jonomurphy3

? What's with the tone? If I'm there for 3 months, it's not so simple as that. Is it not normal to want to thoroughly plan and anticipate everything?

Pocaloca

Does this person know you?

If you stay in Spain for more than three months you'll need to apply for residency, and for that you will need some sort of income and health care cover. There is all the information you need about this on the British Embassy in Spain web site.

jonomurphy3

Hahah not too sure!

Up to 3 months will be okay without applying, though? Thanks

lynnxa

yes that's right - up to 90 days & you're officially a tourist!

Dick Dasterdly

.......and after that whatever you want to be.

jonomurphy3

Hahah!

Decided I'll go for 2 months, and embark upon a Spanish course there. I've been recommended a few good places for intensive courses, so we'll see!
I have really appreciated all of the feedback!

chrisjolly

Good luck Jono. Have a great time and enjoy all the wonderful people that you will meet. The crisis is not so bad on the ground as the Spanish are very resilient to them...after the years of Franco and a Civil war this is a piece of cake!!

steviedeluxe

This site appears to have quite a lot of jobs advertised by IT startups in Barcelona. They're not all programming roles either, there are sales and marketing posts there too. May be worth checking out if your aim is to live in Barcelona?

http://www.jobfluent.com/

Domino

there are also some jobs, including other languages than English, at

http://barcelona.xpatjobs.com/jobs.a...nguage=English

http://www.jobsinbarcelona.es/

if Barcelona is the place for you then you might like to take a read of the advice given at

http://www.movingtobarcelona.com/job...arcelona.shtml

hope this helps

`

Sonicboi81

Barcelona is the place to be. For the size of the city, it us quite cosmopolitan and a very relaxed chilled place to live. I come form a tiny city in Scotland and the thought of moving to a major city was daunting. I am not too keen on the hustle and bustle either and the reason i opted for Barcelona as opposed to Madrid, London or Paris. I made friends with a couple of native english actors who managed to pick up theatre work here amongst other things. The city has everything and will take you to the place you want to go in life. There are native english jobs there to give you a base to start from also. There is always the option to stay in one of the smaller towns just outside the city on the med such as Villanova, Sitges etc... You can work in the city and commute outside quickly and with very little hassle involved.

Further to Domino´s post above here are some further job links:

http://www.infojobs.net/
http://www.loquo.com/es_es
http://www.catalunya-classified.com/Home.aspx

Sir John

hi jonathan,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ta-dreams.html

Spain financial crisis: Sun setting on expats' Costa dreams
As the financial crisis in Spain deepens, British expats are finding that life is becoming increasingly hard.
Spain financial crisis: Sun setting on expats' Costa dreams
Frigiliana resident Kevin Wright, who is paid by the local council to run a foreigners’ department, and Jo Morrison, a cleaner Photo: SOLARPIX.COM

By Maxine Frith, Nerja

8:57PM BST 26 May 2012

It was sundowner time at the Cantina tapas bar in the picturesque village of Frigiliana, a few miles inland from the Costa del Sol town of Nerja.

Inside, local men were watching bullfighting on television and smoking cigars in quiet contravention of the smoking ban. Outside, expatriate Britons were discussing the vagaries of living in Spain while downing glasses of tinto de verano, the popular summer drink of red wine and lemonade.

Mark Jones, who runs his own gardening and pool maintenance company, had spent two days queuing at the local municipal office to renew his residence permit.

"I got there at 9am on the first day and my number was 26; by lunchtime they were only up to number 6 and they close at 2pm," he complained.

"You have to renew every bit of paper here every few years but I can't afford two days off to queue in an office. There are no staff now because of the cuts, so it all takes longer. It's like everywhere – as soon as the recession hits, it's the immigrants who cop it worst."
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Conversation turned to a local couple, who are desperate to leave Spain but who can't because their house is still unsold after four years on the market - despite dropping the asking price from €1 million to €750,000.

In 1992 the BBC spent millions of pounds launching an ill-fated soap opera, Eldorado, following the fortunes of British expats on the Costa del Sol. The project flopped and was cancelled a year later. Now, 20 years later, the real-life diaspora is experiencing an equally disastrous end to its Iberian dream.

Times are desperate in Spain. More than a million people took the streets earlier this month to protest at budget cuts, 24 per cent unemployment and the rising cost of living.

The price of milk and bread has risen by 48 per cent during the last year, according to a recent study, and of potatoes by 116 per cent.

Electricity bills are up 11 per cent while property prices are in free fall; they have declined for 15 consecutive quarters and are 41 per cent lower than in 2006.

Several of its banks are faltering: this weekend Spain's government is preparing to pump a further €19 billion into Bankia, the country's fourth-largest lender, in the biggest single bank bailout in the country's history. Trading in the bank's shares was suspended on Friday until negotiations over the rescue were complete.

Santander, Europe's largest bank, was among 11 Spanish financial institutions to be downgraded by the credit rating agency Standard and Poor earlier this month; and there's no sign of anything like economic recovery on the horizon.

Expats are finding life hard in a country where they once basked in a cheaper way of life. Around one million Britons spend part or all of the year in Spain, but thousands are now returning home – and more want to, but say they can't afford to because their property is no longer worth what they paid for it.

For the first time since 1998, Spain recorded a drop in foreign residents last year, according to newly released figures.

With its narrow cobbled streets, whitewashed houses and children riding horses down the main road, Frigiliana lives up to most tourists' idea of an authentic Spanish village.

But appearances can be deceptive. Out of its 3,000-strong population, 1,280 are foreign nationals including 700 Britons, making the village one of the most expat-dominated in Spain. The school advertises itself as bilingual.

