Would you move to Dubai to get away from tax hikes?

0:02Welcome to This Is Money podcast sponsored by Charles Stanley Direct. I'm Georgie Frost and joining me and Helen Crane today is a very, very special guest. A This Is Money podcast legend on the first ever show way back November 2014. It's Rachel Rickard Strauss. And coming up with more rumoured tax hikes on the way, landlords are reportedly the latest target for the government. But is it time to move to Dubai? Premium bonds look like they could get even less attractive soon. So is it time to say goodbye to Ernie? And with one year, NS &I British saving bonds about to mature, where should you put your money next?

0:42Also today, going to uni or know someone who is. We have a current account trick, which could mean you arrive with hundreds of pounds in pocket. And crane on the case. This time a sad story involving the wrong type of death certificate. But don't forget to stay up to date with all the latest breaking money news. Just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app. Take control of your finances with Charles Stanley Direct. Invest, save, coach or plan. Using technology where it's helpful and people where it matters. Our website and app make trading cost effective and flexible. But we're more than just an online investment service.

1:20We're here for you regardless of your financial needs or if your life takes an unexpected turn. Your finances, your way. Take control today with Charles Stanley Direct. Sign up now.

1:34Helen Crane: Investment involves risk. But first, no income tax, petrol at 50p a litre, shopping malls with ski slopes and sunshine all year round. Dubai, especially if you've been on LinkedIn recently, I've noticed, seems to have a lot to recommend itself, especially as every new day brings a new story of planned government tax hikes. The latest speculation being around charging landlords national insurance. So is it time to join the influencers and the oil magnates for a new life in the Middle East? Helen, Rachel, welcome. Rachel, welcome back. Thank you so much, Georgie. After my, I think, maybe seven year hiatus.

2:16It's so nice to be back. Seven years. It is. Honestly, I was so happy when Helen said that you would be on the show today. So I will let you kick off then. Fancy living in Dubai? Well, no, but I've never been there. So I'd be I'd be willing to be open minded. but it seems like there's so many people moving to Dubai at the moment. The population, I think, has doubled or something in 15 years. There's about 420 ,000 Brits there. And yes, I mean, I know everyone talks about the warm weather, but it's not like all lovely balmy sun. It's hot, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, like it hits you like a train hot.

2:56And I know everyone is a bit upset about increased taxation, but that's never felt to me to be my primary motivation for where I might live. I mean, we do pay a lot in tax, but we get quite a lot of good stuff for it as well. So on balance, no, and I'm not really looking to, I quite like it here. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm a big fan of the UK. Helen, I have been to Dubai, I have to say, twice. It is not a place I'd want to live. I don't care how little tax you pay, but it seems that people do. As I said to you, I'm on LinkedIn and it's constantly people like, oh, I'm moving my family to Dubai. But as Rachel said, I've got bigger considerations as to whether I'm going to uproot my life and go halfway across the world for tax reasons.

3:40Helen Crane: That's true. I think for me, honestly, I'm just far too pale skinned. I think I would do absolutely terribly living in the desert. It would be a disaster. I've actually never been either. So I can't really judge it before I've been there. But I don't know if it would be for me. But what I thought was interesting, so this is a piece that I wrote this week. And like you said, people have been relocating to Dubai for quite some time. This isn't necessarily new. However, what I think has kind of brought it into focus is, as Rachel said, there's been all this talk over the last few weeks about new tax hikes.

4:14Helen Crane: Obviously, since Labour came into power, there's been tax hikes already. and obviously as you all know the big selling point or one of the big selling points of living in Dubai is that people don't pay income tax and I think you know over the last few months not I was going to say wealthy people but you know middle income and ambitious sort of people I think are feeling like they are potentially going to be more heavily taxed and you know If you're a bit of a Dubai-type person, you might think, actually, could I? I think maybe it'll give some people just that little extra bit of a push. What's a Dubai-type person?

4:54Helen, what's a Dubai-type person?

4:56Helen Crane: Well, first of all, people who like the extreme heat, as I said. But it's a certain lifestyle, isn't it? I don't want to generalise too much. I think it's easy to look at it and say, you know, influencers taking selfies by the pool and oil magnates and supercars. There is obviously a bit more to it than that. No, Helen, it's not. I'm sorry. I'm just going to plough in on Dubai here and just say it is just conspicuous wealth. If you like nature and going outside, it's fine if you've got really pale skin. You are not going to be outside. You're going to be in some overly hyper air conditioned shopping mall.

