Jim H. Says:
My husband and I recently moved to Spain.
I currently have most of my retirement savings invested with an American financial institution, which informed us that we need to convert our accounts to international accounts due to the Patriot Act. The only way to keep them otherwise is to have a permanent residence in the United States.
We only have a private mail box in the US for any correspondence sent to us but no physical address in the United States (we sold our house before moving here).
Any advice would be appreciated.
Personal Finance Expert Jeff Opdyke Says:
Hi Jim,
Thanks for the note and welcome to the hellatiously annoying world of American expats and their U.S. financial accounts.
Honestly, this is perhaps the most challenging aspect of living overseas—having to deal with banks and brokerage firms and the ironically named Patriot Act.
I don’t have an easy solution for you. I have a U.S. driver’s license and a relative’s address in the U.S. where all my financial correspondence goes.
One potential solution—and I highlight the word “potential”—is Virtual Post Mail. They offer physical mailboxes for people who don’t want mail coming to their house for whatever reason, or for people like us who need to maintain compliance when living abroad.
Those “mailboxes” are tied to real buildings in California, Nevada, Delaware, Florida, and Texas.
I’ve had conversations with the folks at Virtual Post Mail and they tell me that some banks and some financial institutions have signed off on their addresses as legitimate. Others, however, still see Virtual Post Mail as a postal box no different than, say, a UPS store.
I have a Virtual Post Mail address—it’s $20 a month—but I haven’t tried to change my bank/financial account addresses because, frankly, I’m scared to screw up what I’ve got going at the moment. Maybe you can reach out to VPM yourself and ask them specifically if they’ve had any conversations with your particular financial institution.
Also, VPM has recently launched what looks to be a very cool, albeit very exclusive option to own an address in a high-end residential building in Las Vegas. The product is called TruResidence. Basically, it’s access to a real address in a real condominium tower near Vegas’ McCarron Airport. This is not a suite-number situation, as will most other mail services. Here, your mail is delivered to that condo in that building, and then transported to the VPM facility nearby in Nevada. But for address purposes, this looks just like you own a condo in a very real complex in Vegas.
The cost is $150 a month, which might be a non-starter, since that is a bit pricey. But there are only 75 spaces available for this address. Once VPM has 75 users, it will shut down the service to new users.
As an add-on, VPM offers a lease agreement option in which you pay $400 per month to have a lease that you can show to financial institutions. Again, this would be a real condo address at a high-rise in Vegas, so it would show up in all real estate searches as a legitimate, physical address. If you want more information on this, I would suggest you reach out to the folks at VPM and chat with them about the options that are best for you.
Hope that helps.
P.S. If you’d like to grow the money you have in those account while living in Spain, join me for my Passive Income Workshop right here.
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