British Expats - Settling in

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shard (Post 11610181)

Are you considering an eventual move to France? Certainly some good value in Bretagne compared to Southern England, and there is ferry service to Poole as you know.

Thank you for explaining your predicament - it's both impressive and :unsure: the amount of moving you are doing in your sixties. :)

We love France (Brittany, Normandy and the Loire in particular), and indeed Condor serve St Malo indirectly (connect via Jersey and Guernsey) from Poole but I don't have any intention of buying there and becoming tax resident in some fashion and I think that I can say the same for Spain and Portugal.

Right now there is a (dreamer?) ferry operator pitching at Weymouth Council to operate high speed service from here to Cherbourg next year but we shall see where that goes. The last Condor ferry left here yesterday morning (for Greece?) after finishing up (service to the Channel Islands and onwards to France) here last week.

I want to deal only with the knowns and fairly easily comprehended for tax, which are the UK and St Lucia. One can stay in Portugal for up to six months without becoming tax resident and I would like to see how that can be put into practice linking up with a place here in some fashion, with St Lucia also from time to time.

France is just (for us) a lovely place to go for a month or so and I'm pleased that we have found a place (suitable for us - without wheels) that we can stay for that month (did it three years ago) at a rate quite a bit less than a typical month's rent here.

We are big fish and shellfish eaters and that suits in Weymouth and Dorset at large, in terms of variety, quality and price.

In Portugal, in parts of the Algarve in particular (and actually even in Lisbon) it is very inexpensive to eat in decent restaurants/cafes (5 to 7 Euros for a main course and large side salad dressed in olive oil), along with the wonderful and equally inexpensive local wines, and I need to look into that further beyond simple short vacations.

In France we can always buy the superb fish and shellfish in markets.

In St Lucia, we ended up pretty much living to a Mediterranean diet because the farmers do a great job with local veg and I would like to get that back into our way of eating. Here in the UK, the euphoria at the novelty of the wonderful variety of fresh fruit and veg (often imported of course) hasn't worn off yet. Fortunately, for the Scotch Eggs, pork pies and fish and chips, it pretty much has.