End to Mediterranean dream?

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The article was interresting enough, but a bit predictable and possibly exaggerated in a few areas which seems to be the trend when they are trying to make a point.

The only surprising comment was right at the end "According to official statistics Britons remain the second largest EU expatriate community in Spain after Romanians". Than seems most surprising.

I suspect that some of the Spanish won't be overly sad to see the number of Brits reducing.  I know that in a couple of local schools there has been a culture clash - with one school closing and then re-opening a couple of months later so it could quietly rid itself of 3 English kids in the process who were creating havoc. 

But the end to the Mediterranean dream?  No, as a generalism that's far too dramtic.   For most there is just a modest change with a few shops and businesses closing down and the loss of a few familiar faces.  But, this is a marvellous country with masses to offer and no doubt will fully recover in a few years.

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I wonder if some are de-registering in order to hide the fact that they are resident,so that they don't have to do all that awful assets declaration and do things like pay capital gains tax on their UK house sales, for example? Maybe they're going underground! Statistics never tell the whole story.

In terms of the Spaniards' view of the British, in the first place where we lived in Spain there was quite a lot of hostility towards the British, including in the local school, but they also wanted the expats' money... So those who benefit financially are more likely not to complain about the foreigners. Personally, we invested a whole load of money into the Spanish economy and they need that kind of input, giving jobs to the local people, bringing in holiday-makers to spend money in the bars etc. So, for some the British are a necessary evil.

Having said that, in the second place we lived, we were made very welcome by most of the locals and by the teachers in the school. Prejudice and discrimination usually kicks in when the 'foreign' element approaches around 20% or more of the local population; when there is only a small number of foreigners in one area, people can see the newcomers as exotic rather than threatening.

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I think a lot of people came here (to Spain) because they thought the "streets were paved with gold" especially along the costa's, they are the one's heading home.

 

High property prices, "buy off plan" sell on and make a quick profit.

Brit's setting up as property agents, unregulated - renting properties without paying any tax, i could go on...

Others setting up as Kitchen fitters or builders - people that at best are enthusiastic DIY er's.

Well the crash changed all that, and good riddance to the lot of them.

Just as in any other country if you come with a sound business model you will survive, and many have, and good on them.

Through-out life you have to have a plan - the "what if's" if you do you have a good chance at living your particular dream.

Not every-one gets the bit of luck you need in life and i genuenly feel sorry for them that fail - but the "chancers" i wish them well, but don't complain if it goes wrong.

 

There are still lot's of us Brit's in Spain, and still coming (and other countries) that are "loving life" and are in it for the long haul.

 

I'm not sure this survey tells us anything really, like most surveys, a small section of the population interviewed and a bias towards the ones that went home - as opposed to the ones that stayed.

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Excessive taxation in Spain has a lot to do with this trend. Including the new asset tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, tax when you buy a property, import taxes for vehicles, taxes on utilities, income tax at higher levels, high community charges the list is long. Corruption in public life and a poor legal system add to the foreigners feeling of persecution and lack of redress.

You may well put up with all that if the economy warranted it but asset values have tumbled, deflation is a reality and  unlikely to recover in the near term. Businesses are burdened with too many restrictions and bureaucracy despite some labour law reform.

Well qualified and ambitious people in the end go to live where they will be better off despite a climate. That's a central plank of EU policy.

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I thnk there is an increasing trend to deregister, yet stay in Spain to avoid tax and asset declarations, and what's more some gestors advise ex pats to do it!; this and other things such as changes to rules and laws, ever more changing to the extent that even legal advisors and accountants are baffled, contribute to it.

Plus IHT is becoming more of a problem , especialy in regions where allowances have been abolished, or reduced,  a huge worry to face when someone dies.

Increasing utility bills, especially electricity are a factor. It is not much cheaper to live in Spain now, taking into account the hidden costs.

Some are content to do what they always did- evade taxes, defraud the Spanish NHS etc,no licences, no registration on the foreigners register etc, with impunity,  and this makes people trying to be legal, sick.

In the end it's less stress to pack up and go back to the UK, before you are too old and feeble to cope with it, assuming, of course, you can sell your house for enough money( after all the taxes and the estate agents rip off fees) to buy something in the increasingly expensive housing market in the UK!

 

This message was last edited by camposol on 23/04/2014.

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I suspect the tax implications have a lot todo with people of high net worth moving elsewhere.

