Moving Back To The UK
 

Hi everyone

We have lived here in Canada for the last 8years but are planning to move back to the UK within the next couple of years.

Has anyone done this? And if so how hard was it?

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

where in the UK would you intend to move to? And where in Canada are you moving from?

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

Moving out of Saskatoon and back to my hometown of Hastings.

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

Have a look the Moving back to UK page, many have done the same

Moving back to the UK - British Expats

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

OK Thanks

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

i moved back to the UK in 2014 after living in Canada for 5 years..i have recently returned after 2 1/2 years back home.

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My Son who was 2 year old when we moved to Canada from the UK in 1991, moved back to live in the UK last September at age 28. The only thing he needed was to get a home address in the UK before he could apply for a National Insurance number. His girlfriend went over with him but since she is only Canadian she applied and received a 2 year working visa. They had an apartment (flat in England) and jobs within 3 weeks of arriving there.

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What made you move back to Canada after 2 and half years?

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well in the back of my mind..i was only going back home temporarily.....i was set to come back in 2015 and had a job lined up in Calgary etc but life happens.

The main reason for coming back however was the realization that financially i would be better off in Canada..although i had a good job and a well paid job in London i couldn't get back on the housing ladder and the amount i could save each month was minimal..if i keep my head down and my nose clean for the next 20 years here i can do alright and should be able to retire with some degree of financial security.

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I'm considering a move back to the UK, it definitely seems like I'll be taking a step back financially and property wise, my heart says move but my head says "think of the money!"

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I'd be interested in your motivation for moving back? I'm at the ten year mark and it's recently became a topic in our house :)

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Actually it depends where you currently live in Canada whether you would be better off financially moving back to the UK. House prices in the UK have stagnated for about 3 years now and have took an extra hit because of Brexit. If you happen to live within a 100 klm radius of Toronto you've made at least 40% on your property value in those same 3 years. The current exchange rate is 20% better for buying Sterling with Canadian dollars than it was one year ago.
I can say that in my 26 years of living in Canada this would be the best time financially to move back. I've looked and can afford property, over there, that I could only dream of living in when I was living in the UK.

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I'm in Alberta, I brought in a boom, my house has increased but not by as much as I'd like lol! I can afford to buy, but the trade off is a smaller house than what I left in the UK, but hopefully in a better area....... I'm just penny pinching all the costs, as I hate losing money 😂

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Yep - we did it after 7 years in Canada. It wasn't particularly hard as our 2 kids were 3 and 2 at the time. We sold our house in Canada (just outside Toronto) and rented in the UK (London). Bit of a pain trying to open a UK bank account (we closed them when we left the UK and didn't have proof of address when we returned). We lasted 2 years in the UK. We enjoyed living there but after about 18 months we started to get itchy feet again. We realized that we missed North America and wanted to bring the kids up there. About 6 months later we were in Maryland.

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If you stay away from the south and southeast you will be fine,

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i guess it depends what you want..deep down..for me it was being able to be financially independent once i'm retired. I want to retire and go back to the UK so adding up the numbers it made sense to come back to Canada and stay here.

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I'll be resetting in the south if I go, so I'm a little 😱at house prices !

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My daughter, born in Canada but UK passport, had to take the IELTS exam in order to work when she emigrated to London. She was not amused.

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Well thats a no brainer then, they say money cant buy happiness, but in the form of financial security id say it can go a long way to being happy and content, financial issues and make your life pretty miserable.

I am fianacially much better off here in Canada, in the UK money was a constant worry....but i was fortunate with the job i got here (salary wise) so that was an element of luck to it aswel.

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Well you have to be happy inside too, staying here just for the money could breed resentment.

Personally for me, being financially better off meant i could do things i love doing in Canada not only because i had extra income, but because of its geography and climate too.

Things like guaranteed great summers for being outside and enjoying things like boating, then in the winter skiing and snowmobiling. I couldnt do any of that in the UK, I didnt have the financial means and the geography/climate didnt allow it either.

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

[QUOTE=Paul_Shepherd;12180761]Well you have to be happy inside too, staying here just for the money could breed resentment.

Exactly, it would help if I hated Canada, and have it bad here, but I don't.....I'm not even sure if moving back would make me happy? It's hard to know if I'm nostalgic for the UK, or just getting itchy feet for a new place/challenge 😏

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[QUOTE=wonderwoman;12180884]
It could well be just itchy feet, and if so thats not worth giving up a happy comfortable and secure lifestyle for (in my opinion and taking age into account too), maybe it will pass?

Being nostalgic for the UK does play a part with they way we all feel i think, how can it not, for most of us we spent most of out lives there.

However when im faced with dilemmas like this i alway step back look at the big picture to see what makes sense, but then ive always listened to my head....never my heart....which hasnt always served me well, but the majority of times i think it has.

