Relocation to Spain Experience

[Martynt74]

No, it's an interesting point. There are various penalties for holiday homes where they're taxed as a "wealth tax" on non residents. Think it's around 3%. Similar to how Wales/Cornwall are trying to target second home owners with heavy council tax rates. Although the amount of

I do think that countries, especially Spain are trying to get around the 180 day rule. It's hindering the economy and is stopping people using their holiday homes, so then they don't come as often, and then new people don't want to buy, not UK people anyway. Still loads of buyers from other EU countries.

 

[dod]

Also in theory (theory being a great thing and all), those coming in on that rule are unlikely to be a burden on the state

the Visa rules (for 3rd country citizens) are pretty straightforward
1. Golden visa - invest £500K in Spain, which can be a property, and get a visa which also allows you to work.
2. Non Lucrative Visa - have passive or savings income to meet a multiple of Spanish average wages you can get a visa which does not allow you to work.
3. Digital Nomad Visa - be educated to a suitable level, have already worked remotely for a period of time and have a certain level of income allows you to work
4. Worker visa - If you're job appears on their desired list or if a company can prove that nobody else in Europe can do your particular job and sponsor you then you can get a visa. I think the OP is able to by-pass this due to his wife holding an EU passport and he gets to piggy back that.
5. Self employed visa - as it sounds. You need a solid business plan detailing how it will benefit Spain
6. Student visa - approved courses and allows you to carry out some work.

Private health insurance is also mandatory for most of these for a minimum period of 1 year, not sure about the GV or student visas. I think you can then transfer to Spanish health care

No, it's an interesting point. There are various penalties for holiday homes where they're taxed as a "wealth tax" on non residents. Think it's around 3%. Similar to how Wales/Cornwall are trying to target second home owners with heavy council tax rates. Although the amount of

I do think that countries, especially Spain are trying to get around the 180 day rule. It's hindering the economy and is stopping people using their holiday homes, so then they don't come as often, and then new people don't want to buy, not UK people anyway. Still loads of buyers from other EU countries.

It's not a wealth tax, it's a tax based on an assumed/equivalent rental value, regardless of whether or not the property is rented out or not. It's the same idea as additional council tax here, just a different way of skinning the same cat.

I don't think there's much they can do about the 180 day rule at the moment and not totally sure how much they want to anyway. By all accounts there are still plenty of people from other European countries buying properties so it's questionable about how much of a hit the economy is actually taking. Couple that with their wish to reduce pressure on house prices I can't really see them moving on it.

 

[Martynt74]

Private health insurance is also mandatory for most of these for a minimum period of 1 year, not sure about the GV or student visas. I think you can then transfer to Spanish health care

Yeah, still need Health Insurance for the GV. The other factor is there's a limit i believe on how long you can be out of Spain for. My friends parents have recently bought a house and applying for it, but unsure on the limitations behind it. Wouldn't have thought they'd have wanted insurance.
I believe after 12 months you can convert to the healthcare system, same as with the NLV (unsure about DNV)

It's not a wealth tax, it's a tax based on an assumed/equivalent rental value, regardless of whether or not the property is rented out or not. It's the same idea as additional council tax here, just a different way of skinning the same cat.

I don't think there's much they can do about the 180 day rule at the moment and not totally sure how much they want to anyway. By all accounts there are still plenty of people from other European countries buying properties so it's questionable about how much of a hit the economy is actually taking. Couple that with their wish to reduce pressure on house prices I can't really see them moving on it.

Yeah true. I think it varies by region (for who wants it), but as you say it's an EU rule. I guess if they really wanted it they'd create a new Visa with no limitations or relax existing rules, whereas they're actually tightening some of the restrictions.

 

[Martynt74]

Interesting information, please keep posting.
I just sent am email to a Portuguese and Spanish law firm that deal with these things.

I gave them a brief history including, multiple degrees. This includes my area of expertise, globally hot property at the moment.

I was hoping just my area of expertise would shoot me pass all the bureaucracy.

Problem is (at least in Spain) i'm not sure it helps, unless you can find an employer willing to go through all the hoops needed to hire you. As @dod mentioned, it's a bit like the US where they have to provide substantial evidence for why they can't hire an EU citizen. If you can find a company to do that ahead of time then great, but not sure a lawyer could help without the job offer.

