Matt Stimpson became an accidental landlord in Warwickshire nearly 20 years ago when his job took him abroad to Australia, Thailand and the United States.

For 15 years it was a breeze and he received £1,200 a month in rent. Then the pandemic hit and he lost £20,000 in rental income.

Mr Stimpson, 55, who bought the house in 1999 for £170,000, sold up in October for £690,000.

After adding the proceeds of the sale to his savings, he now has £670,000 in his bank account. He has also jointly inherited his mother’s flat and will receive half of the cash from its sale. This will boost his pot to £755,000.

But there are big limitations on what Mr Stimpson can do. He is a British citizen but has been living with his wife and two children in the United States for the past five years. He is now a “US person” so he cannot invest in Isas, while most funds are off-limits.

He does not want to reinvest in buy-to-lets in Britain. “That would feel like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire,” he said.

Ideally, he would move the money to his Australian and US bank accounts and use it to pay off his loans and add to his pensions. In America he has a $520,000 (£388,000) mortgage on the family home and a $100,000 private pension. In Australia he and his wife own two buy-to-lets with mortgages totalling A$1.3m (£684,000). Mr Stimpson also has A$550,000 in a company pension.

But if he takes the money out of the UK he will fall foul of unattractive exchange rates. “If I transferred £300,000 to my Australian bank account I would lose £40,000 more than if the exchange rate was where it was three years ago.”

Mr Stimpson and his wife have a combined annual income of $440,000. Longer term, he wants to have $150,000 a year to retire on, buy a €500,000 (£416,000) holiday home in southern Europe and travel. “I have a dream to do the Pan-American Highway by motorbike from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego,” he said.

Yet the longer he waits, the more inflation eats into his money. Mr Stimpson’s question is: “Are there other options for me in the UK or should I bite the bullet and move the cash abroad?”