Proving Your Worth

[WordBird]

Quick question about proving you can support yourself financially when applying for residence.....

Do you have to provide a bank statement with the necessary amount as a capital sum, or can you also show an account with regular incomings (and outgoings) that prove you have the necessary funds/arrangements on an ongoing basis?

Mr WB and I were discussing it last night as I'm thinking if I can get a place to live sorted in February I could just stay on and apply for my own residence there and then, but it might mean juggling things around a bit in our accounts -  unless I can just show them a copy of our current account statement, which shows what's coming in regularly.

Also struck me that if they only want to see a bottom line figure, it could be relatively easy to present a false picture as you could borrow the lump sum via a loan or whatever, move it into an account while you get residence and then pay it off again! 

[usedbustickets]

As I recall when we applied we showed a sum in a savings account, rather than a current account with various transactions, and that got through OK.

[LeeGlo]

Same here, just showed our lira savings account. I think they do like to see funds in a Turkish bank rather than a UK one.

[WordBird]

Thanks. I thought that was the case but saw people elsewhere say they'd done it with a UK current account.

We're at the bank tomorrow to do all the signing stuff so should be able to collect ATM card & everything else from the Turkish branch when I'm over next month.... If I can move money around beforehand though then it could be doable.

Cheers guys. That helps.   

[BernieTeyze]

Glad you asked, I was just about to ask the same

[simpsons]

I have a sterling account at Finansbank, which my pension gets paid into. Every month I change it up and put it in my daily account. When renewing my residency, I have only showed my sterling account book (even though there may be only a couple of pounds in it) which shows regular income. Suffice to say, this has always been accepted.

[ceni]

Although ours was a good while ago now I had to have a sum in the bank AND show UK bank statements showing regular income. I used my savings account when we had to send off the papers for mine, and despite MOH 's name not appearing anywhere on those statements they accepted the one proof for both our different names, did that make sense?   lol

[BernieTeyze]

bank appointment for 24th..onwards and upwards.  

[WordBird]

We've sorted an account out at HSBC in Fethiye via the international banking service here.
This is only for existing HSBC customers and there is a hefty charge, but it means it's all done and our ATM cards and paperwork (in English) will be ready for me to collect when I'm over in February.
The default unless otherwise requested is two accounts - one in sterling, one in Turkish lira.
We didn't apply for a credit card but could have done, and they would have then obtained Turkish tax numbers for us as part of the service. (Not needed for opening an account in this way.)

It took a phone calm of about 40 minutes and an appointment in our UK branch of around the same to do the signature and ID verification stuff.

It does cost £100 but it's easy and convenient and means we're set up in advance.
I've been very impressed with the service, which is more than I can say for our Business Banking manager at the moment. Been trying to open a new account with him since the start of December.   

[Menthol]

I never realised you could open a Turkish account in such a way. But then we also do not bank with HSBC.

We opened Turkish Lira and Sterling accounts with Finansbank and ING back in Sept last year and each occasion took about 2 hours, so I suppose it worked out a similar time. However, trying to sort out the online banking is another story. And we haven't got ATM cards either.

Did find Finansbank better than ING - the lack of security at ING was rather worrying - they didn't ask for enough proof that we were who we said we were when we wanted to withdraw some monies we had paid in the day before.