Currency: when a European buyer should move money, and who decides

The deposit schedule is the exposure. Get it in writing first.

A preconstruction purchase priced in dollars and funded from euros or sterling is paid in instalments over two or three years. Each instalment converts at whatever the rate is on that day.

That means the total home currency cost of the purchase is not knowable at signing, and it can differ meaningfully from what you calculated on the day you decided.

The deposit schedule, with amounts and trigger dates, is the single document that turns this from a vague worry into a manageable question. Get it in writing before you sign, not afterwards.

The exposure is staged and long.

A completed purchase converts once. The rate on that day is the rate, and the exposure is over in a day.

A preconstruction purchase converts several times across years, at a reservation, at contract, at one or more construction milestones, and at closing. The final and usually largest payment falls furthest away and is therefore the least predictable.

Trigger dates add a wrinkle. Instalments tied to construction milestones rather than calendar dates move when the building moves, which is frequently. A schedule that looked like four known dates can become four approximate ones.

Ask which instalments are date driven and which are milestone driven. It changes what you can plan around.

Three, and they suit different people.

Convert as you go. Buy dollars at each instalment. Simplest, no counterparty arrangements, and you accept whatever the rate does. Suits buyers for whom the variation is not material relative to the overall position.

Fix scheduled payments forward. Forward contracts allow a rate to be agreed now for a payment made later, which converts an unknown cost into a known one. Providers require margin, and milestone driven instalments complicate the dates, but many buyers use them for exactly this purpose.

Hold dollars already. If you have or will have dollar assets or income, the question may not arise, and buying a dollar asset with dollars removes the exposure entirely rather than managing it.

Which of these is right depends on how large the purchase is relative to your position, whether a fixed cost has planning value to you, and what your own advisers say. It is not a question with a general answer.

And why we are saying so plainly.

We do not forecast exchange rates, we do not tell buyers that now is a good moment to convert, and we would be sceptical of anyone in this industry who does.

A brokerage has an obvious interest in a buyer transacting sooner rather than later, which makes currency commentary from a brokerage exactly the kind of advice a buyer should discount. We would rather say that than be quietly useful in the other direction.

What we will do is get you the deposit schedule in writing, tell you which instalments are date driven and which are milestone driven, and introduce you to specialists who handle this properly.

Four steps.

Obtain the full deposit schedule in writing, with amounts, dates and what triggers each instalment.

Take it to a currency specialist before signing, so the options are priced against real dates rather than discussed in the abstract.

Decide the approach deliberately, and write down what you decided and why, because the decision has to survive two or three years and several rate moves.

Revisit at each milestone rather than at each headline. Currency news is continuous and mostly noise, and a plan made calmly is worth more than a reaction made quickly.