I was posting an answer to another motoring thread, and it got me thinking about how many "regular" contributors to the forum are British but living abroad? I couldn't help thinking that it was a useful source of local knowledge, which I see already being passed on, but as to actual numbers......
I'll kick it off. I've lived in the Salzkammergut area of Austria for a couple of years, having taken early retirement, and have at the moment no intention of returning to the UK. In many ways the roads in this part of the world are a motorists delight, with much less traffic. Drivers tend to seem more aggressive here, even little old ladies can turn into demons at the wheel! It can be intimidating - they tailgate and will overtake on a blind bend at the drop of a hat. Austrian drivers all have to be the one in front. And it's not because I have a UK-registered car, I have a local number plate albeit RHD.
Motoring costs are reasonable, a mixture of good and bad, with high-spec oil around 90 euros for 5 litres, but fuel broadly cheaper at c. 1.35 euros a litre (around £1.20 in real money) - but of course everyone is moaning about it! Two years ago diesel was under one euro a litre.... Garage labour rates are again cheaper, around 80 euros per hour (well, I did use to live in southern England!). Just replaced the battery at 149 euros. Tyres about the same price as the UK, perhaps slightly cheaper. Used cars are stupid prices, e.g. 15-year old Golfs even fetch around 1500 euros. On the bright side, new cars depreciate far less.
What about you?
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Other than Bagpuss I would say they all live abroad in my case :-)
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Been on the Limousin/Poitou Charentes border for nearly 10 years now.
Still driving on the right - ie 'wrong' - side (of the car, not the road insh'allah) partly because I won't pay French car prices and partly because I really don't want to own anything driven or 'maintained' by the natives.
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>> Other than Bagpuss I would say they all live abroad in my case :-)
LOL. I think there is at least one other forum member resident in Germany though, or there used to be.
I've lived in Munich for 12 years now and have no intention of moving back to the UK. I love the lifestyle, the climate and, dare I say it, the people too much. There are a few other fringe benefits (higher salaries, lower living costs) as well.
Oh, and not forgetting the unrestricted autobahns...
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I remember someone over Dresden way but haven't seen any posts lately.
I think corax was in DE for a while too before going back.
We'll have been in Cologne for seven years in Feb. though my time is split between UK and DE at the moment.
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North Island NZ. Came here from Dubai, was in France before that. Whilst Dubai was a petrolhead's dream in some respects, NZ is somewhat the opposite! Dubai had some great cars and cheap petrol but nowhere to drive, NZ has amazing roads but most folks trundle around in 12 year-old Subarus and Toyotas. Best-selling new car here month in month out is the Toyota Corolla zzzzz....
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Galicia, NW Spain (the bit above Portugal). Retired here after working in Middle East - I'd had a holiday home in S.E.Spain (still got it) which was used for leaves whilst working. On retirement wanted a UK climate but with Spanish prices, and got it here in Lugo.
Cars now more expensive than UK, but running costs lower - petrol @1.31 (yesterday), road tax on 2.0l petrol €87, garage labour €60 per hour. Insurance probably higher than UK - €490. Road network excellent - regularly travel to SE Spain, and can't recall any traffic holdups this year - and traversing Madrid is great given the 12km ring road tunnel.
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"...wanted a UK climate but with Spanish prices, and got it here in Lugo."
I was about to comment that I found the above statement (about the climate) hard to believe, given Lugo's latitude. Then I did some research.
Interesting.
I have toyed for years with the idea of buying a home abroad, but in my case I would go for French-speaking Switzerland (i.e. Suisse Romande) or somewhere in France, probably south, the idea (among others) being to get away from the British climate!
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This is the river at the bottom of our garden - provides the village water supply, and electricity via a small hydro-electric mill-house - not the usual Spanish view:
www.flickr.com/photos/97097494@N00/6346846533/
Probably the equivalent to South Devon weather-wise - warm summers (max. 30C), mild but wet winters
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Nice picture Lancara.Our chemist is Spanish quite a few Spanish people are looking for work abroad according to him.High unemployement.And why are so many retired Britsh people returning to the UK any reason?
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"..why are so many retired Britsh people returning to the UK any reason?"
In addition to the currency devaluation, a lot of ex-pats of working age had jobs associated with the property market - estate agent reps, building, furniture, etc. That market has come to a virtual halt.
Whilst currency fluctuations haven't helped, I still only pay €147 annual council tax (and I get a Christmas card from the Mayor, plus a free invite to the annual village lunch). Our village of 2,500 has 4 banks (UK average 1.5 per 10,000), 10 bars/restaurants, schools, police station, library, and a 3 doctors medical centre.
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....why are so many retired Britsh people returning to the UK any reason?...
N, H, and S.
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Spot on Iffy. No matter how sunny and cheap the wine over there and how expensive a place we are told the he UK is to live it suddenly becomes that much more attractive when medical care costs loom.
