britishlondon30s

Hey !

So some advice please!

Me, my husbands and kids (born in Spain) have been living in Castilla y León for almost 8years
I'm British ! But we don't like the area anymore and feel the village life is just getting too small for us. We are considering moving back to the UK but house prices have rocketed ! We are also thinking about future pension. Will I loose my Spanish state pension If I move back to UK, as I've been working here in Spain. Also which country is better with pension funda (UK or Spain?)
another option is to move to the south of Spain...a cheaper way of living perhaps and chepaer houses with potentially more British people.

Any advice? Stay put in Spain given current world situation? I have a good job here. We just miss some of our home comforts and we are not sure to move back financially will be good as our house will be paid is less than ten years here but on a small village.

Most appreciated!!

growinspain

Move back to the UK and help make Britain "Great" again...

Just my opinion..

mikelincs

With the situation in the UK at the moment I can only advise you NOT to return, quality of life now the UK has left the EU is falling and will continue to fall until the current government are gone.

Listen Very Carefully

You have a job you have children who were born in Spain so know nothing about Britain and presumably are going through the Spanish Education system. The UK as a country is heading down the toilet at a vast rate of knots Classes are overcrowded, hospitals are rammed to the gunwhales ,12 hour waits for ambulances are routine and the country is covered in litter and the roads full of potholes. The average price for a 3 bed house in the UK is £283K Can you afford that? IMHO you should stay put
In relation to the pension then no you will not "lose" it anymore than if you stayed in Spain and had acquired some UK pension There are international agreements about pensions and when you retire the country you are in will send you a claim form for overseas pensions.You should be aware that the pension age in the UK is steadily increasing and will probably be well over 70 by the time you retire Whether or not this is happening in Spain at the same rate I do not know

Moses2013

I always say it and especially these days, it all comes down to your housing situation and what you expect from a move. What will you gain and what will you lose? If you are living rural and have a good bit of land that will last in the changing climate, that's worth a lot more to your kids in the future than a few British people. Where exactly do you live in Castilla y León and which part of the UK are you looking at? Although we have a home in the north east of Spain, I live in Ireland and it would be the same for me if I had to move to a more urban area. I could sell up here and it would just about be the deposit for a property I don't even like in Dublin, Madrid, London etc. I don't know what your house is worth, but I would take everything into consideration. Job market, childrens future are of course other factors. Maybe you could find more of the balance around Vigo, closer to sea, a bit more urban and still have affordable properties with land.

Lou71

Agreed 100%. Spain is far from perfect but I wouldn't go near the UK and I only go back (with a great deal of difficulty) when I really can't avoid it. I can't stand the place, particularly now.

Perhaps you could consider relocating somewhere else?

Lou71

Satire?

lindasal

I agree with everything you say but you forgot to mention the high crime in the UK, its a fact you can wait literally days for the police to respond to a call, I personally had my vehicle broken into TWICE in one week and both times I was told on the phone "there is no point us coming without cctv, here's a crime number for your insurance"

Ronnyone

Honestly the UK is not quite the hopeless entity that people suggest. Most of the posters here have little knowledge of the politics and lifestyle of Spain so it's easy to sit in the sun in Alicante in a British expat urbanization and say all is great and the uk is crap. There are plenty of good things for you in UK but like so much in life it depends on what you have , what you need and what you want. Life for working families in Spain is much harder than in UK. Work hours a longer , taxes are higher. Most Spanish rely on extensive family networks to make things work and this is not available to foreigners like Brits.
If you really want a gauge on things, consider this: most of my Spanish students would love to be UK as it offers lots more opportunities than Spain. Your kids will have considerably better chances at education jobs professions etc in UK than Spain.

Moses2013

To be fair, I have felt safer walking through Enniskillen in the UK compared to Barcelona in Spain, so again often down to location rather than country. The same can happen in Spain and just recently I have seen a house advertised. NO SE GARANTIZA LA DISPONIBILIDAD DE ACCESO A LA FINCA, PUEDIENDO ESTAR OCUPADA POR TERCEROS SIN TITULO.

So where are the police/ is the law here? Also plenty of crime across Spain to be honest.

Loafing Along

Why not consider a lot simpler move to another part of Spain not just the south ? On the subject of pensions contributions are higher in Spain and you should get a much better pension here than the Uk if you accumulate enough years .

Dxf

Hola,

I really think Spain is “dead” for retiring Brits as the monthly income requirements (27,000€ single person, 33,000 married couple plus 6,500 for each dependant) are far too high for all but the richest pensioners. Having to buy FULL health insurance from a Spanish company won’t be cheap and the Convenio Espacial at 60€ a month (157€ a month over 65) isn’t cheap and finally, having to take a driving test in the Spanish language will put most people off.

The Costa del Sol may survive but other areas will struggle I think; the Cadiz area is cheaper than the other Costas and has attracted those with less money; therefore, I feel the numbers of British ex-pats will diminish quickly.

So, do I want to stay in this paradise that calls itself Spain while all around me there is a growing number of foreigners who speak a different language? I spent eight years formally learning Spanish and it has served me well. But I am not sufficiently fluent for all occasions and I am getting increasingly deaf which doesn’t help.

So, now in my twentieth year of living in Spain, my conclusion is to move back while, at 75, I can still move myself back.

For those of you that are not retired, a word of caution; are you swapping a high stress / high reward life now for a lower stress / higher life style at the cost of a lower standard of life as a pensioner? If you earn less money here in Spain than you would in the UK, then will your retirement be as good as you want?

Good luck in your deliberations

Davexf

christmasoompa

Possibly in some areas. Not in mine (although I'll give you the potholes, but it only takes a day or two from reporting them for the council to come out and fix them). Please don't tar all of the UK with the same brush.

scrubbedexpat142

Just the potholes!

Ronnyone

Good post. Very few Brits consider the lifestyle they will have as they get older and how health issues impact on day to day activities. I have a Finnish neighbour who is noticeably starting to have issues. A couple of years ago she seem fine although she never says speaks. Since last summer she has started to look more and more disheveled. A now she gets up at 4.30 am and starts talking to herself whilst banging around in the kitchen. Last week she was screaming. She has no visitors and just goes to the shop downstairs. If she were in her own country I'm sure she would be helped by the authorities but unfortunately as no one knows anything about her here she just slips through the net. Very sad.