Well, it has now been 5 weeks since we returned to Scotland and boy had it been busy which in turn leaves no time for regrets. We returned to an area we know (it was only going to be a base) however we are both falling in love with the Moray area, all over again.

The good so far:
Seeing family and friends
familiarity with the area we are currently in. It appears that home is indeed home.
HSBCUK have been great to deal with, so far
Mobile phone contract we easy to obtain
love dealing the government here as opposed to Canadian layers of bureaucracy


The annoying:
cannot get our Canadian covid jabs recognised so no passport for us and no football for hubby
no credit card for 6 months but we kept our Canadian cards so we are doing fine
household goods have been delayed but we won’t be getting (fingers crossed) our new home until end of Jan so another delay means we don’t have to pay for storage

After years of will we or wont we return, we are both very much at peace with our decision. Yes, there will be further challenges and yes things will drive us crazy but so did many things in BC.

The right decisions are never the easy ones to make.

Thanks for that update vh3. Sounds like it’s gone pretty smoothly.

I am so pleased , glad and happy to read this from you. So very uplifting all round.

Enjoy each and every single day.

its always great to hear success stories and glad things are working out for you (bet you feel like your back in Canada with the snow we have just had this weekend) All the best

I have just read your reply and found mostly the same. It’s good to be back and we are very happy. We have only just received our belongings from Vancouver which left in mid July. It’s been a struggle (and expensive) without them.
We had to suffer the indignity of no credit rating. The HSBC unlike your experience have been dreadful. We both had Premier accounts in Canada and I had a British Premier account for 15 years. We had a substantial amount of equity in the bank but they refused us a credit card.
My wife still hasn’t managed to open her HSBC account after 4 months. We have had nothing but issues with them.Their customer service has been dreadful. However, I did recently manage to get a credit card with them recently. we also had a lot of trouble with internet banking not working.

We had to find internet and cell phone providers who weren’t too interested with credit ratings and managed to get pay as you go with 3 and internet with Talk Talk. The satellite companies did not want to know.

We had lots of issues setting up gas and electricity accounts with SSE. The property we purchased had an electricity key meter which has been no end of problems. We signed up with SSE and it took over 2 months to get the gas and electricity contracts sorted. I asked for a smart meter because the electrical meter was in a difficult to get to position and having to plug a key into every now and again was a pain.
I requested a credit smart meter but apparently my property wasn’t eligible for one (I asked why but did not get a reply (I have a gas credit meter with them). They insisted I had to have an electrical pay as you go smart meter which has since stopped working and cannot add credit via the internet. The local display has stopped connecting so I cannot see the remaining credit. 3 times I have contacted SSE and still they haven't resolved the issue.

We had to contact the CRA to get access to the on line portal. When we were speaking with them they said we still had tax outstanding from 2020. I told them that we paid this on the 31st March and I have bank records to prove it. We were informed they couldn’t trace the payment so I don’t know what happens now. I also asked them where was the response to our NR73 forms we sent in June having re sent the forms we submitted in April (I made the mistake in the cover letter we were leaving Canada in the 18th July subject to any COVID restrictions so they rejected the forms and told us to resubmit). They said they had no record of them to which I replied you must of because my son has received his response forms were sent in the same envelope as my wife and I. We have had to re send them yet again for the third time.

It’s been a very frustrating struggle but we are glad to be back.

I am so glad you are enjoying your time back in England. Like you, we are enjoying being back home and closer to family and friends. I must say, so far we don't miss BC at all. That however might change once summer starts (or doesn't). We are hoping to get our house sale all settled soon with an entry date of Jan 23 so I really appreciate your updated on how difficult certain providers can be.

could I ask what moving company you used please?

We used Astra shipping in Burnaby. They were very expensive. I wouldn’t recommend them. They told us 5-6 weeks delivery when the collected our belongings in early July. They arrived late November! We were not informed of the shipping delays and after 6 weeks I called them to see where our container was. Our container were still in their depot! They were extremely unhelpful and kept threatening to charge us extra for storage. I constantly had to keep contacting them for updates and when our container finally arrived in the UK they wanted an extra £430 congestion fee to enter port.
We had moved into our new property on the 14th August and had spent a long time without our belongings which obviously cost us a lot of money having to buy basic items.
When the container arrived at our final destination via Britannia they were very good and accommodating.
However we found quite a few things had gone missing and have not been accounted for. A step ladder, several expensive electrical meters from my tool chest and a whole pile of bar stuff from the kitchen.
This was are worst experience ever with removals.

We used Armstrong out of Vancouver which were excellent and kept us informed of all delays (which there were many). Our stuff finally arrived on Monday and that is where things fell of the rails... We had 19 items/boxes missing and after a search found out they are still in Vancouver. Joy that the items have been found but not so much that it could take another 3-5 months to get here. We don't have dates yet but are assuming the worst.
We also have damage to several pieces of furniture, ornaments, pictures which is disappointing. We now have to start the insurance claim so that is another headache.

I will say this, the response to the missing items and damages has been very professional but we will see how the claim goes.

An amusing aside as we can only laugh, half our bed got here, the other half is in Vancouver....

We used UPak we Ship. It does what it days on the tin. You have to pack it all and load onto the pallet and shrink wrap. We didnt have furnature but 18 boxes and it worked well $2500 and took 3 months to arrive with port and container shipping issues. Very happy.

That was meant to say NO port or container shipping issues