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Andy Bairsto lives in Dresden he used to post regulary on the H John site.I think he calls himself Collos now.Don't know why I have asked never got a answer.
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"And why are so many retired British people returning to the UK any reason?"
A very good reason - many moved abroad, mainly to Europe, when the pound was high and you could get €1.50+ to the pound. In France say, prices seem to have risen more than in UK over the last couple of years and the UK pensioners exchange rate has been as low as €1.06 ish rising to a reasonably steady €1.13 - €1.18. That's a hellluva drop in income and many just can't manage. By selling up they can recoup some of their losses with the now better than expected reverse exchange rate back into sterling.
PS I spend maybe 2 months a year in France fairly close to Mike Hannon - does that count for the survey ?
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"And why are so many retired British people returning to the UK any reason?"
I spend about 4-5 months a year in the S of France and fully concur with the views expressed by DE. Food inflation seems to have been greater than in the Uk, although I do not have solid figures to back that up However nearly all the Brits have swapped from using the major French supermarkets to Aldi and Lidl . However the cost in Euros for running the house has more than doubled in about 10 years.
One of the upsides for some of the people who moved out there about 6 years ago is that the weakening of the £ allows them to buy back into the english housing market without having to downsize from their original residence. In fact I know of one person from the E Midlands who reckons that he should be able to buy back into the UK market at a point about 1.5-2 steps above what he sold. (My terminology +1 Step = added bedroom or det vs semi or upgrade in area).
The other reason that some people are returning is that it is purely a function of increasing age. Not necessarily related to their health, but ageing relatives and grand children management.
Last edited by: pmh on Tue 15 Nov 11 at 20:09
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I knew a Broad once, but I guess that don't count.
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I like abroad, matter of fact I could go abroad right now...
er...boom boom
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>>>"And why are so many retired British people returning to the UK any reason?"
Last year, we bought a place in Lower Normandy, much bigger than our modest UK semi for 25% of the price we paid 5 years ago. We visited for a week and within 2 days had a short list of four. All four were owned by Brits, 3 planning to return to the UK and one planning to stay with family in Oz. All were selling because of their financial situation, strong euro, pension devaluation or family ties. I understand that prices have risen dramatically in France but still ..... buildings and contents insurance is 155 euros a year (would be substantially less if we lived there full time,) tax (habitation and fonciere - residence and services) is 25 euros a month for both. Most groceries, fresh food, wine and beer can be bought for half to two thirds what we pay in the UK. The two wines we really enjoy from Lidl are both under 2 euros but for the same wine in UK Lidls is £4.99. Then there's the cheese ....
For health insurance and family, grand children reasons we won't retire 100% to France but it will one day soon be our main home with maybe a caravan/mobile in the UK for visits - no doubt costing more than our place in France. SWMBO fancies her fourth 2CV, myself a modest, practical hatch such as a Megane 250 Cup. No doubt a sensible Berlingo will prevail!
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We like Greece and plan on buying something there. Thankfully we haven't yet! But we will I hope.
The UK home might be rented but eventually sold. Or maybe we downsize again. We should have money saved to buy in a couple of years without selling. But having a home here in the UK might not be needed - but it could generate rental income of around £1000pm.
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I've lived in Israel since 1987. We (wife, I and 3 kids under the age of 13) left England for a variety of reasons, which most probably wouldn't be understood or even understandable in this forum. The camel-back-breaking straw came when we were told by the headmaster of a local school that my son couldn't sit the common entrance exam on a Friday instead of Saturday, and that he couldn't make any exceptions for religious reasons. How times have changed – think of Muslims and Halal meat in schools.
The infrastructure in Israel has improved dramatically over the last 24 years, especially the roads. However, they are still very crowded, especially in the centre of the country: my commute being a 20 km slow-moving to stationary crawl, despite using WAZE, which does its best to keep me from the worst of the traffic.
The average Israeli driver drives like a Southern Italian but without the skill and road sense. Defensive driving is the order of the day for me and mine.
Something like 80% of new cars are supplied to companies under leasing agreements. This is a fairly new phenomenon (5 years), and means that there is a glut of 3-5 year old cars on the second-hand market, which has had the most welcome effect of driving down their prices. Discounts are now being made in the new-car market too. New cars are more expensive than in the UK, but as noted above, this doesn't affect 80% of the population: petrol about 1.30, diesel 1.40 GBP a liter, car tax 220-300 GBP a year.
I scrapped my previous car, a 1984 Peugeot 505, last July (and received 600 GBP from the government for doing so) and bought a 2004 Hyundai Sonata 2000 tiptronic for 4,900 GBP, 2000 GBP under the "book price". My wife has a 2003 Toyota Yaris, which we bought new for 15,000 GBP: it is the most reliable car we have ever owned.
