A friend in the website world has built up quite a large monthly incoming amount via recurring payments via paypal, he currently lives in the UK and will be moving to Spain in about 5 years, he says he’s worried that he might lose these payments if he moves. If it was you, how would you avoid losing the income please?
I’d ask Paypal if there are any issues with moving country.
They told her that she would lose it all if she moved countries!
They told him that he would lose it all if he moved countries!
Considering they an international company that’s not very good!
I’m not sure how both being based on the Euro would make much trouble (I’m assuming no currency exchange rates would be involved), but having different Tax Laws etc. could make things more trouble than Paypal wants to deal with.
Maybe they could set up a business account in the UK and have the bank handle the transfer problems?
Perhaps there wouldn’t be a problem if they were both countries that use the Euro but the UK still use the same pound they have always used.
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Strange that Paypal would say that. Perhaps the issue is in having two separate accounts - one Spanish and one in UK? Is there something that prevents you from keeping the payments going to your old UK account?
I have not done permanent moving to another country, but I have lived in different countries for months at a time and the only issue I’ve encountered was Paypal limiting my account because it was accessed from a different country than my home address. However that was solved as I’ve notified Paypal that it was me, and I’ve notified them before hand ever since.
So perhaps, just keep the old account going and notify Paypal?
Thanks for all the posts, it’s appreciated. He’s been told by PayPal that if they find out that he’s moved to Spain from the UK, he will lose all of his many 1,000’s of pounds recurring payments! Doesn’t seem very right to me!
Perhaps Paypal should be asked how moving country should be handled without affecting any Paypal balances - there are obviously going to be lots of times that this occurs so they ought to have a proper process for it.
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The issue here is most probably tied to protecting the people that has setup the subscriptions.
The rules and laws a company need to abide by can be very different from country to country, in addition you have the risk of that the subscribers will not get the content they pay for (depending on what it is of course).
Since Paypal is liable in the event they allow the subscriptions to keep running, it is most probably a business risk they are not willing to take. Possibly due to cases in the past.
A possible solution can be to operate both in Spain and UK.
I would recommend that he speak with his accountant and review, if this is possible by UK law.
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If the Paypal account is not already a business account, change it into one.
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When he move to Spain, the Spanish company setup a contract with the UK company, where the UK company sell the service/products on behalf of the Spanish company.
The contract will stipulate that the UK company will get x% of the sale amount, the rest is owed to the Spanish company according to normal licensee deals. This way he should be able to keep the subscriptions running, and at the same time have a low taxable income in UK.
I have no idea if this will be legal according to Spanish and UK law, so this is a the part he will need legal/accounting advice on before doing it.
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