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

What i did find when i went back was how easy it was to slot right back in again..to some extent it felt like i had never left..and the whole Canada thing was a dream..i went back to my old job and with my old company..went back to costa coffee and enjoying a Chinese or Indian takeaway at the weekend..watching the TV again and watching football.

Now coming back the other way im finding it far more difficult..id forgotten what i used to do at weekends and what i used to eat..id forgotten about different work practices and codes and things like shoveling drives and footpaths..im still adjusting to life in Canada and its hard work.

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That's the thing really. The possibilities for most professionals in Toronto are reasonably close to what they are in London but the standard and cost of living in Toronto is so much better.

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HUH??


Not my experience. I live in the UK and house prices have risen a 'healthy' 5 - 9% each year for the last three years. OK, maybe only 5 - 7% annualised since BREXIT, but healthily outstripping wage inflation - not what I would call stagnation. I also notice that decent houses are still selling quickly and new houses even faster (for some reason). No, I don't live in or near London.


The exchange rate may be in the toilet, but the UK stock market is at record levels (one to an extent outweighing the other as regards my UK investments ready to transfer to Canada).

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

And of course, it doesn't help you moved to Deadmonton this time too :p

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If you read my whole article I said it was dependent on where you lived in Canada. I originally come from the Northeast of England. This paragraph is from the Telegraph in January 2016.
The North East of England saw the smallest annual increase in house prices across the regions, with a 0.2pc increase taking the average property value there to £97,117.
I can only relate to the area of the Country that I can compare property prices to at the time I left the UK to come to Canada. I stand by my statement That I can get way more today in Northeastern England than I could ever hope to get 3 years ago.

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in a funny way this is true..when i lived in Edmonton previously it was with my family as it was then..when i lived in Calgary it was just me and my eldest son..so im kind of trying to recreate my Calgary life but in Edmonton but that doesn't work..im waiting for Spring to kick in so i can get a bike.

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:goodpost:

I had done some research recently on property in & around Bridlington in the N.E & yes really good value for money

maybe on the high end but look what you get for the price, a 12 bedroom semi-house for £197,950.

12 bed semi-detached house for sale in Wellington Road, Bridlington, East Riding Yorkshire YO15 - 17600107 - Zoopla

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

Wow so depressing that I have to spend about £450k to get a small 3 bed semi, if I'm lucky. Joys of the SE of England. :thumbdown:

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

indeed it could be depressing at those prices, yet it could get better moving North or NE rather than the SE, even lower property prices in Bridlington

4 bedroom for £107,000, get rid of the junk, clean & paint....

4 bed terraced house for sale in Quay Road, Bridlington YO16 - 38387005 - Zoopla

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

I feel your pain! I've been looking at Chichester and surrounding areas, I seem to have champagne tastes on a beer budget 😂

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You'd get a 3 bed semi for less than that where I live - we paid just over that for our 6 bed 4500sq ft farmhouse with a couple of acres. Granted, it was a few years ago but even so......prices haven't risen that much!

If you're in prime commuter areas such as Surrey, or more towards central London, then it can be very pricey, but if you want South East then look at cheaper counties such as Bedfordshire maybe?

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Where you are, that must have been a good few years ago and I would imagine that price has actually risen significantly higher than you suggest- prices as you know have continued to rise rapidly in the Home Counties as well as elsewhere in the commuter belt .I gather that you live within this area. No way could one buy a large 6 bed Georgian farmhouse with 2 acres within commuting distance London for say £500 or anywhere near that unless it was a shell and even then you would be lucky.

We lived in Norfolk, prices for these properties shot up, rectories, halls houses etc, fed by the London crowd living the weekend country life or even daily commuting, way more expensive and difficult than commuting from the Home Counties.

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I'd already guessed that from your username. I used to live on Kenton Road. :thumbup:

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

Well I came from Newburn and Throckley but We called our dog Kenton...Go figure:(

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In my neck of the woods that sort of money would buy you something like this.

https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/S...Parc-Champlain

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I believe Canadian property prices are totally stupid

Getting back to what Kentonmag was saying about house comparisons to certain area's of the UK to Canada - back in my home town in Mersyside I can get a decent (on the market today) 3 bedroom corner terraced house with two downstairs reception rooms, big kitchen & bigger than noprmal by comaprison bedrooms for £40,000 or less, thats what its is, no mistake in the 000's, just £40k

I've been looking at this & would definitely on a return to the UK buy one similar to then flip it on a 'Rent to Own' (lease to own) 3 year term. Nice income, no issues with the tenant.

Then again, I suppose £450k for a semi in the SE is what it is, similar to the GTA or Vancouver


.

Re: Moving Back To The UK
 

I could live with it but how much sense does it make to have a bathtub in a bedroom with a hardwood floor?

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It was only an illustration. It's actually quite hard to spend that sort of money around here. I think the mls search I did for the 700-750 range threw up about five properties.

Go any higher and you'd be looking at mansions on the river.