5:34it's got no culture I'm sure look if you live there and you have a community and everything you'll make it work for you but I thought Qatar had more to it than Dubai to be fair but either

5:44Helen Crane: way yeah I think for me I think for me it's the culture would be the thing you know not being able to you know just all the all the stuff that I was gonna say London but actually the whole UK you know we have lovely towns and cities and you know so many old places to see and I just quite like old thing there's obviously just no old things there is there which i think for me would you know be upsetting but obviously you know there are people who you don't care about that stuff and i think the people i've spoken to this week so there's a couple of guys who the reason so they both recently moved to dubai over the last couple of months um they're both taking their um partner's girlfriends with them uh one of them is moving his stepdaughter out soon and the thing this sort of pull for them has been that they both run their own businesses.

6:30Helen Crane: And it's not necessarily the personal income tax, even though it's obviously a huge factor. It's that they feel that they can start a business there, and the business tax burden will be less. And their jobs, you know, they're fairly normal jobs. One of them works in recruitment, he's starting a recruitment company, and the other one is starting a law firm. So these aren't sort of, they're not going out there to be a supercar influencer these are sort of relatively uh you know normal jobs and i think what was interesting to speak to them is it's the business tax but it's also just a different lifestyle a more kind of afterward lifestyle and i think it was interesting that one of them obviously has a stepchild the other one is thinking about starting a family and they said things like you know it feels quite safe here um you know it's quite family orientated private school is much cheaper there and you know i think it's just a bit of a different perspective on okay these are guys in their 20s but they're not going out they're not going out there to party they're going out to settle down i think they just think they can live a slightly more kind of affluent and kind of comfortable lifestyle which i thought was an interesting take on it there is a bigger issue here and you've both touched on it uh rachel isn't it and even if it's not dubai i'm hearing reports people you know australia the us canada spain anywhere it feels people are talking or dreaming of leaving the UK for a variety of reasons.

7:51It feels very miserable. I don't want to get into the miserablism about it, because as we said, we love this country. It's marvellous. But the tax raids, all the speculation, and I'm not a big fan of all the speculation around the tax issues and what might be in the budget. But we did get another one this week about landlords. So explain to us what that was about and what you think generally of all this speculation. To start at the end on the speculation, we don't even have a date yet for the budget. My money is on, I think, the 30th because it's always on a Wednesday. It tends to be around Halloween, give or take, but we don't even know yet.

8:30And we tend to have, I mean, budget speculation is quite common. It's very early this year. and it's understandable in a way because the chancellor has has made very clear that she has her own fiscal rules that she has to abide by and in order to do that she's gonna have to raise some tax from somewhere or cut somewhere else so then of course starts the speculation on well where could she raise the taxes from and it yes inevitably gets people worried. I don't really know that that worry is what's translating into people considering moving. The grass is always greener. There are always things to grumble about here.

9:13And maybe that's part of what we like about being British. It's a national pastime. Yeah, the act of grumbling. I love grumbling. So I'm not sure that that's what's prompting people to move. But then to go back to your first question, the latest speculation, is reports unconfirmed? And by the way, no reports will be confirmed until quite late on in the proceedings, one, because she'll leave all her options open, two, because the Chancellor makes it very clear that she won't speculate in advance of fiscal moments, and three, because Chancellors tend to float ideas to see how well they go down and when they're smacked away quickly then that can be a good indication that they might not go down very well and and i agree that a lot of this speculation can be unhelpful because it gets people worried but at the same time this whole game that is played with the chance of saying what about this one and think tanks media consumer groups or people on social media and everywhere else then no we don't like it that is all part of the budget forming process but anyway so the latest is on whether landlords will be charged national insurance on the rental income that they receive at the moment they pay income tax as you would on on other types of earnings but they don't pay national insurance in a way that makes sense right Why should one type of income be treated different to earnings?

