Money Making Schemes

Nagesh answers:

I don’t know if you’re from America or another foreign land, but in the UK you can just sign up for a Pay As You Go scheme, where you simply top-up however much money you wish to spend on texts and calls 🙂

Nagesh answers:

Really, “cult” is the same as “religion”, but it’s acquired a bad connotation, sort of like “scheme” in North America. (They use it the same as “plan” in the UK – so they have “cash-back schemes”, which sound decidely shady in the US and Canada, but aren’t). Anyway, in this bad connotation, a “cult” would be a religion that asks people to give all their money to “the organization”, decides to commit mass suicide, or has some REALLY whacked-out ideas, like Scientologists.

Nagesh answers:

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme, covers 100% of the first £35K, per person, per deposit taking institution.

However, savers need to be vigilant as if the institutions are registered under one banking licence, they will only be covered once.

For example Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Birmingham Midshires, Intelligent Finance and SAGA are all covered under the Bank of Scotland banking licence. This means that if you had £35,000 with each of them, should they all have problems repaying your money, you would only receive £35,000 back from the FSCS, not £175,000. However, the Sainsbury Bank brand which is part of the HBOS group has a separate licence.

The situation varies from institution to institution. NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Tesco Personal Finance, Ulster Bank and Coutts & Co are all part of the same group, but all have separate licences. Thus, if your money was with each of them, you would receive up to the full £35,000 back from each company.

In order to find out if the institutions where you savings are held are covered separately the best thing to do is to either log on to the FSA’s website and check if the firm is authorised. Alternatively, you could contact the FSA’s consumer website www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk or call their helpline on 0845 606 1234.

If you are planning on opening a new account with an institution, make sure you know which institutions your existing savings are with. Then when you contact the new institution, check with them that they are not part of the same group and covered by the same banking licence.

Nagesh answers:

You have to legally live in the UK for 5 years before you are eligible for citizenship.

To enter the UK as a student, you first need to be accepted to a degree program at a university. You have to show you can meet university and living costs without resorting to UK public funds. The tuition fees in the UK vary by program and university, but they are often over £10000/year for international students. You also have to agree that you plan to leave after your studies, and that you will only take on a specified number of hours in part-time work.
Http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/policyandlaw/immigrationlaw/immigrationrules/part3/

London is very expensive, and buying a house is most likely out of the question. Most students rent a room in a shared flat.

In other words, you would need a large amount of support each year to live there, and you could only work a small amount to help out on a student visa. You aren’t eligible for a work visa (you need education/skills) or the highly skilled worker scheme. Soon the UK will be requiring a Masters degree for work visa applicants.

If you really want to live there permanently, it would make the most sense to go to university in the US (through grad school) and then move over with a work visa. Another possibility would be to do a year exchange through a home university. Unfortunately, you can’t just move over and become a citizen, the rules are quite strict for non-EU citizens.

Nagesh answers:

By law, landlords need to place their tenant’s deposit in a protection scheme within 30 days of receiving it and provide written evidence of having done so to the tenant – you’re lucky your tenants aren’t more savvy and haven’t enquired before now.

You’re also a little unfortunate timewise. Until 6 May 2012, landlords who took a deposit but delayed protecting it were granted a grace period to do so without being fined. You will now be required to provide the deposit protection scheme you select with information and evidence of when your tenants moved into the property – the protection scheme will notice a disparity between the date the tenancy began and the date you applied to protect the deposit, and may decide to refer the case to court – where you may be fined between one and three times the value of the deposit. My best advice is to protect the deposit as soon as possible, and hope you pass under the radar. There are three Government-backed schemes: Deposit Protection Service (DPS); MyDeposits; The Dispute Service (TDS).

Being forgetful when it comes to other people’s money isn’t acceptable when you’re a landlord. If you can’t manage or are too busy to keep tabs on everything you need to be doing for your tenants, have you considered letting via a managing agent who will make sure everything that legally needs to be in place, is? I’m a landlord. I’m also a bit scatty. So I pay an agent to make sure my scattiness doesn’t deterimentally affect the people who call my house their home.