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Hi Guys, its a pleasure.
Hope this does not come across wrong as I am new here, but there is alot of negativity about in general, in life etc and especially currently. I like to here both sides but at the moment its really taking over. Everyone has choices in life and being as positive as possible in any given situation can only be a plus!!. One life, every year, week, day is valuable and so try not to waste it is what I say.
Myself and my wife (both 34) have been working for the past 10 years to get ourselves into a position to live abroad, we have been very patient and its has been very difficult as we really dont like much if anything about this country, especially the weather, culture and the fact there is very little to do and if there is its usually expensive and over crowded. The current economic climate has really made things more difficult for us now. this time last year we maybe had enough money behind us to try and settle in Spain for 5/6 years, now we think just 2 possible 3 years. If we dont move soon it may get even worse. but its more difficult moving than I ever anticipated. car/furniture to sell, house to rent out, or do we try sell in this poor market? pet pass port, trying to get my head around how to get mobile broad band, health cover? do we become residents or not? LHD or RHD car?? rhd's costing 1/2 the price etc etc And yesterday I just found out that the ferry we were planning to get in January is only in service April to November so it looks like we will have to drive through France which we didnt want to do. (Does anyone know of somewhere in Northern Spain where we can stay for one night with the one well behaved dog on route please?)
It does all feel like a nightmare at the moment but like I said if we let all this negativity take over we will get/go nowhere or my head will implode!?
We spent 3/4 years looking for a place in South Spain and after a looong search and experience (far to long to type up without boring you) we found a lovely cortijo in Costa Tropical in a village called Jete 9 km form the beach. We have 15000M2 of land with nispro/ avocado trees and a nice old local man looks after the trees (sort of) and takes the yield once a year. We still have to pay for water and maintenance of irrigation pipes etc. We believe that the yield is approx 8000+ Euro a year of this fruit so when we move out in the next 4 months we want a piece of the action as we fully understand its very difficult to get any work in Spain for an expat. Our problem is we dont really want to ask Feddero (our fruit man) to leave so it looks like asking to help for half the profit will be the best option for now as we dont know much about where to sell for the best price, how when to fertilize etc etc. ANY ADVICE on this would be very appreciated.
The other issue we are involved in is our land. Our local Spanish lawyer pointed out 2 years ago that our land is very rare in this area and is prime building land so we looking into splitting the land into 3 plots (including ours). We had a architect plan and draw our the boundaries and our lawyer submitted these plans approx 13 months ago, we are still waiting... Once we have this in the bag so to speak we will apply for the building license which we are reliably informed will not take too long? or have any complications because of the classification of land type etc. Any way, we are marketing the plots as off plan developments or plot only sale. Does anyone have any experience in doing this or simialar? we have had interest by advertising on e-bay. We ideally would like someone to come along and get involved at the early stage and work together to build a dream property. It truely is a stuning location and view. I have plenty of pics if anyone wants a nosey?
We have an excellent builder, he has done alot!! of work for us in the last 2 years. When we first bought the house people were saying, dont get an English builder get local and others were saying dont get Spanish they are unreliable and rip you off . we did have experiences with both but were very!! fortunate to meet our builder now who is South African. Lovely guy and family who has excellent references and lives very close to us.
So any advice on what I have mentioned, would be great please, how to make money out of fruit? experience of building selling/marketing property off plan etc, mobile broadband? do we pay £5000 for a lhd 1999 car or the same on a lovely 53 plate pickup but RHD and put up with the few bad things about driving a RHD in Spain? where do we stay on route with a pet or is it possible to driver from Dover the Malaga in one go?
All the best &
trate y sea positivo!!!
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Re dog friendly hotels - try the Accor group. In particular we use Etap Hotels with our dogs but we find northern Spain more difficult to locate hotels so we use southern France like Perpignon.
Best wishes
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Daveil
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Thanks lifeline I will look into that, have a huge list to tick off..its a good start. is it cheaper to get the euro tunnel or ferry with car and pet? 
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Hi,
For farming advice it may be worth trying an Alpujarras forum. We're not supposed to promote other sites on here so I can't give you a link, but a simple search should find it.
It's nowhere near as well used as this site (approx 200 members), so replies can sometimes take a little longer, but there can be some useful localised info.
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I know how you feel, we went through all this at the beginning of the year, but we've now been living in Spain for 6 months and all the organising and researching was so worth it - we love our new life. We sold our house(don;t know how in the currentmarket, but we did), sorted the dogs passports out and drove through Spain from Santander. We stayed in this hotel in Teruel with the pups http://www.hotelreinacristinateruel.com/
You may like to have a look at the blog I have been keeping at http://relocatetospain.blogspot.com from the time we decided to move to Spain right through the move, to getting here and our life as it continues here. We moved in May so if you look at the entries in March, April & May that will cover the majority of entries about selling up, packing up and getting here, pet passports etc and if you need any more help, PM me and I'll help where I can.
