Relocation to Spain Experience

[Martynt74]

Martynt74. I may follow you one day. So keep posting your experiences and thank you.
You are able to convert UK pensions to Spanish pension after Brexit, that is very interesting.

Awesome. I know it's only 3 months so far, but i honestly don't see myself wanting to go back. Yes there's some frustrations and obvious problems with language which i'm not doing enough at the moment to improve on as we've been sorting so much other stuff out, but my quality of life is hugely improved.


If you work remotely, and don't have EU connections, then look at a Digital Nomad Visa. Once you have that for 5 years you can apply for permanent residency

 

[Martynt74]

Martynt74 yes, I have lately been looking at a Digital Nomad passport.
I too want quality of life, and find UK does not offer it, or should I say does not offer what I think my quality of life should be.

All i can say is do it

There's lot of good facebook groups covering most topics from Tax/Visas/General Moving questions which are an invaluable source of info.

 

[Martynt74]

Whoop got a rental sorted. It's about €450/mth cheaper than our current place too which gives us a good saving. Although by no means is it as nice so i can't use the backdrop for any pictures in the purchases thread for a while

A big relief though as there was a possibility of having nothing sorted for June-August. The owners of the new place are out in September but things should be calmer by then and we may even have a small guest house built on our plot to move into, which would be the dream.

 

[Martynt74]

Have you setup SEPA direct debits for any monthly payments, or amazon, as I'm contemplating ?

I'm just learning how it, surprisingly, works you just give supplier your bank account #, and they can take what they want !
much less formality than uk.

Slowly starting. I've now opened an account with Sabadell which i'm hoping won't be too painful. Have linked my wifes self employed tax/social security to it. As you say they can just request whatever they want and can be a nightmare to get back by all accounts! Just need to be extra vigilant ontransactions.


Things took a downward turn this week. Seems the local ayuntamiento (town hall), didn't actually send over the backing documents for my residency, and as such i got a letter to say my application is closed with no right to appeal as i failed to comply with the request. Even though i have a receipt the foreigners office just said i need to re-apply.

Given i'm now over the 90 day limit and actively working in the country, i got a little paniced, so have decided to pay a company to handle it for me. Would've rather not spent the money, but it's worth it for peace of mind.


In other Admin **** ups. The Gestor (kind of like accountants/lawyers who deal with admin and paperwork) registered my new car to the wrong address and got 1 digit of the post code wrong. I only discovered it when i realised i hadn't been sent the equivalent of the V5, checking my online account correctly shows the car registered to me but with the wrong address.
Got in touch with the company who submitted the documents, only to be told they want €30 to fix their own mistake!

 

[Martynt74]

@mattyfez @Concrete

Do you guys get paid over here? I got my first payslip, but for some reason it's split into multiple lines,

The "Base Salary" is around 40% of my actual salary, and then there's some bits for Bonus/Extras, and then the bottom line for A Cta Convenio which makes up around 50%. Just not really got a clue why they'd split it out like this. I've sent their HR an email but they're sometimes a bit slow.

Also they've ran payroll for the 2nd Jan to 31st Jan and so i've missed out on a days salary for the 1st as the UK ran payroll to the 31st December

 

[Martynt74]

Ask your current landlord for an extension? They might be fine extending it, for payment in effectivo...

Nah. They want the juicy summer rent. It’s an amazing house for summer weekly rentals so I don’t blame them.

We’ve found a rental till September which is cheap and gets us over the summer months so might see what f we can get back in here from Sept onwards.the benefit is it’s only €800/mth which saves us €500 a month which is helpful.

 

[Martynt74]

Maybe not expanded properly. My reference to “builder” is effectively a developer who used to be a property lawyer.

As such he will coordinate the whole process for us.

Ultimately we’re paying a premium for his services but given our position it’s well worth it.

The issue I have is that as an accountant I want breakdowns and numbers. His standard practice is to give a price for “a house” including all legal work, architect fees, appliances etc.

We need to find a way to meet in the middle and give me details. I don’t mind if his profit is 30%. I accept that for having someone manage the whole build, but I want to know how much is allocated to certain items so I can conpronise on some things to create budget for others.

At the moment this is where I’m struggling but I have a meeting with him and our estate agent on Tuesday to try and nail down a final spec.

 

[Martynt74]

perhaps view his budgetting mathematically - each task, has a mean and standard deviation of cost/contingencies, and he has to find the distribution sum, without worst casing everything.

exchange rate what's your current approach on watching exchange rate for fund transfer ? pound has been strengthening over the last few months - annoyed I hadn't moved some euros->pounds,
maybe things improve if Keir#humptydumpty get's in (sequel - brexits)

Messed up a little with that. Had thought we were due to complete last week, so in my haste i saw an rate of 1.163 and moved everything over in one lot, however as the week went on i could've got around 1pt higher which would've been about €1000 extra

For now, i've got most of the cash sat in my Trading 212 account. It pays out 4% interest on cash balances in Euros which is decent, and it means the cash is sat in Euros ready to transfer to the seller when the notary appointment is announced. Just need to withdraw it back to my bank the day before.

