Many U.K. residents have choosen to spend their last year’s basking in Greek sun, but unfortunately British bureaucracy is causing problems.  U.K. companies won’t make payments into oversease bank accounts. For this reason, ex-pat pensioners need to open U.K. bank accounts and then transfer money from that account into that of their place of residence. Problems arise when they want to move their money to accounts that pay better rates of interest, even if this is within the country, because they don’t live in the U.K.  68-year-old Warwick Gibbons, a retired U.K. resident living on the isle of Crete, has launched a publicity drive via an expat forum to get U.K. pension rules to change. An article in the Telegraph speaks of his efforts to change the system for many expat pensioners living abroad and who face problems when trying to get their money to their place of residence.

“I have financial ties to the U.K. in that I receive a U.K. state pension and three occupational pensions, all in the U.K. While it is possible for the U.K. state pension to be paid directly to Greece, many private and occupational schemes insist on paying into a U.K. bank account,” says Gibbons.

In an effort to change these rules, Gibbons has complained to the Competition and Markets Authority, an independent British authority. He is encouraging others on Crete to do the same via the expat forum known as livingincrete.net and is pushing a drive for people to spread the word to expat forums in other parts of Europe where there are British expats.