It seems a big mountain to climb at the moment. but it was worth it for us and hopefully it will work out for you too. We would have used the tunnel and driven through France & Spain but problems with transport at the last minute meant we took the ferry from Plymouth to Santander, but it was a long journey for the pups and I would prefer to have them with me in the car on any future trip - not that we are planning any return trips to the UK. There are lots of discussions on the 'driving in spain' section on here about the pro & cons of buying a car here or bringing one from the uk, plus lots of info in the articles on here such as http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/spain-and-your-car.aspx so have a good browse around, we found so much info on the various sections that helped us in some of the plans we made.
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Jacqui
http://relocatetospain.blogspot.com our adventure from deciding to move to Spain to being here and moving back to the UK.
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Thanks DoubleJ for you idea I will look at that and thanks J&N I will read all of you blog as its always interesting to hear about other peoples experiences especially when things are going well for you. People are very helpful on this forum which is nice.
There is a lot obviously surrounding getting work out in Spain and a lot of people jump on the fact that "no you will not get any work its so difficult". Life is difficult. it depends what you put in as to what you get out of it. We have been going to Costa tropical and Almunecar for 5 years now 6/7 times a year (on of the reasons we are moving as its costing us a fortune back and forth). its much more of a Spanish area (and rightly so) but there is a small expact community of around 800 people and the all the poeple I come across who need to work are!! and are very happy with there lives. We all have something in common that is we dont like living in the UK and want a better life. all the people we come across say they are happy doing any work that comes along and getting a much lower wage than in the UK and would never go back. there are people who may have been ill prepared before moving out that have no choice but go back to the uk.
We are good friends with a couple (in the late 50's) who spent all their money on a house 3 years ago in Almunecar who used to run a very successful pub in the UK and on very good money. but their move didnt go well as the house they bought is next to dry river bed and in September last year there was a huge flood in the area and there place got flooded but the access was ruined by the water and there house massively devalued. they were homeless for 8 months staying with friend and hostals etc. when they finally got back in there water supply had run out so they couldnt stay there untill that was sorted. now from the good will of their Dutch neighbour they are using some of there water supply. And my point is when ever we speak with them they are soo happy and not down at all, compared to the people we live around here in England. they say they would never go back to UK, And they do the usual stuff for work like taxi runs, cleaning, change overs, bar work etc etc but plenty of tapas bar and beach stops on the way..
Looking forward to getting all these issues out the way and making that exciting journey South!!!!
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Re RHD or LHD - its tempting to bring the pick up but technically you can only drive a UK plated car here for 6 months of the year without re registering it. If you do keep it here technically you will need to take it back to the Uk every year for its MOT - while there are adverts in papers saying UK MOTS available i understand they are not legal as you have to visit an official testing centre and the ITV (Spanish equivalent) centres here would fail a UK plated car as it does not have the correct registration docs - to wit they can only ITV cars homologated to drive on Spanish roads. At the end of the day its up to u and I know the dilemma - used cars here are costly in line with similar in the UK - then again with the ongoing squeeze perhaps there will be bargains with the dealers looking to move stock
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Smiley - patrick@marbellamortgages.com www.marbellamortgages.com www.comparetravelcash.co.uk
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Hi Smiley!
I thought that had changed from 6 months to 2 years this year? I am really trying hard to find a LHD spanish plate here and have been for 13 months for less than £5000 but its very difficult as like I said they are old and expensive. There is a nice astra/opel estate 1999 on Spanish plates with only 60K miles for £3999 but the garage that is selling it are 250 miles from me and just dont communicate??? I do think the best option whatever is the LHD so we will continue to look.
By the way. Has anyone on this forum used the property advert facility on this site? had any success/luck etc with it. We have an off plan development we want to advertise and 2 days ago an add popped up on here about half price 48 Euro till it sells. I tried to bookmark it to discuss it with my wife but it didnt work on the second attempt? have had good interest by advertising on E-bay however.
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Hi J&N
Can you please send me your blog links for the time and experience when you moved over to Spain. We are on the verge of moving now with our Dog, as soon as we get a tenant we are on our way but would like to read your experience and if you have any advice etc. Is there anything you would recommend bringing with use? We have a list like lots of seabrooks crisps, tea bags etc. Is there a hotel you could suggest that takes pets in North Spain? it looks like we may have to do the very long journey from Durham, through the tunnel all the way to Motril in the south so we really need to stop off half way.
Many thanks
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