer might be for 6 months where the company puts her up in a corporate apartment and pays her in USD. If she decides to stay, most likely she would then have to find her own place and would get paid in GBP. I am getting the feel that the company likes the 6 month offer first to make sure this works out for both parties. There is still the possibility that the offer might be a full move on her part, but until she sees what is offered, she isn’t telling them yes.</p>
<p>From others that have headed to Europe with her company, my daughter is pretty sure that moving expenses will all me handle by them. This will include storing her current furniture in DC as well as getting her moved to London. Of course, my husband and I will most likely head to DC to collect her car and personal items that she would rather store with us. Is it ok that I am excited to borrow her tv while she is gone 
She has a 36" flat screen that would be great in our bedroom! Plus, her car is a baby at only 10 years old; my husband can rotate it in with his 12 year old BMW and my 13 year old Navigator. Now my driveway will look like a parking lot again with 4 cars; but this time their will be only 2 drivers instead of 4 :o</p>
<p>Congratulations. It sounds like a good deal for your daughter. </p>
<p>Have your daughter email her HR or boss to ask about what they would do with all of her storage stuff if she should decide to stay in London. Would she need to terminate her employment in the US, then be employed by UK? If so, what would happen to her pension, vacation, length of employment recognition. I’ve had to inherit few expats when I first came to my department. I was told that they had side agreements with the previous manager, but nothing in writing. I honored some and but not all.</p>
<p>Leanid, my former major international company most certainly used the term expat to describe a living-abroad situation. No one thought that it was either “glamorous” or implied wanting to renounce allegiance to the homeland. Sorry, you’re off base.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone has mentioned HSBC, a bank that has branches all over the world. I have no personal experience with it, but my son has an account there.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I’d recommend HSBC. They’re having great financial difficulties and have been forced to sell many of their U.S. branches to other banks. They’ve also sold off their credit card business and, I believe, their insurance operations. This may not be a big issue for a young grad looking for simple personal banking but another option if available is probably a better idea.</p>
<p>I can’t believe I posted this 3 months ago and my daughter just got her offer 2 weeks ago! The person that told her about London spoke too soon and it turns out they wanted to offer her Australia instead! Going to Australia is a bit different as it would change all her territories, she has never been to Australia, and there is no office there so she would have to work from her apartment! After days of discussions and going through the pros and cons, she decided Australia was not for her. The London offer was still on the table as a consolation prize as they knew my daughter really wanted to go. They offered her 6 months and she has decided to take it. </p>
<p>I don’t know all the particulars as my daughter has been traveling and is handling the logistics herself. I do know she will receive more pay to cover cost of living adjustments, 2 weeks in a hotel while looking for housing, as well as other perks. I have reminded her of a few things I have thought of and she seems to be aware. Her company does this often, so she has guidance from them. She loves her coworkers in London and has a few college friend there. She plans to email everyone she knows to see if anyone they know might be looking for a roommate for the 6 months she is there. That would solve the worries of housing being too expensive due to the Olympics.</p>
<p>My daughter is still on our family plan for her cell phone, but her company pays for her international data and roaming. She is not interested in getting a local phone number as her clients call her on her cell. When I mentioned the cost of always roaming, she said it was not a problem for her company; it is only a problem for me as we have to pay the bill and due to our closing date, it takes almost 4 weeks to get the money from her after she expenses it :(</p>
<p>Neither of her credit cards charge a transaction fee for charges out of the states, so I am sure she will stick with what she has. I don’t know what she will do about banking yet, but she rarely writes check; she pays her bills online. </p>
<p>I am sure I will have questions once I hear more from my daughter! Right now she is working on adding pages to her passport as she only has 2 left and getting her paperwork together for her visa.</p>
<p>There are tons of furnished apartments in London. She should have no trouble finding housing. Isn’t company paying the housing costs? Junior League of London used to print a great book basically everything an American would need to know about living in England. Just Goggle they still print/update. [Junior</a> League of London: Living in London](<a href=“http://www.jll.org.uk/jll/npo.jsp?pg=detail23]Junior”>http://www.jll.org.uk/jll/npo.jsp?pg=detail23) Living in London: A Practical Guide. And she might be interested in joining – great way to amke new friends. Good luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>don’t make any sense to do international roaming and pay upto $2 per min. you can forward the cell calls to a skype number which directly hooked into her local phones(land or cell) in London. Or bring a OOMA router with her and transfer(in telecom terms PORT) the cell number to OOMA, they will ring her US cell Number locally and her London cell number the same time, so she can receive phones whereever she is.</p>
