If you're thinking of emigrating to Europe and you're not so young think again perhaps

[sploo]

How ironic that, while there are all these "normal" people having emigration plans scuppered by Brexit, good old Nige has recently been shilling for a company that helps the wealthy to get foreign passports (for the purposes of tax avoidance, of course).

 

[Spectric]

The insurance company quotes purely based on age and their assumption is that if you are, say, in your 70's (as are we) that you are a decrepit old wreck rattling around with all the pills inside you

You can see where these countries are coming from, they want younger skilled people that can be an asset to the the country and so earn the right to healthcare rather than people in the last phase of life that are high maintenance and will contribute nothing.

Portugal is a common destination, don't we have some treaty with them .

You have not said what the reason is for relocation, is it just adventure, a change of scenery or that you no longer feel the Uk is your home ?

 

[Jake]

It could be wiped out or doubled in a week through no more than exchange rate fluctuations.

It was a good deal lower than ours not long ago. The point is that it is no longer a cheap and poorer country than us.

 

[woodieallen]

will contribute nothing.

That’s a pretty judgemental statement based on ill-conceived assumptions.

You have not said what the reason is for relocation, is it just adventure, a change of scenery or that you no longer feel the Uk is your home ?

Adventure. UK is going down the pan if not already there.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

It was a good deal lower than ours not long ago. The point is that it is no longer a cheap and poorer country than us.

France has never been a cheap country - like the UK costs vary massively between major cities, Mediterranean coast and rural areas.

For the last 8 years the Euro:£ rate has varied between 1.10 and 1.20. This is less volatile than before 2016 - it seems to have settled at current levels following the Brexit referendum.

Go back 17 years to 2007 and the rate was 1.50 - at which point France may have seemed relatively cheaper - but you would also need to consider UK vs France inflation rates, average incomes, taxation levels, etc etc.

Travelling on holiday in the 1960-70s - France was then both relatively expensive and backward.

Sorry - but IMHO simplistic throwaway remarks characterise your comments as rather shallow!

 

[JimJay]

If you're a UK pensioner, you don't health insurance - just get an S1 from the NHS, and you're covered just the same as a local in most (all?) EU countries.

I live in Bulgaria, the poorest (=cheapest to live in) country in the EU. It has most of the advantages of any EU country, with few of the disadvantages. Property is very cheap outside the big cities; I live in one of the (supposedly swanky) suburbs of Sofia, on the slopes of the local mountain, and the "Council Tax" for our 4-storey house is around £300 a year - we also have a large house in a local village, for which we pay £15 a year tax. There's skiing/snowboarding above us, plus mountain biking, hiking etc. The countryside in BG is beautiful, with the Black Sea resorts a few hours away and the beaches of Northern Greece even closer. Restaurants are cheap, petrol/diesel (and especially LPG) likewise, and we have the least expensive electricity prices in the EU. It's harder for Brits to get residency than it was, but the rules aren't particularly strenuously applied and for pensioners it's pretty easy - a full UK OAP is well above BG minimum wage, which is all you need to qualify as financially independent.

I've lived in France, Germany and Greece, and I wouldn't swap Bulgaria for any of them!

Feel free to ask any questions.

 

[MikeJhn]

France has never been a cheap country - like the UK costs vary massively between major cities, Mediterranean coast and rural areas.

For the last 8 years the Euro:£ rate has varied between 1.10 and 1.20. This is less volatile than before 2016 - it seems to have settled at current levels following the Brexit referendum.

Go back 17 years to 2007 and the rate was 1.50 - at which point France may have seemed relatively cheaper - but you would also need to consider UK vs France inflation rates, average incomes, taxation levels, etc etc.

Travelling on holiday in the 1960-70s - France was then both relatively expensive and backward.

Sorry - but IMHO simplistic throwaway remarks characterise your comments as rather shallow!

When I first started holidaying in France the Fr was at 10 to the £, everything was cheaper than the UK, food, holiday accommodation, petrol, house price's, electricity, car hire, I could go on, but your statement that the 1960's was relatively expensive is just wrong and based on misinformation and lack of knowledge.

 

[Spectric]

That’s a pretty judgemental statement based on ill-conceived assumptions.

