Skybound Property & Finance has updated its proposition using Skybound Wealth’s proprietary advice technology to help expatriates and internationally mobile clients consider property and borrowing options alongside their wider financial position.
An expatriate property decision may begin with a mortgage, but its consequences can extend well beyond the lending itself, Skybound said in a statement announcing the launch.
A client deciding whether to buy, retain, refinance or sell a property may also be weighing liquidity, retirement planning, income, currency exposure, tax and future cash flow. Looking at one part in isolation can produce an answer that is workable in the short term but incomplete when set against the client’s wider plans.
Skybound Wealth said that it has further strengthened Skybound Property & Finance by integrating Plume, the firm’s proprietary advice technology, into the division’s advice process. Through Plume, advisers can consider relevant property and borrowing options alongside information about the client’s wider financial position and use MoneyMap to model potential effects on the long-term plan.
The development follows recent work connecting relevant UK property-tax planning with the property-finance journey. Together, these steps are intended to help clients identify connected considerations earlier, while practical choices remain available.
Internationally-mobile
For an internationally mobile client, a property decision can affect several parts of the financial plan at the same time. A client living overseas may own a former UK home, receive income in another currency, service a sterling mortgage and still be building towards retirement elsewhere. A decision to retain, refinance or sell can therefore change more than the monthly payment.
The wider conversation may include:
- current and future cash flow
- the amount of liquidity available for other goals or unexpected costs
- retirement projections and the timing of future income
- currency exposure where income, borrowing and assets are held in different currencies
- relevant tax, ownership and residence considerations
- the potential use of sale proceeds or additional borrowing
- the effect of different interest-rate, rental-income and property-cost assumptions
Skybound Property & Finance is intended to bring those considerations into the conversation before the client commits to a course of action.
Plume
Plume supports a more connected advice process. It allows Property & Finance advisers to access relevant information held in Hub, Skybound Wealth’s operating platform, and to use MoneyMap, its financial-forecasting engine, when exploring property and borrowing options against the client’s long-term plan.
The aim is not to turn a property decision into an automated answer. It is to give the adviser and client a clearer way to explore trade-offs, test assumptions and understand how one decision may influence other priorities. Any recommendation remains subject to regulated advice and a full assessment of the client’s individual circumstances.
Retain, refinance or sell?
Consider a client who now lives overseas but still owns a former home in the UK. The existing mortgage is approaching the end of its fixed term, and the client is deciding whether to retain the property and continue letting it, refinance it, or sell and use the proceeds elsewhere.
A mortgage-only conversation might focus on available products and whether the refinancing is affordable. The wider planning question is what each option may do to the client’s financial position over time.
Using MoneyMap, the adviser can explore scenarios that may include:
- retaining the property with ongoing mortgage payments, rental income, maintenance and potential vacancy costs
- refinancing at a different rate or borrowing level and assessing the effect on future cash flow
- selling the property and considering how the net proceeds may support liquidity, retirement or other goals
- testing how different currency and long-term planning assumptions could affect the comparison
Where the circumstances create a relevant UK tax-planning question, the Property & Finance adviser can coordinate appropriate specialist input while the client still has meaningful choices. The provider, scope, terms and any applicable fee for specialist advice will be agreed before that advice is provided, and another jurisdiction may require a separate local tax or legal professional.
The modelling does not predict which option will perform best. It gives the client a structured comparison based on the information and assumptions available at the time, so the practical and financial trade-offs can be discussed before a decision is made, Skybound said.
Kieron Franklin, pictured left, Group Head of Property & Finance at Skybound Wealth, said: “A client asking whether to keep a UK property is really asking a much larger question. It touches their income, their retirement, their currency and their tax position.
“With Plume, we can bring more of that picture into one conversation and show the client how different options may affect their wider plan.
“That is the difference. Not a faster mortgage. A better decision.”
Husain Rangwalla, Chief Technology Officer at Skybound Wealth, said: “Property advice has been under-served by technology for a long time. It tends to be treated as a transaction, sitting apart from everything else in a client’s financial life.
“Bringing Plume into the Property & Finance advice process means the property and borrowing conversation can be considered alongside relevant parts of the client’s wider position. That gives advisers a stronger basis for building and explaining recommendations.
“And because we built the technology ourselves, we can keep shaping it around what advisers and clients actually need.”