Best entry point really is a Digital Nomad Visa. It locks in a low rate of tax, is pretty much a guaranteed visa (providing you meet the conditions), and allows you to retain a job in the UK. There could be some tax issues for the company though so that's the only issue. After 5 years you can then apply for citizenship.

 

[Martynt74]

Yeah makes sense. I don't profess to be an expert but if you ever have specific questions just give me a shout. You pick up a hell of a lot from the various facebook groups

 

[dod]

Interesting information, please keep posting.
I just sent am email to a Portuguese and Spanish law firm that deal with these things.

I gave them a brief history including, multiple degrees. This includes my area of expertise, globally hot property at the moment.

I was hoping just my area of expertise would shoot me pass all the bureaucracy.

Spain and Portugal publish lists of required specialisms. Just check there to see if you're "on the list".

However, that still doesn't negate the fact that if you want to be employed you will need to find a sponsoring company. They need to prove nobody else in Europe can do that job. Not easy

edit: cross posted with Martynt74

 

[jpaul]

Best entry point really is a Digital Nomad Visa.

lot of talk about that, but the practicality of working from abroad without any local office environment/colleagues for some social interaction would have been tough personally,
interacting with natives/multi-nationals at work, and some language baptism of fire, helps integration ..
not sure if you were in an office environment part time in the UK ?

(working from home seems a unique UK covid initiated obsession amongst gen z - seen several comedy parodies)

 

[Martynt74]

lot of talk about that, but the practicality of working from abroad without any local office environment/colleagues for some social interaction would have been tough personally,
interacting with natives/multi-nationals at work, and some language baptism of fire, helps integration ..
not sure if you were in an office environment part time in the UK ?

(working from home seems a unique UK covid initiated obsession amongst gen z - seen several comedy parodies)

Very rarely. I was 100% office based pre-Covid. Then changed jobs mid Covid (June 2021) and so was home based to start with. Then as the UK office went back to a hybrid working i generally stayed at home apart from specific meetings. I work at a consolidating group level, and the UK office is just one entity within the group, so don't have much interaction with the personnel there other than maybe 1-2 people.
Most of my time is spent doing stuff in the background, or helping out the various entities spread over UK, Germany, Holland and North America so being in an office didn't offer much benefit.

If i'm honest i much prefer home working. I guess it helps my wife is also home based so there's interaction there during the day. It seems a horrible thing to say due to what some people went through, but Covid was one of the best things to ever happen to me! I'm not sure remote working would've kicked in and i'd still be in an office 5 days a week and still in the UK.

 

[Martynt74]

Big week, for spending at least. We went out at the weekend to check out kitchens, then i saw an outdoor furniture shop that looked cheap and suggested we head in. One thing we've not had in any rentals are comfy outdoor chairs where you can relax after work with a beer or just generally be properly comfortable. After forcing the wife to buy the cheapest Tectake garden furniture in the UK. I'd promised her we'd buy decent stuff here and i wouldn't be my usual cheap self.

Walked into the factory and appearances were deceiving. Everything i looked at was insane money. Like €5k for an outdoor sofa, and €850 for a sun lounger crazy! Lots of nice stuff though and we saw some reclining aluminum chairs for €500 each. Was a bit shocked at the womans reluctance to do a deal though when i started to suggest we buy a couple chairs, matching footstools, small table and then also add in an outdoor dining table. All i got was that if we spent around 5k she might be able to do 5% I walked out saying i wanted to just have a think, and thought she might try harder with no luck. Monday we went to another few places but didn't see anything we liked as much. However we did stumble upon a general furniture shop.

I hadn't realised my wife planned on us buying a bed straight away, but it turns out the lady in the rental is taking her main bed, and my wife doesn't fancy being stuck on a double that's potentially old and battered. I can't blame her. We found a bed frame and mattress we really liked. It had some cooling technology which is absolute witchcraft. The thing was noticeably cool to the touch compared to every other mattress in the store. No idea how it does it! I've also always wanted an Eames style chair and they had a replica at a decent price, and when buying together they gave a decent discount of just over 10%

Got home and my wife started checking reviews. It's a brand called Mimma and Google/Trust Pilot reviews aren't great. Although at the same time there are very few (only 3 on TP, and not many more on Facebook). I also saw the chair was advertised €100 cheaper on their website. I sent an email just to check the cancellation policy citing the bad reviews as a concern. However i got a couple of decent emails back from them doing their best to re-assure me. Also apologising for the pricing issue on the website but offering to refund me a further €100. I'm happy enough and it seems Spain doesn't have the review culture of the UK, so if there's only a handful of bad reviews for a store with ~30 outlets across Spain it can't be that bad!