I spent 30 years uptil 2012 living and working as a scientist for a major Swiss phara company in the South of France. Life was good the work fantastic and we spent our Euros in the locality, then the French government wanted more tax. The outcome was I took a year off living in Spain whilst the facility in France was closed and the operation moved back to Switzerland where I now live and work.

The real down side for France was the loss of some 200 well paid science posts and 400 support posts.

Spain has a less well defined tax model than France and seems to be willing to change the rules at a drop of a hat.

What next 'A Cyprus moment?'

People need certainty especially when in their latter years, not sure Spain provides the types of measures Northern Europeans are used too.

Rossetti

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Some intelligent replies. Here is the story of one families reason for exit from Spain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10782380/Why-the-sun-set-on-my-Spanish-dream.html

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I like this bit in the  article ----------Quote ( We found ourselves befriending people that we didn’t know before because there was, literally, nobody else to talk to.)  Nice,----------- On arriveal at Duba airport they  might have found some free car parked up with keys from all the xpats who fled in the night,due to another county going down the pan What do they say ( The grass is not allways greener.)

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The el Pais In English article here:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/04/22/inenglish/1398175668_875568.html

seems to suggest the numbers are based on the padron records maintained by local town halls.

Last year my town hall sent me a letter to confirm I was still living here and if I was I had to renew my empadronamiento document at the town hall.  If I didn't do it by a certain date, I would be taken off the padron.  I never bothered, so I was taken off the padron.  So I would likely have been included in these figures as an expat leaving Spain.

I don't know if it was just my town hall that was running this empadronamiento campaign or if it was a regional/national thing?  If so, that could explain some of the drop?

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The el Pais In English article here:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/04/22/inenglish/1398175668_875568.html

seems to suggest the numbers are based on the padron records maintained by local town halls.

Last year my town hall sent me a letter to confirm I was still living here and if I was I had to renew my empadronamiento document at the town hall.  If I didn't do it by a certain date, I would be taken off the padron.  I never bothered, so I was taken off the padron.  So I would likely have been included in these figures as an expat leaving Spain.

I don't know if it was just my town hall that was running this empadronamiento campaign or if it was a regional/national thing?  If so, that could explain some of the drop?

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While its pretty obvious that many are leaving Spain due to the tax system and cost's being a lot worse now then say a few years ago some of the articles in the papers need some believing to say the least.

Today it's reported that in a study of 329 people who relocated to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus from the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands and France, were asked how happy they were, thats roughly 55 people asked from each country, hardly the best cross reference of views.

In the same paper, a chap left the UK to live in Spain with the wife and kids, it don't say when, had the normal problems, Kids schooling, economic downturn, property crash etc, he quit England leaving a £400.000 a year job..Thats £7.692 a week, the wife had a good job and by the sounds of it about £1.000 a week, he is now 58, she 56, have to wonder if they expected the same wage's in Spain,  they say now "We've certainly got less money then we had when we came out", put this into context with someone on a state pension and having to give up it's hard to feel to sorry for these people, and hardly the sad tale of many.

But as said it is "In the Newspapers"

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BBC PROGRAMME WANTS TO HEAR FROM EX PATS FROM BEDS, HERTS AND BUCKS

The JVS Show is presented by Jonathan Vernon-Smith and is a Sony Award winning discussion programme broadcast on BBC Three Counties Radio from 9 till 12 Monday to Friday.

News outlets are reporting that many ex-pats are returning to the UK.

JVS would like to speak to ex-pats who are returning or may one day return to Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire or Buckinghamshire.

The programme can be contacted via the following methods:

jvsshow @ bbc dot co dot UK

01582 637 450

We do hope to hear from you.

Kind Regards

Tim Wheeler, Editor of the JVS Show.

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Like any national trend the Spanish crisis developed from about 2000 and whilst in the early years it should have rung bells with uncompleted property everywhere, we never really saw what was happening. Agents of all nationalities were selling like mad, a whole raft of British building workers found they could make a living. Spanish customs were just that and no one raised the spectre of old age and infirmity becoming a problem. Roll on to today and the article by the Swiss pharmacist says the truth about France where large companies pulled out 5 and six years ago. Living in France the French bureaucracy never gave a nod to the money a foreigner brought in and the same for Spain. So now both countries are expensive to live in , both demand you submit tax declarations on World Wide assets and the bottom line is they want your money as much as the British Government does.

