mscollen

we are planning to move to southern spain shortly and would value any advice on getting work i am a highly qualified carpenter/joiner with several years site management experience i also do plumbing to nvq level 3 and can turn my hand to anything.

sjrw

Carpenter? Is that one of those people who work with dead trees? I can't remember the last time I saw woodwork in the building trade. Oh yes it was when I was in England. Now if you are a concrete expert...

They do use a lot of real wood furniture, but that's a different skill, isn't it?

There are lots of expat brits who come over to do work in the building trade, only to find that they spend most of their time (if they are halway decent - and most seem to become experts on moving to spain, in fields that they knew nowt about in uk) doing work just for the expat brit community.

If you speak good Spanish though, things MAY be a little different.

I personally do most of my repairs and work myself, but would be SO grateful to find a tradesman who was actually qualified; and could be trusted to do the things he said he could do, and do them better and more quickly than I could do them. As, I am fairly certain, would a lot of people. Advertising tends to be best done by recommendation over here.

mscollen

thanks for your advice i worked for several years as a shuttering joiner and steelfixer building concrete structures how hard is it to start a business

sjrw

Not too difficult, but you need to pay out a lot on a monthly basis before you actually start earning anything. The spanish authorities like their pound of flesh. Obviously made much easier when you speaka da lingo, as jobs like that tend to be done by people who know people and have been together so know how they work.
You will for certain need a gestor (financial advice and white stick through the dark and mysterious passages of spanish bureaucracy) and a good solicitor.
Steelfixers and shutterers here work like lightning - I've seen them magically make buildings appear almost overnight...

mscollen

well looks like the work is there if i really want it .thanks for your input much apprieciated.how reliable are the gestors you mentioned.ie do they earn there money . there are so many things we will have to deal with when we land that will test our metal but cant wait for the challenge