10:54There is work that goes into being a landlord and having a property and making that investment. But there's also a lot of work that goes into earning a monthly or daily or weekly salary as well. So why should they be treated differently? But then within the context of what landlords have been experiencing over the past five years or so, already it's really hard to make any kind of profit the fear is that this will be the final straw for lots of landlords and you know you can have different views about whether that's a good or a bad thing if landlords sell up does that mean that prices fall and then first-time buyers are able to buy or does it mean that there are fewer properties on the market and so rental yields go up and that's no good for tenants and makes it even harder for them to get onto the property ladder.

11:41It's nuanced. And it's interesting, actually, I don't remember this idea coming up before. Why haven't you thought national insurance on? So certainly, they're sort of exploring every possibility and permutation in hope of a billion here and a billion there to balance the books. Well, I mean, it could say a couple of things why they haven't thought of it before. Probably it's a bad idea or the fact that a lot of politicians have rental properties. That's been making the news recently. But it does annoy me, this whole argument about if you tax landlords, that's fine, they'll just sell up and then the properties will go into the wider country and people can buy them.

12:20But actually, it takes away from the benefits of renting. And especially if you're trying to grow the economy, getting people moving and able to travel around and live in different places. Certainly, I've benefited from that in my career. And it's very binary and it It does frustrate me. Helen, my concern, and I agree with Rachel in as much as why should one income be treated in a different way, earned income. But where's it going to go? It's just going to go on renters. And renters are already forking out a heck of a lot of money. The Labour Party say with this new renters bill, it's fine because they will bring in measures that will stop overmarket rate increases.

12:57And landlords can't increase the rent by more than once a year. but having rented for most of my adult life, I've only ever experienced one rental increase a year and all market rate and they're still very expensive.

13:09Helen Crane: I agree. I think Rachel does have a point. Being a landlord, perhaps you should be taxed more on that income. It's really difficult because as you say, what will they do? They will simply lump that onto tenants' rent, of course. And it's an unintended concept, but I'm sure something that the Treasury must be thinking about and maybe they are thinking that obviously there's renters reform bill coming in I think early next year that is designed to to kind of rein some of those rent increases in but I think the situation has got so bad already so I was reading a statistic the other day since I think it's the start of the pandemic the average rent has gone up by about 400 pounds a month which is just crazy crazy um you know it's already at such a high level do you know i mean it's already very bad and very unsuitable the argument that landlords always make against these kind of tax rises is oh well you know we'll we'll just leave and then rents will go up more because there'll be more sort of competition for the for the properties uh that are left it's it's incredibly difficult and And, you know, what is the solution to all this?

14:18Helen Crane: I mean, like it or not, you know, we need landlords because not everyone can buy. Not everyone wants to buy. You know, as you were saying, some people like being able to move around, to move for work, you know, just just don't want to commit to sort of staying in one place. So we do. We need somewhere for renters to live. Obviously, it's a very labour policy to tax landlords. And I understand what, you know, you're not going to lose votes for taxing landlords more, probably. But it's one of those problems which never really goes away, you know, but renters need somewhere to live and we need landlords.

14:51Helen Crane: But they're obviously a very easy target for tax. And where does it go? I mean, the other point, I suppose, is how do you treat income from being a landlord in relation to other places they might invest? So how did the taxes on being a landlord compare to, say, stocks and shares? Probably if this new sort of tax comes in, it will be quite a lot more. So it gets easier and easier for them to sort of take their money somewhere else, I suppose, is the point. Right, before we move on from this, I just want to pivot back to Dubai. Helen, on your article, you have written, if anybody does want to move to Dubai, please don't listen to me.

15:26I mean, lots of people love it. They do. They absolutely love it. It's just, it doesn't suit my very British personality, I think.

15:33Helen Crane: Yeah, I mean, it is. There are many ways. If you do fancy this, you know, plenty of people do. It's reasonably easy to get a visa. As Rachel said earlier, Dubai is desperate to sort of increase its population. I think it wants to double it in the next few years. So they're really keen to get people from other countries over. So there's a few ways you can do it. The two people I spoke to have got what's called a green visa, which is often used for people starting businesses if you're self-employed so you don't need someone to sponsor you you get residency for two years but you need to be an owner or a partner in a business that's registered in the UAE and you know don't demonstrate that it's a financially viable business and you also get to take your family over if you get that kind of visa which is a bonus obviously if you're going to work for a company you can get sponsored in the normal way as you would sort of moving elsewhere if they're willing to do that and then there's also the golden visa, which you can get through buying property.