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Sanchez1 has hit the nail on the head. While Spaniards who move residence will re-register on their new town's padrón, which will send a notice to the previous municipality, any foreigner who leaves Spain will not bother to trail up to the Town Hall to erase his name. Thus, the ayuntamientos have been told by the Ministerio del Interior to check and justify all foreign residents every two years... and European residents every five years. So the sudden drop in the numbers comes from a five year adjustment rather than a one-year exodus of Brits.

The Spanish should not use the padrón as a guide to the number of guiris here, since many don't register and many others are no longer around - dead or departed, but rather use the data from the electric companies. At least they would have a better idea (except, of course, for those who have the misfortune to live in a vivienda ilegal where they probably don't have electricity).

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Many are leaving, but I think it's more to do with tax implications. The majority who went to Spain had very little idea of how the country operates and the difference between where they came from and went to. I don't agree that Spain is more expensive. Houses are cheaper and that was before the bottom fell out out of the market. Food is still far cheaper and so is the Council tax, for instance in the UK I pay £1700 in Spain 195€. Water costs are similar as are electricity prices and it's far warmer in Spain than in nothern countries. My friends are returning to the UK from France after 12 years, they don't want to end up in a French old people's home as they are not fluent French speakers. However I don't think they really realise how expensive it is in the UK and how much the Uk has changed since they went to France. It could also be that like my friends they have reached another chapter in their lives and just want to come home. Many have been on an adventure and now that is coming to an end.

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Well I can say I have seen it from both sides.    We had a property in Alicante for 8 yrs and loved visiting it, however, due to financial circumstances and changes, and the fact that Spain was getting a more expensive place to visit and subsequently retire to, we sold up and after 19 months we STILL have not got our 3% tax retention back.   Bureaucracy in Spain is a complete nightmare and I have told our gestoria who still insists we are not being unfairly treated waiting for this money, that I wouldn't touch another Spanish property with a barge pole !   

However, our daughter and her partner are just about to move to Costa Del Sol where they both hope to find work.   They both love Spain (as do we both still) and they want to try to make a living there.   They have sold their apartment here and will be able to live for 2 or 3 yrs financially independant but then will have to return if they don't find regular work.

My feelings are (even though I passionately want them to make a go of it), that they will fail to find enough work to keep them going.   They both will do anything, our daughter is a qualified hairdresser but doesn't want to open a shop and he is a self employed jack of all trades and also prepared to do anything, he has run his own business too.

My opinion is that a lot of people who left the UK to go to Spain wanted a better life and did get that for a while, cheap food, cheap living expenses, cheap property and the sun was a bonus !   Now since Spain joined the EU (same as in the UK), the living conditions are deteriorating.    The EU has changed much and many countries in the EU are no longer worth living in.    Many are selling up both here in the UK and by the looks of it in Spain and heading to regions outside Europe.   The EU is sucking the life out of Europeans.

I hope my daughter and her partner can find some sort of life in Spain, they have litte here in the UK, working as they do 52 weeks a year without a holiday and no sun either !   Living in the UK is very expensive and it is suffering the same fete as Spain, full of foreigners who do not want to integrate !   The UK is swamped now and not with the right kind of immigration, there is little left for the indigineous Brits unless you are an employer paying your workers peanuts and taking advantage of slave labour coming in to take British jobs.   Our NHS is crumbling, we have people living 25 to a house and the schools are so overcrowded, they are using playgrounds to build makeshift classrooms.   Public services are disintegrating.   In other words quality of life is disappearing here in the UK.

There will be many on here defending the EU and there is a big propaganda machine in the UK determined not to let the UK leave but my feelings are that it is inevitable and Spain could do itself a favour and do the same and maybe see the numbers returning.   After all Brits who move to Spain take their money will them and get little in return if they show up with nothing, here the opposite is true and when Brits leave Spain, they likewise take their buying power with them !

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I think a lot of the people returning to their original country had an unrealistic view of what they could get out of Spain.  With the way things are in the UK, are they any better off going back.   Most Brits I know here spend a lot of time socialising in the village bars on a regular almost daily basis but I am happy to go out one or two times a week if that.  They simply could not afford the same lifestyle in the UK.

