Moving from Australia to London in ~12 months - does our ISA plan hold up?
My partner and I are relocating from Melbourne to London around this time next year and wanted to get some input from people who’ve actually done it or are in the thick of it.
We’re both 32. I’m a dual Aus/UK citizen so no visa issues on my end. My partner is Australian and will either come over on a Youth Mobility Visa first (switching to a Partner Visa after 12 months) or straight onto a Partner Visa - still figuring out the better route.
Work-wise, I’m in GRC and my partner is a mid-senior Data Analyst. We’re both targeting £70k minimum, hopefully more, based on what London roles in our areas are paying.
We’ve got roughly £30k GBP sitting in a high-interest savings account here. The plan when we land is to convert it and put the full amount into Stocks & Shares ISAs, £20k each across two accounts given the annual allowance. We’d go into something like VWRP and leave it alone long-term, and keep adding to it from our salaries as we go.
The longer-term thinking is that we’d eventually use the ISA as the base for a house deposit, obviously no one can predict what the market does, but the idea is to let it grow for a few years while we’re renting, then pull from it when we’re ready to buy. After that we’d want to keep contributing and let whatever’s left continue to compound. Curious whether people think that’s a realistic way to use it or whether there are better approaches for that goal.
A few things I’m not sure about
- Any timing quirks to be aware of if we arrive mid-tax-year? Does it make sense to pile in straight away or is there a smarter way to approach the allowance?
- My partner might be on a YMS visa initially - has anyone opened a Stocks & Shares ISA on that visa? Assuming it’s fine once you have a UK address and bank account sorted but keen to hear from people who’ve actually done it.
- Platform-wise, InvestEngine, Trading 212 and Vanguard UK seem to come up a lot here, is there a clear winner for straightforward index investing or does it depend on the situation?
- Anything that caught you off guard that we should be thinking about before we get there?
Cheers