<p>I would have given anything to move to Australia!! My daughter spent her junior year in Sydney, and is returning for a year after she graduates next month.</p>
<p>We visited her there and would move there in a second!</p>
<p>Believe me, the Australia offer was tempting, but having to work along in an apartment every day when not traveling, which also would be alone was not best for my daughter. She is a very social person and she felt she would feel isolated working from home everyday. If she knew just a few people that lived there, I think she would have taken the offer. There was also no promise that when she returned that she could return to her same department; with the London offer she knows she will stay with her team. </p>
<p>As far as her phone, it is my understanding that her company doesn’t care if she keeps her US number. She will of course use Skype (or whatever it is she uses) when calling us. She makes calls from her computer all the time now when calling clients while traveling, but has run into internet issues at many hotels, so resorts to her cell phone.</p>
<p>Her company is not paying her housing cost, just increasing her salary for the cost of living. They will cover 2 weeks in a hotel while she finds housing, but she is hoping to find a roommate with an available room, maybe someone that is a friend of a current friend.</p>
<p>I understand that her company is paying the phone bills, but it is still crazy to pay those roaming fees, she will earn brownie points to save for the company.</p>
<p>There are places in London for relatively cheap housing while still is reachable by underground. I’d suggest Earl’s Court area, its working class neighborhood and pretty safe.</p>
<p>My company also pays for all of our international calls on our BBs, but I did hit the roof when when I saw a $1000 roaming charges on someone’s phone, and he didn’t even know he made that many calls. I pulled his phone record to make sure they were all business calls.</p>
<p>D1 studied in Sydney for a semester and also interned at a bank. She made many good friends, they have travelled to the US and London to visit her. But she said, as a woman and an Asian, she would never want to live/work in Australia.</p>
<p>We lived in London for 3 years. It was the best 3 years of my life. She will have a wonderful time. (If the company would pay for it, I would selflessly go to London to help her find a place to live.)</p>
<p>She will not have any problem finding a furnish place to live in. It is almost easier than finding an unfurnished place. We joined The National Art Collections Fund when we were there. The membership included free admission to a number of museums all over the country, including Scotland. Kensington Palace is included. If she gets to London before early October, she should make sure to do the Buckingham Palace tour. It is only open during August & September. It is an exciting time with the Jubilee. There will be so much going on. I truly envy her.</p>
<p>We lived in London for 3 years. It was the best 3 years of my life. She will have a wonderful time. (If the company would pay for it, I would selflessly go to London to help her find a place to live.)</p>
<p>She will not have any problem finding a furnish place to live in. It is almost easier than finding an unfurnished place. We joined The National Art Collections Fund when we were there. The membership included free admission to a number of museums all over the country, including Scotland. Kensington Palace is included. If she gets to London before early October, she should make sure to do the Buckingham Palace tour. It is only open during August & September. It is an exciting time with the Jubilee. There will be so much going on. I truly envy her.</p>
<p>Taxes: She will be filing with the Uk and the USA. Keep all her records. She most probably won’t pay US taxes but will still have to fill them out, the 2555 and the 1040 long one since she will have to fill out the 2555.</p>
<p>Phone: get rid of the us one.</p>
<p>Bank: I have a US one and a local one and credit cards for both. It has been fine.</p>
<p>London is very expensive but the experience will be wonderful. I worked there in 1966, if you can believe it! A different world than now. There were still bombed out lots from the war back then.</p>
<p>I work with many young folks and they love working overseas. Good for your daughter. Don’t worry about the numbers. That is my take.</p>
<p>Fantastic graduate programs there.</p>
<p>Hip Hip Hooray!</p>
<p>I believe OP’s daughter will be disadvantaged when it comes to taxes - UK tax rate is higher than the US tax, and she will still need to pay her local (state and city) taxes because she won’t be breaking her residency.</p>
<p>That is not true…you pay taxes in one tax home. If you make over 90,000 something you may have to pay US. State taxes never if you live abroad. They try. But they can’t take.</p>
<p>That said, the first year you do pay here and there because you have to be able to show residency out of the USA and they have 3 ways this can be done. Look at the forms for 2555. So the first year you straddle two worlds.</p>
<p>I have been gone so many years, I can’t remember that first year.</p>
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<p>HSBC is one of the biggest and most financially secure banks in the world.</p>
<p>This is a question best asked a knowledgeable accountant. I have a working visa for the country I am currently working at right now, and I pay the local tax, and the local tax I pay is reported to IRS so I don’t have to pay to both countries. My firm takes care of my taxes, so I am not an expert.</p>