Yesterday i placed an order for Starlink. We could get 1000mbs Fibre at the rental, but it's a €150 connection charge and €40 a month. Cheap enough, but given we need Starlink in our final home it made sense to just spend the money on that. Annoyingly i realised today that the router has no ethernet port and i've also ordered a few Ubiquiti bits so have added the ethernet adaptor from Starlink. I'm debating the elevated pole add on too, but €90 seems a lot for that!

Residency application is looking better. The new person i have dealing with it seems loads better and is pro-active. Just waiting on the newly apostiled marriage cert to reapply.

Also just dismissed the accountants for my wifes Autonomo submissions. They charged €62/mth which seems unnecessary for the amount of work involved. I'm gonna do it myself! I've done a fair bit of reading and from the submissions i've been sent from the accountants it's much easier than the UK tax returns. Also liking that i can stick Starlink and the Ubiquiti stuff through to reclaim VAT

 

[Martynt74]

Residency application is looking better. The new person i have dealing with it seems loads better and is pro-active. Just waiting on the newly apostiled marriage cert to reapply.

And submitted yesterday and i have the confirmation email of receipt stating a maximum 3 months to process the application.

I'm starting to question if the first company even submitted anything, as they claimed i should've received the above confirmation back in January when they submitted it, but i received nothing. Problem is actually proving that, and since it was only €130 i'm just going to write it off.

 

[dod]

Was a bit shocked at the womans reluctance to do a deal though when i started to suggest we buy a couple chairs, matching footstools, small table and then also add in an outdoor dining table.

Are you doing that in Spanish or English? I'm just curious as to how your language skills are coming on living there full time

 

[Martynt74]

Are you doing that in Spanish or English? I'm just curious as to how your language skills are coming on living there full time

English, the woman seemed to be Dutch/German.

Honestly, my language skills aren't great. I've not been putting any real effort in, and so whilst i'm better than i was back in October. I'm still at the real basics of simple sentences to get questions/answers across rather than holding conversations. 100% my failing and not sure what i can do to motivate myself.

 

[ColdAsIce]

Replace the wife with a local xD

 

[Martynt74]

Replace the wife with a local xD

That's one option, but she's also the only reason i'm allowed in the country!

(and i love her, but that's less of a factor)

 

[EvilRob]

Honestly, my language skills aren't great. I've not been putting any real effort in, and so whilst i'm better than i was back in October. I'm still at the real basics of simple sentences to get questions/answers across rather than holding conversations. 100% my failing and not sure what i can do to motivate myself.

It's just how we English are...

 

[potatolord]

English, the woman seemed to be Dutch/German.

Honestly, my language skills aren't great. I've not been putting any real effort in, and so whilst i'm better than i was back in October. I'm still at the real basics of simple sentences to get questions/answers across rather than holding conversations. 100% my failing and not sure what i can do to motivate myself.

Have you considered changing the language on your phone and PC to Spanish?

 

[jpaul]

Need to be listening to spanish singers , mate used to listen to patricia kaas in france, more of a vanessa paradis person myself,
watching version originale films at cinema with uk subtitles.

lets face it the diatribe delivered by swift in her new 'album' is worth escaping - a poor derivative of Lana, too.

 

[Lopéz]

English, the woman seemed to be Dutch/German.

Honestly, my language skills aren't great. I've not been putting any real effort in, and so whilst i'm better than i was back in October. I'm still at the real basics of simple sentences to get questions/answers across rather than holding conversations. 100% my failing and not sure what i can do to motivate myself.

It's significantly harder to learn a second language as an adult.

I learned some German (not very much in 2 years tbh) in school and then didn't touch it again until over 20 years later.
I messed around with Duolingo but only made real progress when I started having lessons in a class twice a week.
After a year of that (I don't need to speak much German outside of my German class to be honest) I'm probably around B1 level but not the strongest B1 I'd say.

 

[Martynt74]

Best part about Spain. My wife has come to the hospital for a scan on her shoulder.

I’m not allowed in the room so I’m in the cafe drinking beer because they serve it inside the hospital

 

[randomshenans]

Best part about Spain. My wife has come to the hospital for a scan on her shoulder.

I’m not allowed in the room so I’m in the cafe drinking beer because they serve it inside the hospital

Just doing what you're told and integrating at the same time! Good man!