Peter Smith was especially relieved when funds showed in his Irish euro account only hours after being sent from the UK. The super fast transfer time was thanks to the efficiency of transfer specialist Smart Currency Exchange, and compared starkly with the week’s delay it had taken his UK bank to make the money available, following a blunder beyond Peter’s control.

Article written by The Overseas Guides Company

When Peter and wife Sylvia sold their home in Norfolk in August, they needed to exchange and transfer most of the proceeds to Ireland, to complete the sale of their new home [pictured] in West Cork. The couple, who are retired, have moved there to be near their daughter and her family, who live on picturesque Bere Island.

Fortunately, the Smiths had decided to use Smart Currency Exchange, knowing they’d get a far better exchange rate than if they just asked their bank to send the money. So they opened an account with Smart, ready for the firm to receive their money, exchange it into euros and deposit them in their Irish bank account. However, they weren’t prepared for the way their bank let them down in the process.

“Our UK solicitor mistakenly sent only £50,000 to our Smart Currency Exchange account, where it could be transferred to our Irish account” explained Peter. “Of course, they were meant to deposit the larger share of the sale proceeds, namely £275,000, but instead they paid this into our UK bank account. After numerous phone calls, it took a week for the bank to rectify the situation and send the remaining amount of money to Smart – it arrived on the Thursday morning and, thanks to Smart’s efficiency, the transferred euros were showing in our Irish account by lunchtime the same day!

“Smart were excellent and very helpful throughout the whole episode. They even agreed to fix my exchange rate during the week I had to wait for the bank to transfer the rest of the money over to them. I have the utmost respect for them and will certainly use them again.”

Fortunately, the week’s delay didn’t delay the completion of the Smiths’ Irish home, which is in Castletown-Bearhaven, as there are some legal issues still to be resolved.

“We’ve moved over anyhow to be with our daughter as she’s just given birth,” added Peter. “Everything has happened so fast – we only decided to move to Ireland in March this year, and since then we’ve sold our UK home, found a new Irish home and moved over. We’re so pleased to be living somewhere so pretty and be close to our daughter and grandchildren.”

A simple way to save money, like the Smiths, when buying property in Ireland is to use Smart Currency Exchange to transfer your pounds to a euro account, instead of asking your bank to do it. For more information on this, download Smart Currency Exchange’s free report or visit the Currency Zone.

For more information on buying property in Ireland successfully, download the Overseas Guides Company’s free Ireland Buying Guide – and start receiving free news updates by email.