I don't see how zwig can have lived anywhere much if he thinks the UK's a hell hole.

Pulaski, that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while!

Being a seasonal resident has its advantages, you still get the NHS for example. However Florida has quite high property taxes if you can't claim the homestead exemption.

Also getting a B-1/2 visa (which means you get to stay six months at a time) is relatively easy if you tell them you're retired and are planning to winter in Florida.

It's no different in concept really to people who spend the winter in Spain, the difference is that you can't drive there or easily move your stuff there so that is an additional cost if you have to buy a car and leave it there (which you probably would).

Yes, the B 1/2 - six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Don't even think of returning just yet....

....the weather is still totally crap..

....the news items on TV seem to be obsessed with an array of ageing male celebrities (one of them having appeared in the first ever showing of "Coronation Street" way back in 1960) appearing in court on an array of lurid sexual offenses...

...Red Ed wants to completely reorganise the UK banking system when we all know he wouldn't be capable of running the till in a Women's Institute Bring and Buy Stall in his local parish hall - and the Aussies thrashed England - yet again!

Stay well put, folks!

California's on fire though.

I saw a funny cartoon of Kevin Webster from Coronation street, caption was "tell the bloke with the ford cortina i dont touch anyting older than 15 years"

Don't be silly... you just follow the example of Maine's Governor LePage and claim homestead exemption in both Florida and wherever else you live

Definitely.

But the expensive part of owning a car in Florida is the insurance. And they are geared up for charging snowbirds only for the months of insurance that the car is not laid up in the garage. (As a practical matter you do need to actually keep your car in the garage and not use the garage as a storage room).

Trying to get any companies or government in Britain to understand the concept of seasonal residence however is like trying to educate [deleted].

Or like Bush Sr. who used a hotel letter drop box in a flea bag hotel in Texas as his primary residence so that he didn't have to claim Washington DC or Maine as his primary residence so he wouldn't have to pay state taxes on unearned income.

He was found not guilty.

Sorry. Again

But it was funny

....he got a thumbs up from Len Fairclough.....

The big annual conference that I attend for work is in Orlando this year. I've decided to give it a miss this time.

So was O J Simpson, but people still make jokes.