What did you do with......
 

All your worldy possessions in the UK when you moved to Spain please? I am unsure what to do with it all. I think we want to rent furnished in Spain and sell the house in UK so what to do with the 20 years of accumulated stuff here.

Anyone used them house clearance people before? :unsure:

Re: What did you do with......
 

Sold everything barring personal stuff - private sale in local papers and also lots of bootsales

I think you have to weigh up what you really want to bring and the cost of getting here

Re: What did you do with......
 

eBay is your friend!

Re: What did you do with......
 

I agree, I would do boot sales and ebay to clear all the things that you dont use.

If you have furntiure that you wanted to keep - maybe put it in storage for a while.

It is a great feeling when you have a good clear out of the house, you accumulate so many things you never knew you had - and never really needed.

Good luck

Re: What did you do with......
 

Please don't do as one twerp around here did. He moved here and had his stuff come down on a big lorry and put into storage whilst he looked for a house. His stuff was in storage for the best part of a year. I went to help him shift it and was stunned by the stuff that he and his wife had brought over. There was a cheap plastic broom, a mop and bucket (normal Poundstretcher stuff) and lots of nonsense knick-knacks. Now I understand the sofa and chest of drawers etc (although I wouldn't have done it) but the stuff that you can get anywhere I couldn't believe. He said that they weren't sure if they could get those types of brooms and mops here!!!! But best of all was a microwave dating back to the very early 80s. We picked up between the two of us - shows how old it was as it weighed a ton - and some liquid trickled out. Inside was a cup of coffee that they hadn't taken out when they left England!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He now admits that maybe they should have sold their stuff and bought new here.

Re: What did you do with......
 

I was lucky and lived on the road to the carboot sale, also had a large front drive. We set up the stuff there and once there were 33 people looking including two coppers who also bought stuff. lol
Did this for 3 or 4 weeks.

Re: What did you do with......
 

Same here, we got rid of most stuff, and furnished a flat in the UK for my daughter with what was left.

Just bought personal stuff and a few bits of Rustic furniture. Didn't want to furnish a Spanish villa with English furniture

Our life amounted to one Luton Van full!

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We have 32 years worth of stuff - most of which we had stored in the loft for years and when we opened the boxes we couldn't believe what we have kept up there! The most surprising thing was a cardboard box full of old shoes which I had put ready to throw out in 1990 when we moved house, somehow it had got stored away!! :blink: We made quite a few journeys to the tip and lots to charity shops, they are always grateful for donations. Then we were told we wouldn't be moving for a few months yet :mad: still at least we have had a good clear out.

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We were very lucky, sold all the valuables we didn`t want on Ebay (including 7,000 records over 4 years), binned the rubbish stuff and any personal stuff we either brought with us or stored in the mother in laws loft. The rest of the contents of our flat was purchased by the buyer as he wanted to move tenants in straight away. So everything down to the cutlery bedding etc was sold.

Tom

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Wow that was handy ;-)

Re: What did you do with......
 

Yes it was. The apartment we have in Torrevieja came fully furnished so we really didn`t need any of the furniture at all. Some of the neighbours in the UK had a few bits but other than that, he really did buy the lot. Considering we lived on the 6th floor of a block the thought of having to shift all of it out was a nightmare.

Tom

Re: What did you do with......
 

Sold everything either on e bay or through a local auction house that held household sales as well as fine art ones, stuff went in either at their discretion, and as the auctions took place after we left the UK they paid the money into our bank account as well. Auction house even collected and stored things, but did charge for that. Also needed three skips to get rid of unsaleable stuff.

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id put it on ebay you will be surprised how some stuff makes on there! them people who do house clearances just want give you pennys for it stick on ebay what you got to lose ! im going to keep all my personal items sell all my furnture apart from my leather settees they cost me a fortune im going to take them out in van with other items ! does any one think im better off selling my settee s and buying new ones out there , or are they more expensive out there ?

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In my experience, sofas are more expensive in Spain. If you have good leather sofas, it would be worth taking them with you although you will need to use "throws" during the very cold and very warm weather.

