Any help or advice please

Susan, My advice to you is to hasten slowly. Yours is the first sub one minute post on this forum regarding retiring to Spain from a probable zero experience start. Slow down, learn, listen, experience and then decide. You are probably getting a bit offended at this point, but read on. . . .

1. Financial Advice regarding property purchase, taxes, retiring etc are ten a penny in Spain. Don't confine yourself to one advisor at this time.

2. Attending an exhibition championing moving to Spain with property purchase etc is nothing more than whetting your appetite. Fall into the trap of thinking this one stop shop is the panacea of all ills could be detrimental to your ambitions. You have met sales people and they are good at what they do so tread carefully from now on. They don't stand to lose anything; you do.

3. Spain is a huge country and choosing to retire in Costa Almeria is not a bad decision. For a start, property is cheaper there and the weather drier and warmer than Costa del Sol. You are going to do this only once so get it right in one. Mistakes will be very costly.

5. I don't know what age you are or how long you have before you retire. But, property is not going to jump in price in the short term. Time is on your side.

6. OK! You want to get on with the job and Irish Matt is asking you to put everything on stall with immediate effect. But, the choice is yours and very few will advise you and leave you at the mercy of whatever. Some on this forum are exceptions to this. 

7. If you take one thing from this forum thread take a minimum of five weeks in the off season renting in Costa Almeria. This period will indicate whether Costa Almería is for you and more importantly  if Spain is for you. Forget about glossy exhibitions and sweet talk from trained salespeople and use your own intelligence.

8. Look at previous posts by me and others where I suggested that potential property purchasers should write out a SWOT analysis on the move (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). If you fail to do this you are on the fast-track to disaster. Roy Keane keeps saying Fail to prepare; Prepare to fail.

Let this be your first introduction to the truth of buying property in Spain for your retirement. 

Susan, excellent advice from an experienced source. Rent a place for longer than a holiday and keep asking questions, especially of your selves.

Good luck.

Thank you for your replies they are helpful,  I hope you dont mind if I may give you a little more information on our current situation my husband is 60 and I am 66, we are both working at the moment as health professionals in the NHS so we are unable to take so much leave in one go, so it isn't possible to rent for 4-5 weeks as we wouldn't be allowed all our leave at one time,  we have spoken to solicitors regarding how much funds we would need, so we would have to continue working until we are ready to move as we know we would be financially secure by that stage. We also have a house to sell, We don't want to rush the move but as you can see time is not on our side, although we are both fit and healthy. We had decided we would book 2 or 3 fortnightly trips to look around the different areas, this summer and next winter with a hope to move next summer/winter 2024. The other problem we seem to have is flights, there dosn't appear to be flights from Manchester in the winter to Almeria.  I am sorry for being a nuisance but it is a dream and a big step to make and any advice is greatly received and appreciated as we don't know anyone personally who has made this move and it's quite daunting knowing where to start.

Thank you so much

Hi Susan,

My partner and I retired to Almeria three years ago and it was a great decision. We were also in a rush because we wanted to beat Brexit and be sure of getting residencia so we decided to move over and rent for 6 months. We did, however, sell our property in the UK towards the end of the calendar year because we aere aware of possible capital gains tax implications if you sell UK property in the same Spanish fiscal year as you gain residencia. Look into this aspect very carefully as it can cost you tens of thousands if youget it wrong!

You do not need the services of a company that will do everything for you (and charge an arm and a leg for it as well I am sure!). Get your visa application started and come for a holiday and identify possible areas you might like to live in., Do you definitely want to buy a property in Spain? Have you considered renting out your UK property (you would pay tax on the income in Spain) and then renting long term in Spain. Many of our friends do that, and not because they can't afford to buy as they are mostly very well off! It is very common to rent property in Spain and it is much cheaper than in the UK. For example, we have friends who rent a lovely 3 bedroomed duplex with sea views and literally a 2 minute walk from the beach in Mojacar for 600 Euros per month. Inland, you'll get a detached villa with pool for just a little more. And there are so many advantages to renting - if the pool starts leaking it's not your problem, if new neighbours move in with a constantly barking dog you can move, if you decide you dont like the area you can move! There are also advantages of not selling in the UK. For example, if one of you became seriously ill, heaven forbid, you may wish to return. Also, it can gratefully simplify inheritance issues as in Spain you are obliged to bequeath your estate in a certain way.and of course there's inheritance tax as well.

