Ray51

Would be good to get in touch with any BritExpats there , touch base , check-up on the latest etc....
Cheerz , mates !
R.

Lorraine Rigby

Hi,

I’m not about at present but do visit Croatia 3 or 4 times a year. I have a property north of Dubrovnik and am hoping to retire there in a couple of years with my husband. We will probably keep a small place in the UK but plan to spend 7 or 8 months of the year in Croatia.

I would be interested in any information you could give regarding living in Croatia. We have already made many good friends and are currently learning the language (slowly!) but would be grateful for any insight you could give regarding living there full time.

Many thanks

Ray51

Hi ,
whereas there have so far been no other responses to my question , which started this thread , via other sources we know of some U.K. and other expats living in ( Slovenia and ) Croatia , on part or full-time basis ;
- also there has been an increased number of enquiries from others , not yet there , mainly about matters like legal , tax/es and medical aspects , if residence were to be taken in those sunnier parts ;
- next week , I get to meet with some well-informed Croatian contacts with a view to making progress with detailed , reliable information regarding diverse matters such as pensions , life assurance distributions , social security , trusts , dividends , E106/E121 etc etc...
- getting to full understanding and detailed input on all such and other related matters , of special interest to expat-retirees might yet take some time and might be quite a Job , but : hey , someone's gotta do it
( so : watch this space ? ) !!!

Lorraine Rigby

Hi,

I await further details and am very grateful for your efforts.

Regards

L

Jimmy G

Hi Ray,

I've been based out in Slovenia (North East) for the past two years now. It's a lovely part of the part of the world. Can I try and be of any assistance...but not promising too much! Please feel free to get in touch.

James

Ray51

Hi , James ,
I though I had responded to you - but , since that post doesn't seem to appear , here's a 2nd try :
Are you a Brit/EU passport-holder ?
Do you work there , or are you retired ?
What brings you to those parts ?
Do you get to go to Austria/Italy/Croatia/Adriatic coast often ?
How is the taxman treating you , so far ?
CoL , after change Tollars into Euro ?
Much looking forward to your valued input , thanks in advance ,
cheers
R

Lousamslov

Hello Ray
Me and my family live in Slovenia. We have been here for over 3 years now. We live in the North East called Prekmurje, which is known as the bread basket of Slovenia as its where most of the crops grow and good grapes which make excellent wine!

We love living here, the people in Prekmurje are well known for their hospitality and friendliness.
There is minimal crime; I think the lowest in Europe. It’s a lovely place to live and bring up children.

We run a Slovenian company renting out holiday houses and also managing other people’s holiday homes.
We have also helped people to find property to buy in Slovenia, the benefit to us is that we then get to manage it.

If you want to know anything, just let me know!

<Snip, put it in the classifieds forum as there is a no advertising policy on this forum, thanks>


Kind regards
Lou

Lousamslov

Hi Ray
With regards your questions.
Yes we are British and have EU passports. Yes we have residency in Slovenia which is classed as temporary. We had to re-new this after 3 years which we did then apparently in 5 years. Once we have had this temporary residency for 7 years we can then become permanent however by this time the whole residency thing will probably be scrapped.

The bureaucracy and pushing paper here is a nightmare, this is inherited from former Yugoslavia I guess. The problem is that the people who are involved in the paper pushing don’t know what to do and they don't know what other departments are going. It’s not just us Brits but my Slovene friends also have problems.
You can spend a day walking around the different departments / offices and still get nowhere. One of our employees applied for a bank loan a few weeks ago. It took days to get the right papers together and when we though we had we were told that even though we had a Slovenian company the bank wouldn’t loan to our employee as the director of the company is non Slovene. They should have just said that in the first place which would have saved days of time!

With regards the Euro, I am glad we no longer have the tollar as all those thousands were a nightmare, plus as we are so close to Austria it’s handy to have just one currency.

Have prices increase since the tollar? I would say definitely, but it’s not just the currency change that’s done this. When we came here over 3 years ago it was easy to get workers or a job done, there still was some unemployment but now everyone is working and working hard. Buildings are going up everywhere, new companies, new supermarkets, stores etc. The new motorway that crosses the whole of Slovenia is due to be finished in August; again this will improve transport links in Slovenia and across Europe. Once the roads are done then they will start improving the rail network. With regards getting to the coast often, well we did last year, to Zaton near Zadar in Croatia. It’s a lovely country and the coast line is very pretty. We were lucky enough to meet up with our Slovene neighbours that have a sailing boat on the coast, so we had a day out sailing around the Islands which is defiantly the way to see Croatia.

We go walking in Austria and there is an Ikea in Austria which we visit quite a lot for our business and customers.

We sometimes sit down and talk about where we would like to live if given the choice and we could not recommended a place better than Slovenia, I have just come back from picking up the children and they are very happy here, they are allowed to be children here. There are no designer labelled clothes yet & no pressure to look good. Kids don’t start school till 7 and even then it’s mostly ‘play’ rather than tests.

With regards tax, our accountant sorts all that out.
The health service is also very good. I had our third child here. I stayed in 4 days before birth and 5 after. In the UK I had our second child at 10.00 in the morning and they told me to go at 3.00pm in the afternoon as no beds.
Our new baby has had far more tests and checks than the other two got in the UK. Another thing I like here is that the kids see a Paediatrician, woman see a Gynaecologist and the GP for other stuff. In the UK you don’t know who you will see.

Lou

Ray51

I'll try and pm you , next !
Cheers ,
R.

stepney

Yes, there are few Brits in Croatia - please PM if you would like to get in touch

Ray51

Have pm'd you ; if you don't get it , could you check my profile and send me an e-mail , please ?