16:32Helen Crane: So if you're willing to buy a home in Dubai or the UAE, this all applies to the UAE as a whole, rather than just Dubai. So if you're willing to buy a property worth about£400 ,000 or more, you do need to put down a deposit of at least 20%. But you can essentially get a 10-year residency from making that investment. So there's multiple ways to do it. I think buying property is something that people are maybe more interested in. so the reason I sort of started looking into all of this was that a few weeks ago there was this announcement that Dubai was starting a sort of a first-time buyer scheme so giving people who haven't bought a home before in Dubai so you could be an expat or you could be a sort of native giving them sort of preferential property prices mortgage rates to really encourage them to kind of get on the ladder there so I think it's something that they've got their eye on and you know clearly a lot of people do feel quite priced out in this country of course there are properties in Dubai, which are incredibly expensive.

17:31Helen Crane: But there are some that are, you know, round about the price of the UK, maybe sort of slightly cheaper if you're not looking at the super glitzy developments. And obviously, you get to keep more of your income, right? So even if you buy a property that's the same price in the UK, your salary is where you keep more of your salary, so you feel wealthier. So there's an advantage to it. And I think it's something that they've perhaps quite smartly kind of got an eye on. Yeah, I'm not convinced. Okay, moving on. I fear the writing is on the wall for another cut to the premium bond prize rate, likely as soon as October.

18:04That from This Is Money and Money Mail savings expert Sylvia Morris in her piece this week. Other rates from NS &I are also in line for the chop, she says. A cut would be the fourth this year alone to premium bonds. And it comes as those who bought NS &I one-year growth and income bonds, collectively known as British Savings Bonds, at a rate of 5.15 % last year, will find themselves looking for a new home for their cash as the bonds mature. So should you stick with NS &I? Rachel, this is interesting because both my other half and I have decided to get rid of our premium bonds at the same time without even discussing it with each other.

18:41I mean, why would we discuss it with each other? But you know what I mean? Like it was just independent decision at exactly the same time we've had enough I suspect you won't be the only ones Sylvia Morris she knows I mean she's she's so good at predicting these things um and where she's got this this hunch from it's more than a hunch is looking at the quarterly figures that are put out by NS &I about how much money that they've brought in and they've got a government target they're supposed to raise 10 billion pounds in their tax year which runs from april um and they've got a leeway of four billion plus or minus but they took in two and a half billion in their first quarter so if they continue at that rate at the same rate as the previous quarter they'll absolutely be within their target range however they haven't yet cut their rates since the bank of england cut the base rate but everyone else not everyone else but but by and large most savings providers did not wait very long at all to pass on um rate cuts to their customers and in some cases and then some i mean some are outrageously pitiful we're around one percent for the big banks now a lot of them so if nsni rates are staying high the competition is falling then suddenly nsni starts to look too enticing to customers and ns and i doesn't want this one because they'll overshoot their target two because it starts to distort the market and they end up taking customers off their competitors which they don't want to do but it has been quite a series of of cuts as you say and there will be a point where where people say come on i've had enough but then the question is what you do then rates across the board are falling fixed rates are holding up a lot better than than easy access but bearing in mind that inflation is what 3.8 percent you you have to work at the moment to beat inflation and if you don't beat inflation then the value of your savings is being eroded yeah so i think there'll be lots of people considering moving that or hoping to move their money but then when they come to do it wondering what exactly they're going to do and won't you miss the beginning of the month i would have done if i'd have actually won anything recently, but I haven't.

21:08I've only got a tiddly amount in there. There's not a lot. And I'll probably just, I've already got my emergency savings pot. So I'll probably use it to invest because you said your money needs to work harder now to beat inflation. Yes, there was an element where I was like, every month, this is exciting. But it's, you know, it gets demoralizing. If every month now for the last, I don't even know how long, I've earned nothing. I mean, to be fair, like I said, I don't have a huge amount in there. But yeah, there was an element of that excitement. But even that excitement, if you're getting nothing.

21:34It's just pointless, isn't it? I think it's quite telling as well that when they've cut the overall prize rate, they've increased the number of small prizes or kept that number the same, but they've decreased the number of big prizes. So there's more people who are still thinking, yeah, I've won, although it will probably be£25, which is, you know, better than nothing, but it's hardly the jackpot. And fewer people receiving a life-changing£100 ,000. But that little amount is what keeps people going. It's just a little drip feed of excitement. I'm not even getting that. Helen, this comes as British savings bonds mature.