If they live in an area which is unfriendly to Brits, perhaps they should try a different area.  There are several good forums to research  local opinions of Brits.  In my area the schools are really good at helping youngsters to learn the laguage and slot in to the Spanish education system, and for every local who walks past you there are a couple who say Hola even though they do not know you.  In my area it depends whether their parents/ grandparents supported Franco or not.  They have long memories and remember that lots of Brits came out to fight against Franco.

As for the person who did not bother to renew their Padron, as a pensioner I needed mine to get health care based on my UK national insurance.  I had to fight with the local mayor to get mine as my house is outside the village envelope and so does not have a village postcode.  Even quoting the EU and Spanish laws on registering all residents on a padron did not sway him.  So it is precious to me.

I understand the frustrations with the Spaish tax demands, but surely selling up at the present time means taking a huge hit.  My house was worth 120K ten years ago and is probably worth 60K now if I am lucky.  What could I buy for that in England.  Unlike a lot of Brits who need to work, I am a pensioner so have a guaranteed income from the UK and would not dream of selling up at such a loss to go back to the UK.

As for cost of living being so expensive, I think a lot of returnees are going to get a big shock when they discover the cost of living in the UK, especially if they have to buy a house as well.  The interest rates may be very low at present, but house costs have rebounded from the recent low.  In England my rates were £1,350 a year, my water about £1,000 a year, my electric £800 a year, my rent (because I could not afford a mortgage) £7200 a year,and my average weekly food bill £80.  Now I own my house, my rates are less than 500 euros, my water 100 euros, no rent, and my average weekly food bill 70 euros.  I have a wind turbine and solar panels which with the expected life on them, cost about 400 euros a year (including underfloor heating for the winter).  Petrol and diesel is cheaper here than in the UK.  And gas is about neutral though much cheaper for bottled gas.

The only thing I find more expensive is buying and taxing cars.  These are very expensive compared with the UK.  I recently priced for matriculating an ancient 4 wheel drive, and it came to 850 euros (without replacing the headlights to continental, any potential work resulting from the IVT, insurance and annual road tax).  Taking a Spanish car to the UK would only cost a VCA of £70 and registration fee of £55 and MOT, approx toal of £160-£170 depending on MOT which you can sometimes get a deal on, (plus insurance and road tax), which is very small in comparison.

In the area I live, all the people I know who have returned to the UK have done so because they miss their family and friends.  Personally I know of no one who returned because they could not afford to live in Spain.  It does seem as if every working age Brit in the area is involved in the building trade, but that has a lot to do with being able to work without being fluent in Spanish which you would need for office, shop and most other work.  I have only come across two who pretended to be builders.  One came a cropper eventually when everyone found out what he could and could not do, and now labours when and where he can, and the other built houses but used mostly Rumanian labour as he could not lay a brick to save his life.

Unless you have a lot of property and assets in the UK you are in general better off in Spain.  For the average Brit pensioner with few assets in the UK it can be a good life here.

 

 

 

 

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Hi MAC75

Do you know if the increase in the native Spanish population includes children of people who moved to Spain and had their children here, or is it only children of Spanish born people.  The former could imply the natural Spanish population is stll going down.  This would not surprise me as Spain is a predominantly Catholic country where contraception was not allowed and large families were the norm.  Very few families in my area have more than a couple of children so it now seems to be a thing of the past.  I don't suppose this data would be available but it is an interesting thought.

 

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I'd leave Spain if I could and I know quite a few expats who feel the same.  The country is, for the most part, beautiful and the Spanish people, although difficult to get really close to, are friendly.  I was, however, not prepared at any level for the corruption and abuse of power by the authorities and large companies (whose motto seems to be "the customer is always wrong").

 

For those people who have not had to fight the powers that be or sought justice, then I'm guessing it's not a bad place to be.  But those who have crossed swords with the establishment know to their cost that they often fight alone (and at great personal expense - both financial and emotional).

 

I am a pensioner and have watched my savings dwindle since coming to Spain and that, coupled with the fact that my property has plummeted in value, means that being here has cost me dear.  I cannot afford to go back to the UK now since the meagre amount I'd get for my villa would buy nowhere decent back home.  Because I am old, I have no way of earning more money to compensate for the financial losses I've incurred.  My income tax in Spain is 2000 euros more pa than it would have been in the UK since the single person's allowance is much lower here and the tax rate much higher.

I feel trapped and rue the day I came here and genuinely fear for my old age.

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