It's so heartbreaking isn't it - we sold up in December 05. With all what we've spent and lost coming here, when we return, if we bought a similar property we would be looking at doubling out mortgage - it hurts doesn't it. Then you get tossers on here saying that you are just moaning and sobbing into your dinner. Its such a shame that these people haven't the intelligence to see that we are trying to make a bad situation better. They just seem to live in their own perfect little world without even considering that others can have it tough. Shame on us

Stupid ignorant git!!

How dare you preach to people who's lives you know absolutely nothing about - go kiss an Aussies arse I'm sure it will taste wonderful!

Sorry - I thought this was godzone - the place where you've all done your best but just have to go back to the UK. I too have lived in other Countries than England, one of them non-English speaking, but don't feel the need to go into a thread on their forum just wind people up. People move for all sorts of reasons - not just to have a BBQ (hate to tell you that but it's true), the same as people run back to the UK for all sorts of reasons. It's a bit silly don't you think to 'nominate' someone from your little forum to go into another one just to start an argument. A bit small minded I'd have thought, not what I'd expect from people with attention spans of more than a minute (better type quicker, I think my minute attantion span is about up), but I forget you are the 'holier than thou' lot who have been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

Of course, being so myopic and a moron, I must have gotten a highly intelligent, hyperopic returning ex-pat to write this for me while I see to my snags - good for you 'champ' - nice bit of generalisation there. Go back because you want to, we'll stay because we want to - but I think we should do each other the courtesy of staying away from intentional argument generation.

Couldn't agree more, and if you can find a post from me in the Godzone forum that is anything remotely similar to the vein in which I post here, PM me your adress and I'll send you $100.

As I said to Northernbird a few days ago, I don't 'cross post' in forums. By that I mean I do post in other forums here, but I stick to the subject. If they want advice I give it, but rarely, as nearly all the questions have already been answered, and I have little to add. But here in this forum is what it is, 'moving back to the UK', now logic says that ppl on this forum aren't exactly happy are they?

Some can move back, some can't (like me) at least not yet. But I will leave here sometime. If I went back to the UK I'd be divorced (again) so we have to find somewhere 'neutral', but that certainly won't stop me supporting the good ppl on this forum that feel the same way as I do.


I rarely go into the other forums, but strangely a lot of the Godzones come down here, why is that, just to take the pi$$? surely you'd be too busy with your brill lives to be bothered with us, kannehackits huh?

If we're talking generalisations, you made that call by claiming we can't hack it here and haven't tried hard enough (I wonder how long one has to be here before one qualifies as having 'hacked it', surely my 18yrs must be worth a Junior Hacker badge at least ? ).

What thread on whose forum?
The one that you may be referring to has a subtitle, which reads ".......aimed at members who are moving to Australia and the expats already there"

That does in no way exclude you or I, so you and I can post on there if we want to. There is no need to be so upset, this is called 'moving back to the UK', you're not so what are you doing in here? You obviously felt the need to come into our thread, why was that? Not to wind us up surely.

good plan we could also offer a swap with a cash injection of course

You can't help yourself - my post in here wasn't specifically aimed at you - it was a general comment following the 'appointment' of a poster from here to come into a different forum for the exact purpose of causing an argument, and this was, although not encouraged by a moderator, at least semi-condoned.

I myself don't cross-post (ok, split hairs if you need to - I may have once or twice in my early days here), however, when one of 'you' comes over just to stir up an argument, be sure they close the door firmly behind them when they leave. It makes no odds to me at all if you stay or go, or your reasons for staying or going, but why 'send' someone to tell people not to sell houses as they'll regret it when they get here. Some people may be a bit uncertain to begin with, do you think, from your high and mighty perch, that 'scare tactic' posts like that are a good way of helping people make sensible decisions? You've been here 18 years - wish you'd kept your place in the UK all that time?

Cross-post if you will, but sh*t stir while you're there and I'm sure you'll enjoy a few other cross-posters appearing here.

Nope I was referring to a thread from a Country I lived in but went back to the UK from. The thread you are talking about in the forum ".......aimed at members who are moving to Australia and the expats already there" is the thread where a poster from 'Going back ...etc' came over specifically to start an argument, an act supported by your good self. I refer you to post 182 in this thread. Most people (myself included) couldn't give a toss that you want to go back, or why you want to go back, but don't get self-righteous about it when you were instrumental in starting the argument in the Barbie in the first place.

Whatever the reasoning was behind opening the post, I still think telling people to hang on to their home in the UK, if they can, is a damn good idea. If it doesn't work out, and for a good percentage of the people it doesn't, not having the crippling burden of trying to set up home again in the UK is a major plus point.

I'd (sensibly) have to disagree. I'd have found a bigger financial burden if I'd kept our place in the UK. We didnt' have a big mortgage, but it would still have been money we had to cover. It's ok talking about renting it out etc, but what about all the other details. Does it count as foreign income, if you sell it later and bring money over here, do you get taxed on it??? etc etc. I (and this is "I", not anyone else) much prefered to have the money in my pocket when we came over to take care of any unemployment period, get a car each, pay rent etc etc. We have been fortunate, we wanted it to work and it has, both have good jobs, bought our own place (unfortunatlely with a much bigger mortgage than the UK but still affordable), child settled ok (but we didn't wrap him in cotton wool about it - he took it as change of life and that was that). It's no skin off my nose that anyone wants to go back to the UK. Maybe at some point we will - who knows. But on the basis of you've made a decision to leave, fair play to you - don't make someones decision to come that much harder by posting (wind-up) threads about not selling houses. There have been many sensible discussions on the pro's and con's of it - condoning someone doing it as a piss-take is almost the same as doing it yourself. (I hasten to add 'you' is a generalisation, not aimed at an individual, before you all jump on me)

Absolutely, top stuff.

But why hang on to a house in the UK?, what if you get here and really love it? then you have the hassle of trying to sell it from abroad.

Hindsight is fantastic, and if we all knew what life had in store for us, that'd be brilliant (or not depending on what is in store )

The sensible thing would be sell up in the UK, keep as much of your cash in the bank for a year or so earning interest, then if you don't like it you have cash there to return with.

That's my point of view, but I wouldn't start a thread specifically to tell everyone about my "fantastic advice" cos it's how I feel and not everyone has the same ideas as me.

Bar be it for me to be offering advice but all those considering a move back to the UK shouldnt bring money into the equation ,i know mine is much the same situation and our mortgage would have been close to being paid now if we had stayed but i dont think i could ever have lived with the "what if ""situation .
All that have come here [australia]have had an experience we could not have lived without ,just because it may have been a bad one just makes us stronger for when we go home .
Money is only a means to an end ,we that have lived here in aussie and feel totally alienated by its lack of culture and its obsession with its self must stop renaging on our decision to make ourselves and family happy just because it maybe a little hard when we return .
Sorry to pontificate

I sold the lot and, for us, that was a mistake.... and its the same mistake many people will make.. and its lines like this "we wanted it to work and it has" that really piss off the people for who it hasn't 'worked'. I of course uprooted my family and dragged them to the other side of the world and all along didn't want it to work.

Hmm absolutely no-one who posts on the other forum ever winds up people here do they? And by the way, have you been living here so long that you've lost your sense of humour or did you never have one in the first place?