No it is based upon what would happen if I turned up in say France, at my age I am semi retired and would not be contributing much to the French economy apart from the day to day living cost that I would spend in the local community so expecting the French to cover my medical cost is pushing it a step too far and so I would need private medical cover at some great expense to cover this cost. This is essentially the Australian way where you need points to live there so if working age with a skill they need, have a good bank balance or looking to start a business that employs people you are welcome otherwise goodbye.

and we have the least expensive electricity prices in the EU.

But do you have a net zero target for 2050 ?

 

[woodieallen]

..... with the Black Sea resorts a few hours away ......

That brought back memories of probably 45 years ago. Memories best forgotten. We went to слънчев бряг (pronounced slŭnchev bryag) or Sunny Beach in English. Before the Wall came down. Sounded idyllic. You got vouchers for food and could eat in any restaurant or hotel with them. First night there, we popped down at about 7pm to have dinner only to find that it had all gone. Nothing left. Nada. The East Germans got there at 5pm and hoovered up the lot. Every day.

And the memory that really sticks in my mind? You know how it goes on holiday...those booked for two weeks, waving happily at the poor, sad, depressed souls getting onto the bus as they'd only booked a week? Sunny Beach reversed that. The ones boarding the bus were ecstatic. The ones left depressed..."Oh Christ, not another bloody week in this Hell Hole".

The one plus (although it nearly wasn't) was an overnight ferry to Istanbul. But when we came to disembark, they nearly didn't let my wife off as her passport photo had been taken when she was at school.

I'm sure it has all changed but wild horses wouldn't get me back.

 

[Jake]

Sorry - but IMHO simplistic throwaway remarks characterise your comments as rather shallow!

What's your simplistic and shallow fixation with exchange rates? The USD is worth less than a pound but the US is much richer than the UK.

 

[Blackswanwood]

@woodieallen - does the S1 form not give you what you need? Just wondering what I am missing as it seems to give you eligibility to French state healthcare but paid for by the NHS?

 

[Terry - Somerset]

What's your simplistic and shallow fixation with exchange rates? The USD is worth less than a pound but the US is much richer than the UK.

Your original comment raised the issue of exchange rates - related to GDP- I quote "Their GDP is 3% higher in dollar terms".

Dollars are probably less than relevant a currency as France have been in the Euro area since its inception in 1999. Comparing GDP in a common currency is a useful but far from precise way of estimating relative incomes.

 

[Chris152]

How ironic that, while there are all these "normal" people having emigration plans scuppered by Brexit, good old Nige has recently been shilling for a company that helps the wealthy to get foreign passports (for the purposes of tax avoidance, of course).

I just watched that. Absolutely stunning. What an odious little t*rd that man is. How can anyone vote for a party led by him - apart from the super-rich, of course.

 

[John Brown]

That brought back memories of probably 45 years ago. Memories best forgotten. We went to слънчев бряг (pronounced slŭnchev bryag) or Sunny Beach in English. Before the Wall came down. Sounded idyllic. You got vouchers for food and could eat in any restaurant or hotel with them. First night there, we popped down at about 7pm to have dinner only to find that it had all gone. Nothing left. Nada. The East Germans got there at 5pm and hoovered up the lot. Every day.

And the memory that really sticks in my mind? You know how it goes on holiday...those booked for two weeks, waving happily at the poor, sad, depressed souls getting onto the bus as they'd only booked a week? Sunny Beach reversed that. The ones boarding the bus were ecstatic. The ones left depressed..."Oh Christ, not another bloody week in this Hell Hole".

The one plus (although it nearly wasn't) was an overnight ferry to Istanbul. But when we came to disembark, they nearly didn't let my wife off as her passport photo had been taken when she was at school.

I'm sure it has all changed but wild horses wouldn't get me back.

I went skiing there, ten years or so ago. Half finished concrete shells of buildings, people pushing their possessions around in shopping trolleys, and leather jacketed hoodlum types with gold chains and big black SUVs. Only ski resort I've ever seen with strip clubs at the base. The building our friends had their apartment in had a flooded basement, and the corridors and stairways stank to high heaven.
Nice food, and cheap, but obscene amounts of it in the restaurants - even sharing a meal with my wife there was still too much. Also the worst potholed roads I've ever driven on. It seemed to me as though the end of communism had left a big vacuum that was quickly filled by gangster types.
It may have changed by now, I hope so, but it didn't make me want to revisit.

