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:hysterical::hysterical: I can see you have done your research...not:eek:

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You might have to pay more than once- lump sums, inheritances, winnings, matured savings plans etc. from the UK-What is tax free in UK isn't here!
As someone has already said, if you think UK is money grabbing you ain't seen nothing yet!

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People in the UK don't know they're born.

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All of that is true, but the quality of life here in Spain is a hundred times better than in the UK.
We have been living here for over six years now and have no wish to leave, not even in a box!
Most expats are happy with their life here, ignore the ones who talk it down, they are usually the ones who came unprepared or with the wrong attitude and couldn't hack it.
Just so long as you don't expect everything to be done as it is in England you'll be fine.

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I can understand the moaners who have lived in Spain for some time and returned to the UK when they found that Spanish life was not for them - they provide useful advice for incomers.

I can't understand the moaners who have never lived in Spain and then complain - how would they know?

But you can't shrug your shoulders at Spanish bureaucracy, tax and corruption - not when the bulldozers are revving up outside your illegal house and Hacienda has just emptied your worldwide bank accounts.

So why are a million of us living in Spain? Apart from the weather?

If you don't join any queues and sign any forms, they don't know you're here. (And they don't want to know). It's not strictly true, but it nearly is.

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A quick lesson on how talkboards normally operate, be it living abroad, holidays, consumers rights, tenants rights.

Posters will usually write about the negative aspects for various reasons. They are angry, they feel resentful, want justice, to warn others etc.

If a poster is telling their story of trying to prevent their illegal house from being bulldozed, the posters who are not in that situation should know better than to post comments such as 'our house is not illegal/we don't know anybody who has an illegal house/we are really living the dream/we could never have afforded a house like this in the UK/we learnt Spanish and took good legal advice, so our house is fine'. Etc.

The replies usually will be what could be deemed negative by some, because maybe they don't understand the dynamics.

So it easier to understand, because I predict that there will be some strong replies to my post, I will give an exaggerated example.

OP. My grandad went into hospital, caught MMR and died in agony.

REPLIES

'mine didn't, he now lives in Thailand with his young wife'

'the hospitals where we live don't have MMR.'

'my grandad is 98 next week and looks like a 70 year old.

'I went into hospital last year and did not get MMR, and some of the nurses were quite tasty'. Lol.

Does that answer your question?

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It's not a matter of if you live in Spain and love it or not. It is sound advice not to burn you boats in your sixties. Why sell a UK house when prices are rising to buy where they have not reached the bottom when you can rent.

....and it is a fact that if this guy thinks the UK is a rip off then he will get a nasty suprise when he looks at taxes in Spain. It's nothing to do with all the things you are bringing in to it.

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Good post. For you it is a lifestyle choice not necessarily driven by the retention of wealth, after all you cannot take it with you.
I know many would not understand that concept but providing you carry out sufficient research etc., if you do not take the chance it's likely to be something you may later regret.
As much as I enjoy Spain life as an Expat is not for me but I fully understand your sentiment.

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More than 20,000 pensioners on the CDS desperate to return to UK

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-ne...-return-to-uk/

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I wonder what percentage of UK-based pensioners would say they are trapped in poverty. 5% wouldn't be a surprise.

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"and it is a fact that if this guy thinks the UK is a rip off then he will get a nasty suprise when he looks at taxes in Spain"

Can anybody be specific about these taxes? Possibly give an example based on a couple of scenarios such as resident/non working/non?

Reason I ask is because I am about to commence spending a considerable amount of time in Spain in a place that I am buying. I have a friend who lives nearby who's given me a lot of advice, going as far as to "open the books" on the financial aspects.

She gives less to the Spanish authorities, banks, lawyers, utilities, etc. in a year than the total of my council tax and water rates combined. I'd be interested to hear others' specific experiences.

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one thing that has to be considered is what the level of service and quality of service does your friend get??

Rubbish/Basura charge - a large bin at the end of the street, you have to go to it with your rubbish, they empty 6 times a week but are not specifically clean about it.

Roads - once a developer has put a road in, like in the UK that is it. No repairs, even when it dug up for a water leak problem it is never put back properly. Main roads where the responsibility is one of the various levels of govt as with side roads, poorly repaired not long lasting.

Water - no warning if you should lose it, no tankers bringing much needed supply. You just have to wait.

Parks etc - only big cities keep any form of real maintenance, once the (EU) money has been spent there is little or no maintenance.

Access to Govt (local or national) from 0900 to 1330 (sometimes 1400) 5 days a week.

Oh and just remember that banks only accept impuesto payments from 0900-1130, you can't just walk in and pay a bill - you WILL get sent away, even if you have queued for 30mins if you are outside their time slot.

you pays for what you get. You really don't get much, so don't pay much.
very few govt type organisations will take a copy of anything, you have to get your docs copied, 20p a sheet and there are plenty of places that do it.

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Thanks for your reply. Here’s how it applies to my situation:

Rubbish –

Yes, the rubbish is a large bin that is quite close by, but not too close! I actually prefer the Spanish system to the UK one, which now involves 3 different large bins outside every house, and multiple collection days after which the bins are left scattered over the pavements and sometimes the roads.