The British population is so large that the local council pays Kevin Wright, a former travel rep from Leicestershire who has lived in Spain for more than 20 years, to run a "foreigners' department".

He helps expats deal with everything from local business permits to burst pipes and land disputes with neighbours, and has noticed changes since the eurozone crisis began.

"Before, I was getting 10 newbies a week moving here from the UK; now I get one," he said. "Some Brits have lived here for 20 years but now families move out here then six, eight months later pack up and go back because they can't find work, or didn't realise what the cost of living would be."

Mr Wright says many Britons fail to learn Spanish or to assimilate, so that the community becomes dependent on itself – to its cost.

"People think they can set themselves up doing business to other Brits, like finance or house sales and rentals, or pool maintenance, gardening and cleaning.

"But the property market isn't there any more and people have cut back and do their own maintenance, so there's less work."

In desperate economic times, the expat community is increasingly vulnerable to financial trickery.

"The worst people for scamming you are other Brits," said Gary Smith, a builder, who emigrated two years ago. "You trust them more but they just take your money for an investment and you never see a penny."

Elderly residents are particularly vulnerable. The exchange rate - still far less favourable than five years ago - has meant British pensions and other income in sterling do not stretch as far as they once did.

Julia Hilling moved from the UK to Fuengirola, along the coast from Frigiliana, 20 years ago with her husband. They bought a spacious, three-bedroomed apartment with two balcony patios in an upmarket area, overlooking the town's castle.

Six years ago, Mrs Hilling, by then a widow aged 83, was persuaded by an independent financial adviser to take out a full mortgage on the apartment. She was told the equity raised would be invested, risk-free, to provide an income, while the mortgage would help offset Spain's 34 per cent inheritance tax when she died.

Now 89, Mrs Hilling has never seen any return on her money, owes more than €300,000 to Rothschild Bank on the mortgage and relies on handouts from her children to stay in Spain.

"It's devastating," she said. "The man was British, very charming, and said there was no risk. My children said 'Mummy, please don't do this', but I needed the extra income. Now I'm fighting for my life and my home."

She is one of more than 100 mainly elderly British expats who have banded together in a Spanish court action to have their mortgages voided, arguing they were mis-sold.

Rothschild and several Scandinavian banks also named in the legal action claim the financial advisers are to blame; and the advisers, who are not regulated in Spain as they are in Britain, insist the risk was mentioned in the small print.

In a country fighting for its own survival, Spanish politicians are not unduly concerned with the plight of British residents, particularly when many are retired so do not actively contribute to the national economy.

Spain's government is currently involved in a dispute with Britain over extent of free health care for Britons under EU law and there are moves to force them to pay 10 per cent of their prescription costs.

But for some, returning home remains unthinkable. Former fitness instructor and gym owner Jo Morrison, 49, moved to Spain from London with her partner Lloyd 11 years ago.

In 2008 she sold her house in Putney so she could open a gym in Nerja but the project failed after her business partner pulled out, and then the global financial crisis erupted.

She now works as a cleaner while renting a one-bedroom home.

"Sometimes we've gone without food and I still can't believe that I don't have my house or any savings any more," she said.

"But Spain is my home now. I'd rather sleep on the beach than go back to the UK."
Spain



In Spain

Debt crisis: live
Gema Pardo consoles her daughter Amanda as they sit near a bonfire with relatives at the Spanish gypsy settlement of Puerta de Hierro outside Madrid. Fifty-four families have been living in Puerta de Hierro, on the banks of the Manzanares river for over 50 years. Since the summer of 2010, the community has been subject to evictions on the grounds that the dwellings are illegal. Families whose houses have been demolished move in with relatives whose houses still remain while the debris keeps piling up around them as more demolitions take place.
Gypsy homes demolished
A resident observes wrecked vehicles after torrential rains hit the town of Vera, isouth-eastern Spain southern Spain
Spain floods clear-up
Firefighters work to control a raging forest fire as trees are engulfed in flames next to a road in Ojen, just outside Marbella on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain
Costa del Sol forest fires
The annual La Tomatina festival - a huge tomato fight in Bunol, near Valencia, Spain
La Tomatina festival 2012


paris

Domino

oh dear, another diatribe about how bad Spain is....



if you move from Scunthorpe to Seaton you will investigate jobs, houses, schools, services etc etc
so why the F do people move to Spain without carrying out the most basic of searches?
they come on here, want to bring kids, ask about schools but have no jobs. Then wonder why they get short shrift about their plans
they move out here without any real idea that it is a vastly different scenario to moving in the UK, that it is a Foreign Country.

Just get real. If you wouldnt move to Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria without planning, planning, planning then what is so different about Spain. ?

`

cricketman

This is brilliant - an internet trawl about negative news stories in Spain, I bet it didnt take you long to find them

I do agree though, I wouldnt advice coming to live in an illegal gypsy settlement

mogsmum

this did make me smile i went through and found the same stories is

UK
Greece
USA
France
Ireland
well actuall the world in general

bugger now where am I going to go

Sir John

Dunno cricketman re-illegal gypsies probably you might get better looked after within their community and a good meal and some some interesting company,you dont know until you've tried it,

As far as an internet trawl goes that what informed decision making is all about is it not,preparation,gathering information,research,its not nescessy to trawl the net because heres plenty to see and learn from for people thinking of moving to spain,you only have to read the british papers like daily mail,telegraph,observer,ect ect ect to hear the truth of whats really happening here is spain,reality and the truth does hurt and peoples lives have been badly affected here and the spanish govermnent have turned their backs on expats,so people need to know rather than looking at spain through rose tintented spectacles!

paris