Major Major

I am a newbie and apologise in advance for a thread which must have been posted a million times before. We are a UK couple who have been living in HK and Thailand for 28 years but now, due to family getting older, need to be within 2-3 hours of the UK. South of France seems ideal. I do speak decent French. We want somewhere coastal, with a bit of life, eg live music, not not too loony Brit. I guess for us to settle there would have to be some element of expat community. We are selling up in Thailand and would be looking for a villa with garden and pool for around 400,000 Euros. We will be lucky enough not to have to work. Any advice would be gratefully received.
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dmu

Hi, and welcome to the Forum(s)!
You may find that the Mods will group your identical posts together....
If you eventually choose France, you must take out private healthcare coverage until you receive your UK State Pension (if any?), after which you'll be entitled to enter the French Social Security System, or until you enter it via other ways. Take a look at Chatterstatic's Read-Me Moving to France FAQs above, in the "healthcare" thread, as well as "inheritance laws".
Can't give much help re a possible location in the south of France along the coast, 2-3 hours from the UK. You'd have to live fairly near an airport serving airports fairly near your families' towns (and UK destinations from airports to the West of the Rhône are limited).

Novocastrian

Welcome to the forum. IMHO, the (excuse me but someone has to do it) Catch-22 with coastal southern France is that there is a permanent traffic jam everywhere up to ca. 15 km inland in July and August every year.

Nice place to visit but....

grannybunz

Hello and welcome.

You can get a lots of advice from previous threads. Take some time to read them and then come back with any further questions.

We live in inland Provence which we love and has suited us fine for 25years. Of course we know the coast a bit but it would take an enormous bribe to get us to live there!

I also think you would be pushing it to get the sort of house you require at the price you want to pay.

Don't forget there are excellent rail links these days, which is the way we travel to see family. Yoyr alternatives on the coast are Nice and Marseilles - neither of which is wonderful. Across the other side of the Rhone you have Nimes/Arles and whatever the other place they now call it but services from there are poor.

i think your biggest problem may be healthcare, as already mentioned. Don't underestimate how much it is likely to cost if you are not entitled to reciprocal EU terms, becaus even with it it is expensive.

Good luck.

Jerseygirl

I took a look at the posts earlier and decided to leave them be as the OP is enquiring about moving to 4 different countries.

InVinoVeritas

I would agree with grannybunz, even away from the coast you'll need more than €400K for the kind of property you have described. Maybe you'll have more luck in the other forums in which you've made the same post.

Chatter Static

With that kind of cash I would come inland further "Aude" and look for a plot for a new build.

dmu

Not a bad idea, but the OPs should check the UK destinations from Carcassonne/Béziers/Perpignan. If they need to be within 2-3 hours from the UK, the travel (and waiting) times at each end must be taken into account.

loy loy

We took a long weekend in Biarritz a couple of years back. It is beautiful.

dmu

Odd that the OPs haven't come back on any of the Forums after their initial enquiry last week. They have about 40 replies spread over the four countries concerned, but no reaction from them....

grannybunz

Isn't it just

teejaydee

Maybe he is planning to widen his search area, and preparing to make postings on four more forums?

dmu

Maybe, but not on BE, then. His profile still says 4 posts, precisely 1 for each country forum....

InVinoVeritas

He logged off 3 minutes after posting to this forum and has not come back since. Multiply the time wasted answering his questions here by 4, which is the number of forums he made identical posts to, and you have the right to feel pretty pissed off.

Tweedpipe

As a New Year's good-will gesture, after reading their post I was going to offer them free board & lodging for a month (if they supplied the wine). 'The virtual offer' would have been active pending their reply within 24hrs.
Too late now though, offer's now expired - never to be repeated.
Guess I'm now going to have to supply my own cheer and drink on my own.