22:12Tell us about this.

22:13Helen Crane: Yeah, so British savings bonds. This is the one year bonds that NS &I offers. There's two types, growth bonds and income bonds. So they bring these out every year. About a year ago, July 30th, 2024, they launched their last issue and that had a rate of 5.15%, offered exclusively to existing customers who had taken the account the year before 2023, when it was paying 6.2%. So an incredible rate has been on offer for those two years. It's ended up being kind of mostly sort of market beating. That's obviously now coming up for renewal again. It's about 180 ,000 people who have these one-year bonds.

23:01Helen Crane: So it looks like the latest issue, 4.18 % for this year. So a lot of people are going to be thinking, actually, I can perhaps do a little bit better than that. I'm wondering kind of where to now put that money. So on a balance of£10 ,000, that'd be£418 of interest a year. But if you chose the sort of top paying one year fixed account, it would be 453. So you can do a little bit better if you look elsewhere. You can get 4.42 % if you go with Atom Bank or 4.35 % with Ford money. So it's looking like a lot of these people will look to kind of shift away to another account. I think it's an interesting time to be looking at one year fixes as well.

23:46Helen Crane: So the base rate has come down at the last decision. It's probably unlikely to go down again till maybe the end of the year or maybe even the start of next year. So, you know, perhaps taking a one year fix now could be a relatively smart move, you know, kind of fixing at this rate and then, yeah, secure yourself and maybe into the middle of next year when things might sort of start to go down again. That's it for part one.

24:16Helen Crane: I'm joined now by Blairim Gashi from Charles Stanley Direct for our weekly Investing Explained feature. Blairim, there's been turmoil in the markets in both the US and France this week over political tensions. Is this just a short-term blip and what's the advice for investors? Good question, Helen. I mean, market volatility and politics, you know, them being tied together is nothing new. You know, whether it's elections, debates, unexpected headlines, as we've seen recently with Trump, short-term swings, you know, is part of investing and kind of part of the day-to-day that we deal with. And when we're talking about the US and France, what we're seeing this week looks more like a reaction to uncertainty rather than anything else.

24:59For long-term investors, you know, the key from this is to not get caught up in the noise. You know, staying diversified, sticking to your plan and focusing on the fundamentals is, in my opinion, a lot more important than day-to-day political drama. If anything, you know, volatility can actually create opportunities for disciplined investors. So in a long way, my kind of advice would be, you know, just don't make any knee-jerk reactions. Volatility shouldn't really be a problem, especially when you have many years of investing to go. And you are also investing regularly, which causes pound cost averaging.

25:33I would say review your goals, ensure your portfolio matches your risk tolerance. And remember that markets have historically weathered political storms like the one we're facing now.

25:43Helen Crane: Blaren, thank you very much. Thank you. Welcome back. If your little darling is off to university or you know someone who's going, they can arrive hundreds of pounds better off thanks to a battle that's erupted between the banks. To entice a new cohort of customers, they're offering fee-free overdrafts, cash bonuses and freebies such as rail cards. Experts say there's nothing to stop new students opening one account and switching to another once they've received their gifts to get even more perks. Rachel, why are banks doing this, firstly? Because they want these new customers, but also they know that people don't still people don't tend to move bank accounts very often.

26:27So if they manage to nab you when you're a student, there's a very good chance they'll have you for decades to come when you become, you know, graduates commanding substantial, well, either commanding substantial wages or taking on a lot of debt. Either way, they're going to profit from you. So they want you. And so in that context, what's 100 quid to hand over as a perk? But at the same time, to a student, 100 quid. What absolute treasures. So Nationwide and Lloyds are both offering that amount. And Santander is offering a four-year rail card, which is worth£115. And that's what it would cost you were you to buy it.

27:09But then if you are moving away for university or perhaps have a partner who's at a different university, so you're going to be on the trains a fair bit, you'll get your money back from that pretty quickly. There's Deliveroo vouchers. There's Just Eat vouchers. they're all finding different things which are substantially, I'd say, more enticing than the CDs that I received when I opened. I'm so glad you said that. I got a free football for opening up a credit card. What a stupid, stupid girl. Stupid girl. But I was with the longest relationship I've ever had was with the bank that I joined when I went to university.