I appreciate that it is much more complicated to move over now but I would not work with a company promising everything. As I said, you can do most things yourself,, just take appropriate professional advice as required. Have you looked at the CAB Spain website? Lots of great information there.

I wish you lots of luck. Enjoy t he excitement!

Hi there, excellent advice from both Matthew and Juliet there.

With regards flights, no Almeria airport is a little “quiet” in the off season, but plenty of flights to Alicante (or possibly even Corvera) and then straight down the E15 / A7 to reach most places around here (depending on where you want to go of course)

I would counsel to avoid migration “specialists”, especially if they are tied into property search. Quite apart from the fact they’ll be horrifically expensive, You’ll end up somewhere that fills their quota / gap but may not necessarily serve your needs.  The visa application process is a little more difficult than it used to be, but not impossible and there is a growing number on this forum who have now made the move under post-Brexit structures.

What I would suggest as well is don’t be either in a hurry, or indeed expecting things to happen in a hurry.  This is Spain, the land of desfiles, fiestas, carnevales y ferias.  This means that what you might reasonably expect to happen in the UK can take muuuuuuuuuch longer here.  No, it’s not incompetence, it’s just reflective of a very laid back lifestyle.

So what *sort* of area do you want? Lots of local colour? Or plenty of expats?  Unless you are planning on moving to one of the heavily British expat areas here, I would suggest beginning to learn Spanish … as much as some may think to the contrary, English is *not* one of Spain’s official languages, and you’ll enjoy *so* much more of the flavour and culture if you can speak or understand even a bit of Spanish.  You don’t need to be fluent, but basic conversational will get you a long long way.

Hi Susan, you’re right there aren’t any direct flights from Manchester to Almeria in the winter. We fly from Manchester to Murcia International and it’s a fairly easy journey down from there to the Almeria region.

If you’re looking at staying further down towards Almeria then it is possible to fly direct from Gatwick into Almeria in the winter months. We’ve been thinking of doing that if the service at Manchester doesn’t improve soon and get the train down to London.

1. Let me compliment Juliet Diaz for an accurate and honest post. I'd compliment Dario too, but I'm trying to get more female posters on this forum. Certainly, Juliet has contributed to my aims. 

2. I would not get too caught up in availability of flights from Manchester or any other place. Most of us here can remember even if flying from Ireland you had to go through Stansted. Flights into Almeria airport are going to increase. The airport was expanded just a few short years ago and once Covid and Putin die off Almeria airport will be doing what Spanish airports do best i.e get more flights coming in.

3. We bought an apartment in Mojacar Playa for several reasons but mainly to augment our pensions through rentals. A couple of recessions kicked in before Covid hit and now that maniac Putin is trying to ensure our losses are extended. So why get caught up with buying? But, if you're going to buy, nobody will stop you. 

4. Selling your UK home to finance purchase in Spain is a bad move (my opinion). Your boats become burnt and there's no room for a dignified retreat if needed. Renting out your UK home to finance rental in Spain will make money for you. But, are you comfortable in renting out your UK home? This is where your SWOT analysis will help ironing out potential problems. 

Thank you for all your valueable information, no, we hadn't considered renting our home, but it is another option available for us to think about,  (I think I watch too many of the reallity programmes with bad tenants)  We have been having Spanish lessons for around 6 months now, its going slow but we are improving and really enjoying it, we think we would like to be further inland than near the coast. You have eased my mind also about the airport situation as well. We are totally confused about the taxes at the moment we were told it best to move out to Spain the latter end of the year to avoid paying too much tax but as you say we will need professional advise on all of that. We did speak to someone at the Gov.com stall who tell us they have a list online of solicitors which we can chose from as not to use the agents solicitor, that's a while off anyway. So thank you all for your help, I've no doubt I will have many more questions before we are finished, first stop booking to come over and looking at the different areas which I will be doing later today. Thank you again. Stay safe x

We got our Spanish solicitor - really important to get a good one - to write our Spanish will which simply states that our U.K. will takes precedence over the Spanish will. Didn’t cost much at all and simplifies our inheritance wishes.  Mind you, must check that this is still the case post-Brexit!