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Yes we brought two leather recliner chairs with us, bought in UK with move specifically in mind as we had already boutght our house here, but that was the only furniture, apart from the bed, that we brought out.

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we are moving over in three weeks. Looked at buying all new furniture etc in spain but in the end bought 2 new leather sofas in Uk, beds and dining room furniture.We decided as our son wanted to bring all his possesions as well we might as well use a removal company so we budgeted for it in our figures, worked out at £3500, they do all the packing then we are fully insured. Did manage to down size though using car boot sales, auctions and ebay.

Sue

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could anybody tell us what would be better....... sell our car over ere in uk and buy a second hand one out there or would we better taking ours with us? i,ve heard it can be quite expensive registering a car from uk out there?

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Do I know you? :o

We left some stuff in the UK house which we kept on, but shipped masses of stuff out, some of which had to go into storage for a while, since there was no room in the first house. I'm sure that one of the things that came over was a box of rubbish that has got picked up by the removals guys rather than being thrown out. We go through phases of whittling it down, but there's still stacks of stuff we've not had out of the boxes in years.

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We moved last year and decided to pack up our personal possessions and our hobbies and sell the rest. So a season of car booting and trips to the charity shops dwindled our goods down to the equilalent of a Luton van. The cost of moving it here was 1/2 to 3/4 covered by the items that we had sold, so a good strategy we thought. With hindsight we realise that we should have bought additional novels to read but that is the only thing that we think we missed out on.

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We were in the same situation as you....got advised to sell our English one and buy a left hand drive out here.

We are so glad we did it!! Altho second hand cars out here aren't so cheap but you are right re-registering isn't cheap either...

Plus I don't think I would feel safe driving a right hand drive and the opposite side of the road :o :unsure: !!! Oh and the tolls would be a hassle if you were driving on your own too ;)

If you can get a good price for you car in the UK I'd sell it....

Re: What did you do with......
 

No sorry I haven't.....

We were sooo silly GAVE away loads. Brought quite a few things with us but stupidly thought we would get new this and that when we got to Spain :huh: !!

Ran out of cash quickly :o and gutted as didn't replace all the stuff we gave away....like food processor and other kitchen bits and bobs.

Gutted all my books went.....LOADS and LOADS...but far too many and HEAVY too...

Glad we kept our leather sofas...!!

Good luxk :thumbup:

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Well we did both.

The UK car we re registered here and that cost us 1130 euros, mainly because it is an unusual car and needed some adjustments. Also, I got caught for import tax as I had registered on the padron over 30 days before for reasons too complicated to go in to. It should have cost about 600 euros using a gestoria.

We bought a second hand spanish car from a garage here, and the rgistration charges on that car through his gestoria were about 580 euros. Fortunately I got him to include this in the cost of the car (after we had agreed the price).

I have absolutely no problem driving a right hand drive car over here at all. I just stretch over for the tolls, but having said that once I got here I didn't use the tolls that much.

I would say that if it is a relatively new car, and you have owned it for more than 6 months, then its worth bringing it. But bear in mind when you sell it eventually you will probably need to part exchange as its unlikely you will sell it privately.

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by the time we get over there it will be just over 7 year old, its a 7 seater vauxhall zafira so if we were to sell it ere we,d hopefully want to get something similar over there. it,s in perfect cond. just passed ANOTHER mot!! my husband has no problem driving over there with it cos he,s done a lot of driving in spain in the past with work. oh decisions decisions!!

Re: What did you do with......
 

If its 7 years old and you've no particular attachment to it, then sell it there and buy a new one here.
Bear in mind that to register a car here you normally have to be registered on the padron at the town hall and you will need an NIE.
Cars in general are more expensive here than in the UK, but road tax is less and of course petrol is cheaper. Diesel is the best buy as its around 89 cents a litre

Re: What did you do with......
 

we would be registering on the padron straight away! the first of many things to do when we get there as we also have children to get into schools and jobs to find! thanks to u both for ure replies!