I have a EU passport, working remotely in the UK, have a fully settled status, and for the last 8 months I’ve been in the UK for a total of maybe 5 days.

I still have a UK address which I realistically don’t live in, but I have ability to receive letters in there. I Also have UK phone number and I continue to receive salary to my UK bank account. So on paper I’m a resident of the UK.

I use UK credit card for everything and it works out quite well especially with lower costs of living.

I’m currently in Hungary but I’m not registered here. I don’t think they know I’m here because with EU passport I could just cross the border any time and that it doesn’t look like it’s tracked anywhere. I haven’t seen anyone in Hungary to track my whereabouts, and I usually say that I’m temporarily living here.

I haven’t told my employer, which is a bit risky but so far they haven’t found out. My boss said he wouldn’t care if I worked from abroad sometimes (we had an informal chat about it)

I do come to the office once every 2 months, and generally my colleagues think I live in England. There aren’t any emergency office meets, which gives usually me time to plan the flights and hotels etc.

So I have few questions.

Could there be any implications if I do it long term? Could HMRC find out that I’m living abroad? Could they use UK border data to check how often I am in the country? Would they even care if they did find out? After all I’m paying tax to their pocket so why wouldn’t they be happy?

  • Greenawayer@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Could there be any implications if I do it long term? Could HMRC find out that I’m living abroad? Could they use UK border data to check how often I am in the country? Would they even care if they did find out? After all I’m paying tax to their pocket so why wouldn’t they be happy?

    Unless you phone up HMRC or write to them they will assume you are living happily at your last address. HMRC won’t do any pro-active checks. They don’t have time.

    There’s very little cross-checking of border data for UK citizens unless you start going around attracting the UK police’s attention.

    Unless you pro-actively tell your host country where officially live then they won’t know.

    People need to stop worrying.

    • SxxxX@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I totally agree with you, but to keep pretending like you’re still living in UK you have to commit few crimes here and there. AFAIK all UK banks except for HSBC and international branches of high-street ones only work with residents and tend to ask you about residency from time to time.

      It’s not like you can’t do it, but you need to consider consequences especially when OP only ILR and he is not actually UK citizen.

      • Greenawayer@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I totally agree with you, but to keep pretending like you’re still living in UK you have to commit few crimes here and there. AFAIK all UK banks except for HSBC and international branches of high-street ones only work with residents and tend to ask you about residency from time to time.

        No you don’t. I’ve lived outside of the UK for long periods of time. I’ve never been asked to provide proof I’m living at a particular address by a bank.

        Please stop over thinking this and posting information that is not practical.