My plan for the rest is probably just going to transfer my GBP once a month. My salary is paid in Euros and covers our day to day living costs and a little savings So it's just my wifes income and other little bits in GBP. In theory that can all just get converted each month and put into savings. It's only ~£2k/mth so i think just hedging and converting regularly makes the most sense rather than trying to time it. Any FX changes won't be a material amount.

 

[Martynt74]

Few big days. We're heading to my parents place tomorrow for 3 weeks to house sit for them. It's come at a pretty crap time given we're moving into a new rental on the 1st March, and have to come back down this way on the 20th to officially sign the paperwork for the land purchase on the 20th Feb. We've also got my daughters cat being shipped over who arrives on the 2nd March.

I've just been to move some stuff into the new rental this morning as it's currently empty which makes things a little handier. It's nowhere near as nice as the current place but it'll do the job. Main downside is the outside space, but it's a decent cost saving each month which will be nice.

Had a meeting with the developer on Tuesday. Trying to nail down a final spec has been tricky but i want to get a final price so i know what i'm working with. The benefit being that a few things i was wanting to spec up as extras (water deposit for drinking water and video link for the gate) are actually included in the agreed price.

My wife wanted a bit more of an entrance hallway so we've shifted things around a little from the previous layout and come up with the layout below. Probably with a sliding internal door from the hall to the lounge area.

 

[Martynt74]

Well, an eventful weekend. The bad part being driving up to my parents, and coming off a slip road from the motorway onto a roundabout which was clear so didn't slow as much as usual when the steering completely locked up and the brakes didn't seem to work as well expected either.

Went straight into a lamppost which luckily stopped me going down a verge and back onto the motorway! Brain didn't process going to the handbrake sadly, but must've all happened in only around 5 seconds from no steering to hitting lamppost.

Front of the Jeep is a bit of a mess, but luckily the axle seems ok, so am hoping it's just a new bonnet/fender. The grill *might* be ok and straighten out. Radiator probably needs replacing and then whatever else needs putting back.

Luckily my wife was following behind so wasn't in the car with me, and my only injury is from jarring my leg as it was slamming onto the brake pedal during the impact. Think she was more shook up than me because must be horrible to watch that happening!

 

[Martynt74]

Onto the good part. The architect has finished the plans for the house with our reworked layout. Still a few minor tweaks i think to make, mainly being the pool being further from the house, but hopefully we can get things done quickly so we can get planning permission in

 

[Martynt74]

Scary scary stuff!

Have also agreed to pay for €5k worth of the sellers fees to reduce the official price slightly. Seems like it's a common practice here!

 

[Martynt74]

Woohoo, we're now officially land owners.

The rubbish dump came with the sale. Luckily we weren't charged extra....

The house is planned for by the tree diagonally up/right from the small group of people in the middle (me, the wife and the builder)

 

[Martynt74]

Update. Decided to mark up the locations of things. Mainly because we have constant discussions between myself and my wife, then get to the agents/developers, i say something and she looks at me blankly. So i've knocked up the below for the architect to work from and included her in the group chat so she can't claim otherwise

Grey is the drive
Green is the fencing/gate. This is probably well over the allowed size in the budget, but i don't think extra is too expensive. Also not sure if we can reduce it quite a bit in reality
Red is my garage/gym/office
brown is the house with the relevant direction (absolutely not to scale. The drawing below probably makes the house about 900m2!)
blue is the pool

Also in the plans is a pool room/shower/toilet which i've not marked up.


In the future my plans will be to add a guest accommodation (maybe 2) where the rubbish is, maybe further "in" which we can rent out, but still be far enough from the main house.

I'm currently looking for a digger for sale to start trying to level up the plots. Not going to touch where the house will be, but will be good to get the drive sorted and other areas. We can probably also begin clearing it and planting some trees so they get 12 months growth before we move in.

 

[Martynt74]

Is there a reason the rear window to bed one isn't centred on the room/external wall, also the door to beds 2 and 3?

Good spot and i hadn't noticed. Will flag this to the wife, but i imagine it's to keep the outside looking decent and fairly symmetrical.

Doors to beds 2/3 is intentional to give as much space to the left as possible so that we can position the sofa to the left without the doorway being in line. Realistically the door to that small hallway might be one of those hanging sliding doors to avoid limitation on door swing. Bathroom door is also changed to a sliding door.

 

[Martynt74]

Have some sympathy for the colour blind amongst us, that green and brown look almost identical to me!

Whoops, maybe i should've coloured in the brown box for ease!