27:4918 years. So you can see the benefits. How do you make the most of those perks?

27:55Helen Crane: So I can actually beat that, Georgie. I am still with the bank that I joined for my Saturday job when I was 16. You are a little bit younger than me, though. I know. Never got student account. No, no, no. No, no, Georgie. You look delightful. 16 years old. I don't think my bank. I was with Abbey National. Gone. I know. Brilliant. At that age. Any tales of caution, Helen? Look, I think obviously these perks are great, but there's no point in taking them if it's not something that you're going to use. So if you don't travel on the train, if you've got a car or whatever, probably don't get an account because it has a free rail card.

28:39Helen Crane: If you don't get takeaways, don't take one with free delivery vouchers. vouchers. I think what's important is looking at things like the overdraft. So it's obviously ideal to not be in a huge overdraft when you're a student. But for some people, it's clearly, you know, necessary, especially if you're living somewhere expensive, it can be unavoidable. So you want to look at how much the overdraft is when it's sort of meted out. So a lot of these accounts, they'll give you£1 ,000 in the first year, then£2 ,000 in the next year and£3 ,000 in the third year. So make sure you kind of know those terms.

29:13Helen Crane: And if you think you are going to need that, make sure it's got enough, because if you go over that, the charges can be quite hefty. But don't just kind of treat it as free money. I think that's the mistake that a lot of people make. And, you know, it's so difficult, especially, as I said, if you're living somewhere quite expensive, you've got a lot of costs and kind of not that much coming in. You know, I don't want to preach to people about not using their student overdraft, but there's a lot of sort of tricks because we've got a piece on the website this week from our savings reporter, Helen Coran, explaining some of the kind of tricks that people use.

29:47Helen Crane: So some people will kind of pay themselves when they get their student loan, they'll put it into a separate account and they'll kind of pay themselves a budget each week just to make sure that they don't go off track and end up with not enough money left at the end of the term. I mean, it's incredibly sensible and not the sort of thing that I would have done when I was a student at all. So I don't know if I want to be kind of telling people, But I think, look, the main thing is don't kind of bury your head in the sand. Be aware of the money you're getting from your student loan, part-time job or whatever.

30:17Just know what's coming in, what's going out and just try and be aware of it rather than burying your head in the sand, I think would be my top advice. Absolutely right. Rachel, you are the budgeting queen. Any tips for students or for all of us? oh it's it's so hard and I am yeah I don't I don't even feel qualified or comfortable giving advice to this cohort based on what I did because the stakes are so much higher the level of debt that you come out with the living expenses it's a completely different landscape now and in a way that's a great shame because I was I was thinking about my time at university and I worked on my degree I also spent a lot of time at the student paper a disproportionate amount of my time at the student and that paid off in the end but I felt able to do that because the the stakes weren't so high that it didn't feel quite as when well I guess when you know that you're going to come out with what 50 grand of debt just for starters and that you will never pay that off more than likely for the rest of your career you really need to get your money's worth out of that degree but sometimes it's the things around your degree that can end up helping you out in the long term as well obviously the friends that you make the experience that you have but also those extracurricular things the the things that you're exposed to that you may not otherwise have been.

32:00So I don't know how, you know, what that would feel like in this kind of climate. But I'd say, while you're trying to get your money's worth out of your degree, don't do it at the expense of other things that may end up paying dividends in the long term. At the time I spent on my student paper, oh, I made such good friends, who are friends now, and I hope will be friends for life. And you may well find people who are doing your degree who you find a kindred spirit you may have to search further afield and and find them within other areas of your interests and i think that's worth doing as well here here rachel here here finally crane has been back on the case and it's it's a sad one this september my husband and i had planned a holiday traveling around different cities in spain a lovely trip done it myself sadly he died in April.

32:50Before he died, he'd booked two overnight crossings with Brittany Ferry's total cost was just under£900. A month after his death, I contacted Brittany to ask to cancel the trip and have the money returned, either in cash or vouchers. I was asked to provide a death certificate. What I sent was a copy of the interim death certificate, which I was issued because my husband's death is subject to an inquest. However, Brittany said it can't cancel any booking without a full death certificate. I've used the interim death certificate to sort out all his other financial affairs. The inquest isn't going to happen before the ferry sets sail.

