salsvolatile

Hello there,

I'm a journalist for The Sunday Times. I'm on-the-hunt for Brits who've retired to India, to share their experiences. I'm in India at the moment. Contact me on +91 991 080 5735, or at [email protected].

Thanks,

Sally

dreadsoc

Hi Sally

Firstly welcome to BE.

I would recommend you read the 'Buyer Beware' thread on our Goa forum which will give you a deep insight into what has happened to British people who have tried to retire to India.
A significant number of British people made Goa their retirement choice, rather than other Indian states. They invested in property there, only to have the Goan governement change the rules to bar foreign nationals from acquiring immovable property, and retrospectively apply the new rules. This entailed the majority being investigated by the Directorate of Enforcement with the real threat of confiscation. These investigations are still ongoing and some confiscations have already taken place - one involving a British woman who has lived in Goa since about 1964.
In addition, the registration office was immediately closed to Foreigners, meaning those who had purchased a property but not got their deeds were no longer able to obtain deeds, meaning that the property was technically still owned by the person from whom it was purchased.
Many of these British people sought advice via the Indian High Commission in London prior to moving to India and were advised that they could legally purchase property and would start with obtaining 5 year residential visas, which would then become 10 year residential visas. The Indian givernment has now declared that such visas were issued 'in error'.
To add to this debacle, the Indian Governemnt changed the visa rules a few years ago. They stated that residential visas were a 'mistake' and stopped giving these to British people - they were then only given tourist visas up to a one year maximum term. These visas also included a clause with a maximum stay of 180 days, after which the person had to leave India and remain outside India for 2 months - thereby making it impossible for any foreigner to live full time in India.

Add to the above factors crooked lawyers, builders, bankers, accountants, company secretaries and other licensed professionals in Goa, who have seen a chance to make a quick buck from Westerners, and you have one hell of a mess. I could relate some horror stories of intimidation, fraud etc. but I am not sure that was the angle you were hoping for.

Of course the situation is different for those British who have provable Indian ancestry as they can seek to obtain 'Persons of Indian Origin' (PIO) visas, or OCI (Oversees Citizens of India) or NRI (Non resient Indian), which allows the purchase of property and entry and stay in India without any restrictions. I would say that it is only people from these categories who may offer a happy tale of retirement in India.

There are a small number of Brits who still class India as 'home' despite the fact of having to leave for 2 months twice each year, and do still enjoy life there in the main, but even they will admit that it is problematic - and incurs expenses not catered for when they originally retired there.

One recent hopeful piece of news is that a couple of folk on this forum have managed to obtain 1 year residential visas this year - we only hope this will continue and revert to longer such visas.

I appreciate this is probably not the slant you were hoping to find, but I can only advise you of the truth of the current situation as it stands. You may wish to make contact with the British High Commisssion in Delhi, who are attempting negotiations with the Government of India to rectify these matters.

I hope this reply has been helpful to you

Dread - x

noni

Hi Sally,
Welcome to BE, I see that Dread has beaten me to point you in the direction of the "Buyer Beware" thread in the Goa section - good luck with collecting peoples experiences although peoples dreams have turned into nightmares.

a_f_d

Hi Sally,
hope you're on a J visa <g>.
If you post a couple more messages / replies you can PM me - if you do that I'll send you my story on retiring to Goa.

AndyD 8-)#

wallydug

Cambodia is very nice.

W.

a_f_d

Looks like another journalist has gone silent on us, that's two in only about a month!

AndyD 8-)#

dreadsoc

I think they are finding their search for happy stories from expats in India a bit like the hunt for the Lochness Monster !!!!!

Dread - x

wallydug

We have a famous correspondent in our midst. He exposed the Andaman Islands fiasco.

You may recollect, a year or so ago he tried to help us ( Our property problems ) but the people he spoke too were loath to go public. Who can blame them?

I know the guy well, but as he says, he cannot help us unless we are willing to participate,openly.

W.

a_f_d

I replied to the Sunday Times journalist above and did a telephone interview for Tom Rawstorne (another thread). PM me a verifiable email addr for your friend and I will send them a summary in the first instance and take it from there. (Although pretty much everthing there is to say is on 'Buyer Beware').

AndyD 8-)#

P.S. Anyone else having trouble re-connecting to the site to send replies?