 

[Martynt74]

If that swimming pool is that close to the house, my experiences with my parents villa's in spain have been that it's nice to have a shaded patio area next to the house (where your pool is on that drawing)under an attached canopy, so you can chill outside in the shade, and the pool can be further away.. it's also easier to then have a small fence around the pool if you every had young guests (A good selling point too!) if it's away from the villa.

Their first villa had the pool close to the house, with a canopy over a patio area away from the house, but in their next villa, had it reversed, patio area under shade next to the house, pool further away and they found they didn't need a canopy over the pool as it was never an issue, it was lovely sitting outside in the shade in summer, with the odd 20 minute dip in the pool to cool off.. ahh.. what a great life out there!

Horses for courses of course, you only have yourselves to please..

We've agreed to move the pool so it's 6m from the house. I agree that in the original design it's a little close at only 3.5m. I imagine they're more designed for people without absolutely masses of space! I'm never really a fan of fences around the pool area and i don't plan on inviting kids

The look we're aiming for is to have everything the same, so the aim for the same tiles indoors and outdoors and even into the pool, for a continual flow. We "might" have to have a change between inside and outside though as some tiles we like are only for Interior use. We love the look of the dark grey/rust style. Just need to find something without going massively over budget!

The "Terraza Cubierta" will be covered as part of the original build and likely have a comfy sofa under it. The plan is then to build an outdoor kitchen area with seating area under a pergola somewhere. Although that's something fun i can tackle at some point.

 

[Martynt74]

PS - obviously goes without saying, its dusty! they had a nice white perimeter wall just at the right height to keep the majority of passing dust at bay.. any idea what you will do for that?

Not sure we have any chance against dust given where we are located!

Just have to mitigate it. The house will be a sandy colour to avoid the ugly look of dirty white walls that most have. Then also having a "lip" around the roof to avoid drips down the walls.

Other than that, there's not much we can do. Just have to access it's part of living out in the country.

 

[Martynt74]

My parents second (or third) Villa was in a similar open dusty area: This was the view just outside their front gate:

All the villas had short white walls, some put bamboo matting on, but just the basics interrupted the otherwise sprawling dust

I wondered why everyone had 'white' as that seems counter intuitive, but it kept surprisingly clean.. Just a weekly wash down in certain areas, no more than 20 minutes a week and it was fine after 4 years.


They had two people further down who didn't want any walls/fencing, and the dust build up was crazy in comparison, especially in the pool..

The locals usually know what works, the villa above was in the mountains away from the coast, absolutely amazing for star gazing..

That looks awesome.

I think long term the plan is to put up some kind of small wall like you have above. Our main issue is the size of the plot and so don't want to put up a few initially only to knock it down later on when we can afford to do things properly.

 

[Martynt74]

Fair play OP for embracing your dreams and doing it. I've been giving it lots of thought myself, I'm sick to death of the climate here and the country is in the toilet after decades of mismanagement. I am leaning more towards Portugal though, I love the sun but July-Sept in Spain is just too much and I wouldn't be keeping anywhere to live in the UK. I think the money goes a bit further in Portugal as well property wise. They still seem more welcoming to Brits with no EU passport as well.

I must say the climate was a major factor, and working with UK colleagues who are constantly complaining of the weather only vindicates the decision. I'm not sure if i've mentioned it, but the biggest benefit actually is the longer winter days. Even at the shortest point it was around 8am to 5:45pm. I know that gets offset without the long summer days in the UK, but being able to get outside in day light after work was a great feeling, and because the weather is still mild/dry you can actually do something.

I'm sure everyone will laugh when i'm crying at 45C temps in summer though!

I always thought Portugal was more expensive (and the language is regarded as impossible!), but i guess it depends on area. Spain is probably more popular with expats which creates the inflation, but moving to a less touristy area gets something cheap still. Similarly i think if you were to aim up towards the North you've got a better climate. Although the NE which probably has the best is very expensive. The NW is cheap, but then you get a lot of Atlantic rain.

I had thought Spain had caught up with regards to non EU citizens with the digital nomad visas being offered. I hadn't realised Portugal was still easier, but i can't say i investigated much.

I would definitely prioritize the wall if at all possible. Our area is considerably less dusty than yours, and we normally have to vacuum the pool every couple of weeks to avoid too much dust build up on the bottom. At least with the system we have, the particles of dust are too fine to be caught by the pool filter, so you have to vacuum to waste which uses quite a lot of water.

Yeah, it's something i'll be building myself so just need to get my head around where to build the boundary. The place we rented didn't have any walls beyond the metal fencing and that wasn't horrific for dust. Maybe because of the hills/land terracing there are some natural barriers. I know there are certain times of year the Sahara dust gets blown up (March/April time), but that's just something you have to accept.

I'm half debating a salt water pool too, although can't decide on pros/cons completely. I was avoiding it for a pool cover, but i don't think i'm going to bother with one now. My parents have some and it just seems to trap dirt on top of the water/cover requiring extra maintenance and doesn't do enough to retain heat.