Roads –

The road I am moving to is quite long and at one end is beautifully landscaped but not quite finished at the other. I do know that one community backing onto the road got tired of waiting for a pavement and cycle path to be finished, so they approached the council for permission to pay for the work outside of their premises. So yes, I can see that sometimes there are issues but in this case I am happy with the general level of upkeep in the surrounding area.

Water – my friend has lived there for 11 years and has not experienced this particular issue.

Parks etc – there aren’t many of them, but the ones that do exist are well kept.

Access to Govt (local or national) from 0900 to 1330 (sometimes 1400) 5 days a week. –

I’ve spent the last 5 years living elsewhere in the world and this is on a par with the service I’ve had over recent years, so I am OK with this. One thing I like about Spain and the part I am going to is that the Mercadona is closed on a Sunday, for example, i.e. general respect for work life balance. I see the number of supermarkets within 5 miles of my UK address offering 24x7 and wonder if it’s really necessary.

Banks only accept impuesto payments from 0900-1130 –

I can live with that.

You pays for what you get. You really don't get much, so don't pay much. –

And this is the key point. My post referred to the numerous messages I see about the shock UK people will get with the expense of being in Spain. I’m fine with “you get what you pay for” because what my friend gets for what she pays is OK and she isn’t paying a fortune. Again, she pays less in total than two of my bills (council tax and water (ok, they’re the big ones)).

Are there people who pay what they consider to be too much to live in a place? (This can be the case even if the services are good)

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I think that as usual with anything about living anywhere the answer is definitely "it depends". If people have lots of investments, multiple houses, villa with pool, grounds, etc or live in an ubanisation this all entails more expenses. Taxes are extracted for their abundances, however the average person living in a town will not pay as much to live here as the people in the above situation.

Road tax, community tax and the water bills are cheap. Electricity is expensive, gas bottles have rocketed in price in the last few years.

Rosemary

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Hi Rosemary,

Yes, I am sure it does depend, hence my question about specific examples given different scenarios.

When I see the sweeping statements about how shocked people are going to be by the charges in Spain, it makes me wonder if I have missed something. Anyway, I will keep doing all the research I can to be sure of what applies to me in my particular circumstances.

I do hear a lot about how much electricity costs. I am working with a figure of +50% on UK prices when I calculate my living costs.

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I was mainly referring to income tax and inheritance tax. But yes everyone's affairs are different.

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So I Googled. Age UK says that 16% of pensioners in the UK live in poverty.

That's the thing about that grass over there, it's always greener.

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Further to that the Trussell Trust now operates 400 food banks within the UK.

Their statement reads:346,992 people received a minimum of three days emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks in 2012-13, compared to 128,697 in 2011-12 and up from 26,000 in 2008-09. Of those helped in 2012-13, 126,889 (36.6%) were children. :eek:

Amazing isn't it considering the UK is a 'rich' country :confused:

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I fail to see how pensioners are living in poverty on £210 basic for a couple plus council tax relief, free dental etc. not a fortune but hardly poverty. food banks aren't reliable indicators if they are there people will use them. I wouldn't even donate a can of peas to them:thumbdown:
Pensioners in the UK always seem comfortable to me, they fill up the pubs for lunches, always buying plants at garden centres, not to mention holidays and millions taking cruises...everyone wants the grey pound. Don't believe charity stats, they just justify their existence and want more money.

According to my council tax bill it says even if you earn £300pw you could be entitled to a discount.

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Yes....wherever you go you have to take yourself with you. I think the reason why people do take big risks without knowing all the facts and sell up completely in a country they were brought up in to put everything on black is because either they had to in order to make the change to buy or rent in Spain or they were convinced in their heads that what goes up never comes down.

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As Jacky says, really there is no such thing as poverty in UK, it exists but on a different level to what most would consider poverty.

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A normal British couple buying a normal house in Spain ten years ago would have paid around 180,000 Euros for it. Four years later that same house had fallen to half its value and it is still currently valued at 50% of what was paid for it in 2004.

To finance the Spanish purchase in 2004, it was merely necessary to sell a normal semi detached in the UK.

Selling in Spain now for £75,000 would not purchase an average semi back in the UK,

It means that a lot of British expats are stuck in Spain, tens of thousands of them.

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Having worked in various places around the world, including the east, I am not quite sure that people in the UK talking about poverty have a grasp of just how poor some people are.

But, I think you'll find pensioners late in life struggling to get by, in the UK and in Spain.

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Ah, ok. So for me (and possibly the guy you referred to), I'm not getting a nasty surprise at all. It's all pretty much equal, based on the research I've done. Trouble is, you don't know what you don't know, which is why I worry when I see these sorts of things posted.

Deep breath. Relax.

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You are doing things the right way and shouldn't get any nasty surprises when you move. The key to a successful move is research, research, research!