33:25So do I just have to accept I will never get the money back? Helen, what an absolute headache for someone who's going through this.

33:33Helen Crane: Yes, it's incredibly sad thing that's happened, obviously. And I think what's interesting about this is it's a case of a company not really thinking this should have been really easy to sort out. And they've just put this silly roadblock in the way, made this poor lady's life really difficult. And there was absolutely no need. It's ridiculous that this is a ferry crossing. She isn't trying to get money from her late husband's bank account or sort his pension or apply for probate. This is a ferry crossing. Why is this the hardest thing that she's had to deal with. You know, people who've lost someone talk about sadmen or the horrible things that you have to sort out when someone sadly passes away.

34:21Helen Crane: And why is this her biggest piece of sadmen, this trying to get the money back for this Brittany Ferries crossing? So I actually didn't know what an interim death certificate was before I wrote this story. I'll just explain. So it's in a case where someone has died, but it's sadly subject to an inquest or a post-mortem. And it means that they can't issue a full death certificate straight away because they don't have the cause of death yet. But it's an official document. It has everything that a death certificate would have, essentially apart from the cause of death. And it should be accepted by any sort of institution for financial purposes.

35:04Helen Crane: They should just accept it. It's essentially the same thing. And this lady said she'd managed to sort out all his finances, his bank, apply for probate with this interim desk to have got no problem. It's good enough for the government. It's good enough for the bank. But no, apparently not for Brittany Ferries. So I got in touch. And of course, they were incredibly quick to reverse this decision and said, yeah, we shouldn't have done that. that was a mistake of course and you can have the money back and they also gave her another 135 pounds to refund a sort of membership her husband had had signed up to before he sadly died this crossing by the way was worth about 800 pounds so this is quite quite serious money i'm really glad that she got the money back but i just think it's a case of the person that she spoke to there obviously you know just wasn't trained this is a situation they kind of just hadn't come across And instead of looking into it and thinking, oh, what is this interim death certificate?

36:03Helen Crane: Is that okay? They just kind of followed it to the absolute letter of their policy and said, nah, sorry. It's a very computer says no. Like, obviously, this should have been incredibly easy to sort out. And it wasn't. And this woman has been given, sadly, a massive headache, but glad to have got it sorted for her. and she said she's going to use the money to hopefully go on another trip. And yeah, I hope she has a really lovely time because she definitely deserves it. Good for her. Sad mint. I've never heard that before. Rachel, in all your years, you must have seen some horrible cases like this.

36:41The computer says no. Come on, be a bit more human. It's so infuriating. And also for the firms who are in the wrong, when they find out what they've done. They're often equally horrified and shocked. But it's just this decline of customer service that we've seen. And they all are so pleased with themselves for the chatbots and the AI tools that they've made available and the automated processes that mean things should be much easier and simpler. But it means that anything that's slightly off the beaten track, people can end up in these terrible situations where they've got no one to talk to. And yeah, our post bag is absolutely full.

37:26So I edit Money Mail, the Daily Mail's money section, and Wealth and Personal Finance, the Mail on Sunday money section. And we get so many letters from people who just don't know where to turn. Because once you've tried emailing and you don't get a response, once you've interacted with a chatbot and got absolutely nowhere, and when you've looked on the website and there is not a single phone number for you to contact, then what? There's us and we always like hearing from readers as does This Is Money. But it's very difficult when you have anything that's remotely out of the ordinary. Well, keep up the good work, the pair of you.

38:04But yes, very frustrating. Right, that is it. You can keep up to date with all the latest Breaking Money news. Just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app. And if you have any comments or questions for the team or anything you'd like them to look into, Helen?

38:16Helen Crane: You can email us at editor at thisismoney.co.uk, tweet us at thisismoney, or join the debate in the reader comments. And if you like our podcast, why not rate us wherever you found us? It helps other people find us too. Take control of your finances with Charles Stanley Direct. Invest, save, coach, or plan. Using technology where it's helpful and people where it matters. Our website and app make trading cost-effective and flexible, but we're more than just an online investment service. We're here for you, regardless of your financial needs or if your life takes an unexpected turn. Your finances, your way.

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39:01Helen Crane: Investment involves risk.