 

[sploo]

I just watched that. Absolutely stunning. What an odious little t*rd that man is. How can anyone vote for a party led by him - apart from the super-rich, of course.

Man of the people isn't he.

 

[Chris152]

Man of the people isn't he.

Like a masterclass in how to deceive the plebs.

 

[deema]

I just watched that. Absolutely stunning. What an odious little t*rd that man is. How can anyone vote for a party led by him - apart from the super-rich, of course.

Well, if you actually thought about it you might draw another conclusion. If you over tax the wealthy as a country you deserve to see the wealthy find alternative strategies to avoid paying exorbitant rates of tax. If you had a lower rate of tax, more wealthy individuals would chose to have the UK as their place of residency, and the greater the tax collection for the government. Low taxes, small government is hugely beneficial and creates a larger economy. Just look for instance at Eire, Southern Ireland that has transformed its economy by reducing……business tax to be one of the lowest in the EU. Guess where a lot of the large corporations make the headquarters and pay tax…..not the UK! One of my last jobs before retiring was moving the European headquarters to a tax efficient country. We chose Holland but Ireland came a very close second.

Back to the subject, I looked at moving abroad, after Brexit and for instance the threshold for residency in Portugal was low, the tax on pensions was if memory serves for expats was 10% and there is / was no death duty. Added to the better weather, lovely people and a lower cost of living why would anyone choose to live in the UK? There are a number of countries that a pn average pension will allow you live like a king rather than a pauper as is the case in the UK.

The only reason we are still in the UK is my wife wants to be close to our children and grandchildren.

 

[Chris152]

Well, if you actually thought about it you might draw another conclusion. If you over tax the wealthy as a country you deserve to see the wealthy find alternative strategies to avoid paying exorbitant rates of tax. If you had a lower rate of tax, more wealthy individuals would chose to have the UK as their place of residency, and the greater the tax collection for the government. Low taxes, small government is hugely beneficial and creates a larger economy. Just look for instance at Eire, Southern Ireland that has transformed its economy by reducing……business tax to be one of the lowest in the EU. Guess where a lot of the large corporations make the headquarters and pay tax…..not the UK! One of my last jobs before retiring was moving the European headquarters to a tax efficient country. We chose Holland but Ireland came a very close second.

Back to the subject, I looked at moving abroad, after Brexit and for instance the threshold for residency in Portugal was low, the tax on pensions was if memory serves for expats was 10% and there is / was no death duty. Added to the better weather, lovely people and a lower cost of living why would anyone choose to live in the UK? There are a number of countries that a pn average pension will allow you live like a king rather than a pauper as is the case in the UK.

The only reason we are still in the UK is my wife wants to be close to our children and grandchildren.

Of course, but it's the utter contradiction of, on one hand appealing to the plebs, complaining about the state of our economy, the health service and so on, and then encouraging the wealthy to leave the country in order to avoid the taxes that'd otherwise pay to improve things here.

And on topic, as I wrote above, my plan was to be in France by a few years ago - the new relationship to Europe (trying to avoid the b word) put paid to that.

 

[woodieallen]

......

Back to the subject, I looked at moving abroad, after Brexit and for instance the threshold for residency in Portugal was low, the tax on pensions was if memory serves for expats was 10% and there is / was no death duty. Added to the better weather, lovely people and a lower cost of living why would anyone choose to live in the UK? There are a number of countries that a pn average pension will allow you live like a king rather than a pauper as is the case in the UK.

...

I got very excited when I read this. Then found that health insurance is still based on age. Hey ho.

 

[Jake]

Your original comment raised the issue of exchange rates - related to GDP- I quote "Their GDP is 3% higher in dollar terms".

Dollars are probably less than relevant a currency as France have been in the Euro area since its inception in 1999. Comparing GDP in a common currency is a useful but far from precise way of estimating relative incomes.

Yes dollar GDP is cruder than PPP GBP, but that comparison is still much less simplistic than just comparing exchange rates.