We spent over twenty years looking at areas to settle in here, we made sure that when the day comes that we both can no longer drive there would be easy access to all forms of transport. Our research paid off as we will be able to get a bus in our small hamlet to our nearest town, there we can get a train into Malaga and from there the world is your oyster.

We completely sold up in the UK and we bought our house here at the peak of the market, yes it has gone down in value (not as much as those on the coast), but to us it doesn't matter in the least as we have never viewed the house we live in as an investment.
We have no intention of ever going back so our house is quite simply only a part of the children's inheritance.

Our bills here don't come to anything like they did in the UK, even taking into account the fact that electricity and Internet access is more expensive. These costs are more than balanced out by the low service costs, an example being that we only pay five euros every two months for water, and we have a pool, the cost for removing our waste six days a week is just seventeen euros.
Of course if you were to live on the coast in an urbanisation it would be more, that's a lifestyle choice that wouldn't sit well with us as we like the open spaces.

We have a nice lifestyle here, we eat out several times a week which is something we wouldn't be doing in the UK.
We go on many trips that are run from the village near us, they are often nights away in a hotel and are very enjoyable...and it helps us with our Spanish.
We can live very comfortably on my husbands pensions, while mine are just there for the luxuries in life.... I doubt that would be the case if we were still in the UK.

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Income tax is less in the Uk than Spain, unless you have a gold plated public sector pension. We are a few thousand better off than under the Spanish regime. It used to be vice versa. Then there is the question of assets and investments. I think everyone needs professional advice not from a forum.

Meg met....helps with your Spanish, I thought you would be fluent by now;):)

I don't think it is a matter of which is cheapest when deciding where to live. It is where your heart is.

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Even this guy had the sense to rent and he had 3 cars. A Hummer, a Ferrari and A Porsche :ohmy:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti....html#comments

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Agree, and as I said, if you have the money not to have to worry about costs, retirement in Spain can be great.
As for quality of life in Spain being 100 times better, that´s purely subjective, quality of life is best where you are happiest, wherever it may be in the world. There are many thousands of expats in Spain that would probably disagree that it´s a 100 times better.
As for not taking a chance and regretting it, of course there are thousands of unhappy expats, some imprisoned in illegal properties etc that are regretting ever taking that chance. They might have been better staying home thinking "what if?" ;)

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Megmet,

Sounds great, it seems like you have it all worked out.

I am about to buy and I am doing so with no expectations of making any capital gain. Like you, I'm buying it because it's the property I want in the place that I want it. I don't want to rent because I want to make the place mine. I will admit that a factor in the final choice was getting a place that ought to hold its value to some degree, i.e. with low possibility of major value depreciation. I do realise that it's buying in 2014 not 2008 that is helping with that.

It's warming to hear such a positive story amongst the pessimism.

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My browser won't accept Daily Mail links. I spent a few minutes making sure of that :-)

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:goodpost:What a very nice, heart warming post. It gives us all a bit of hope amongst all the doom and gloom normally told. Thanks for that.

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Nice to see you are enjoying it, friends of ours enjoy it equally, but I fail to see why you couldn´t eat out several times a week and live comfortably on your pensions in UK. I´d guess we are off a similar age, we dine out at least a couple of times a week, have numerous holidays, had three short breaks already this year and make Spain about 3 times a year. We probably only spend at most half of our combined pensions a week but still live very comfortably, we want for nothing, as do our friends and neighbours. Interesting view though that you could only do it in Spain.

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Bet you have a warm house too....and a proper telly:lol:

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And I bet they don't need food banks! :)

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You´re right about the house, toasty, whatever the weather! I think I could live without the TV quite easily, the computer, Photoshop, Lightroom, not a chance. ;)
Talking of eating out, I asked my Spanish friend today about a restaurant she went to yesterday which I haven´t tried yet, could she recommend the food. Bearing in mind that all Spanish food is top quality and so much cheaper than the crap English food, she came back with this. Sorry for the Spanish, she won´t talk to me in English.:(

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Bully for you-i wouldn't have thought the average pensioner would be able to live that lifestyle and use only half the pension! According to the news, many have to choose whether to heat or eat.You are indeed privileged.

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Far from an average pensioner don't ya think. Reminds me of the Harry Enfield brummy sketch 'I am considerably richer than you. Classic :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Kum8OUTuk

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I'd say very much an average pensioner, I have private pensions as do many millions more. I certainly don't apologise for having invested wisely and ensuring my later years would be a tad easier. The grey pound is incredibly important, I'm certainly not alone, there are millions of us. I would argue that as the over 50's account for 76% of the nations financial wealth that makes me very average, in fact well below average. Jump on any plane to Spain, see all the poor pensioners on there, they definitely ain't short of a pound or two. Rich I ain't, but we have enough.

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Don't think many "average" pensioners would agree.Even those with private and occupational pensions wouldn't be able to live your lifestyle, and have half left. Many have enough to live on and can afford to eat out occasionally, but I doubt if they are in your category.I wonder what your definition of wealthy is. In my book, you ARE wealthy.

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You're confusing me with cricketman. ;) :D