Bricks and mortar versus park home?

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peteroldracer
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby peteroldracer » Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:44 pm

I second Wicksey's remarks. Also do not forget after you are here 183 days you must declare the UK home if you retain it, as an asset - see the thread about this on here about the horrendous costs of not doing so, and when you should. The Spanish government gets more welcoming every day...
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MagicWriter2015
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby MagicWriter2015 » Wed Apr 22, 2015 11:29 pm

Thanks for all the good information. One thing that has come to mind is, whether anyone who is 'stuck' over there and would love to come back to the UK would maybe consider doing a house swap for a period of at least 6 months. It would give us a chance of trying out living abroad, they could return to the UK to try and suss out the situation over here again and both would know their homes were being looked after. It would have to be legally drawn up of course, and they would have to be happy about living in the North East of Scotland. Do you think it could work? Do you know anyone who might be interested? We would both have to visit each other's properties etc beforehand, but we would not be thinking of coming over until early next year as still got a lot of research to do.

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costakid
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby costakid » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:33 am

We have several friends who have beautiful villas in Spain and on the surface it looks like they live a perfect life. A few have said they envy us with our 3 bed apartment and our quite modest uk home as we have the choice to come and go as we please.

Personally I would not sell the UK house until you are 110% sure.

MagicWriter2015
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby MagicWriter2015 » Thu Apr 23, 2015 12:35 pm

Don't think we will be selling our home in the near future, properties over here are down in price too so would like to at least wait until the property market lifts up again. The house swap idea would just be a temporary measure for now, but beginning to have a rethink about that. Might just stick to having a few longer holidays over there, staying in apartments or short term lets in different areas rather than hotels so we can get a different perspective for a few years and keep doing our research. Thanks everyone for your input, it has helped me take stock and really think about what the sensible thing is to do. But, the dream will go on and by taking things slowly, hopefully the dream will never turn into a nightmare, as it seems to have done for some :?

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peteroldracer
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby peteroldracer » Thu Apr 23, 2015 3:27 pm

Looks like you have a plan - just take care to not spend 183 days in Spain (including travel time between leaving and arriving back in the UK) in any calendar year and you should be safe.
That would keep your UK-resident status intact for NHS cover too.
I used to cough to disguise a [email protected] I f@rt to disguise a cough.

katy
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby katy » Thu Apr 23, 2015 4:08 pm

costakid wrote:We have several friends who have beautiful villas in Spain and on the surface it looks like they live a perfect life. A few have said they envy us with our 3 bed apartment and our quite modest uk home as we have the choice to come and go as we please.

Personally I would not sell the UK house until you are 110% sure.

Absolutely agree. I have often thought I was over 100% sure but people change, places change. Never say never. We moved 4 times in Spain each time putting in more money. at least there used to be a reasonable exit period, longest time it took us to sell was about three months, now it's over three years even the ones that appear to be a bargain price. I don't see things changing within the next few years with all the negative publicity.

MagicWriter2015
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby MagicWriter2015 » Thu Apr 23, 2015 9:41 pm

Sorry to hear that Katy, but things back home are probably not much better. We have houses for sale in estate agents windows still up for sale a year or two after they first went up. They keep saying things are picking up but houses in my town are selling anything between £10,000-20,000 under their valuations. Definitely a buyers market everywhere at moment. Hope this makes you feel a tiny bit better xx

katy
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby katy » Thu Apr 23, 2015 10:41 pm

Suppose it depends where you live. In the South East most houses sell within a few weeks many above the asking price. Up 10% in a year. Said to be slowing down now but still up.

anyroads
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Re: Bricks and mortar versus park home?

Postby anyroads » Fri May 08, 2015 5:04 pm

And.....you won't now be paying the Mansion Tax katy.


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