My kids are married and have young children now and are finding the same difficulties as UK young-marrieds in getting on to the home-owner ladder. While they are paying rent, they cannot save for a deposit; even if they could, it is most unlikely that they could ever amass the 40% minimum deposit (say 70,000 GBP) to qualify for a mortgage. On the other hand, fiscal responsibility in the housing market means that Israel hasn't been affected by the same banking meltdown that is toppling other countries' economies.
Life for us here is not so different from life in England, although a mid-life change was beneficial to my and my wife's careers. The main difference is that here I can be who I want to be without compromise.
Simon
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I think many expats return to the UK in later life because they come under pressure from health issues and so on that are made worse because they simply haven't bothered to learn the language and can't communicate properly.
Last year SWMBO had an unexpected sojourn in hospital and was put in the unfortunate position of having to act as translator between the medical staff and the wife of an Englishman who was on the point of death. What the woman would have done otherwise I hesitate to think.
Living in a nationality-based local ghetto is OK for some - in France the Dutch do it too - but if you can't communicate your days abroad must always be numbered.
Go on then DE - give us a clue...
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My time is split evenly between Germany and South East UK. I guess you've already heard about Germans and their cars and roads so not too much to say except that I wish the British had the same sense of lane discipline. There would be much less congestion and no need to widen many of our motorways. Yes, the odd lorry swings out in front of you and the joining and run off lanes on the autobahn are sometimes too short for my taste but a little forward planning usually sorts that out.
Sitting today in sunny Erlangen near Nuremberg, the petrol price is around €1-50 per litre. I know when I've compared prices in the past they are broadly similar. However, if the headline rate is €1-16 = £1-00 but you buy your € in the wrong place, (e.g. the airport), the actual rate is closer to €1-07 = £1-00.
Soft Top
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" in France fairly close to Mike Hannon "
Well, fairly close in loose-ish French terms - not a million kilometres from Cognac.
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>> I think many expats return to the UK in later life because they come under
>> pressure from health issues and so on that are made worse because they simply haven't
>> bothered to learn the language and can't communicate properly.
We have a number of acquaintances here who simply take advantage of most people speaking English, and don't bother to learn the lingo. It's not easy, but SWMBO and I have been working hard at it and, although not fluent, can cope in the main, being able to read a newspaper, follow much of the TV etc. Problem is, a lot of locals can't speak proper German which doesn't help!!
It's not an English ghetto here, we are "the only brits in the village". The natives are friendly, particularly when you make the effort to speak their language. We only have a small shop, one bar, a fire station and a school. There are quite a few other brits living in the area around Bad Ischl, and we have friends not only amongst these but also the locals, thanks largely to my wife involved in the local choir.
I can converse reasonably intelligently with my garage, having learnt the German words for quite a few car components. I also speak some electric, bathroom and window plus a smattering of building!
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SB, I found your post fascinating, if only because it takes us out of the stuff we usually read here.
As for your point that "left England for a variety of reasons, which most probably wouldn't be understood or even understandable in this forum", I think you underestimate us. In fact, you hint at those reasons as you continue and I for one think I can see where you're coming from (or going to, or whatever the best metaphor is!)
"...here I can be who I want to be without compromise" seems a good enough reason.
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NL here, specifically the bottom end of Limburg near Maastricht, in the bit almost entirely surrounded by Belgium and Germany.
Standard of driving here is very good. It has to be, due to the enormous number of suicidally insane cyclists and especially, scooter riders. I find the minimal signage, heavy use of "shared space" and unprioritised junctions is a great aid to both concentration and traffic flow. Traffic triggered lights are a big plus and road surfaces are, in general, of a very high standard. Road humps are all too common though.
Huge tax rates on new cars, so they are artificially expensive and this pushes up the prices of S/H vehicles too. Importing older used cars is common, although the lower price compared to a "native" vehicle is preserved on resale.
Fuel's pricey, tyres cheap, service costs low.
Being where I am, I also drive quite a lot in BE and DE. Round these parts, Belgian plates are regarded as a clue that the driver is utterly incompetant, usually with good reason. The designation of a road in Belgium would appear to be a surface with slightly fewer lumps in it than most. Germany's A-bahns are usually good, although many are nowhere near the perfection that some more starry-eyed commentators would have you believe. The in-city stuff is byzantine in layout, badly signed and full of clueless berks. Best you can say about the driving standards in DE is that they're better than the Belgians. I rate 'em somewhere below both the Dutch and the Brits myself. Then again, the A-bahn standards are very good, maybe the "take no prisoners" speed differentials between trucks, you and bloke-in-big-merc scare off the mimsers? If so, it's a tactic that yields excellent results.
Prior to this I was in CZ for a while. Anyone who used to commute around the North Circular Road about 20 years ago would recognise the driving style there. Full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes sums it up. Oddities there include that the indicator stalk is used to show which way the driver is about to turn the wheel (so, for example, everyone indicates right on approach to a roundabout, regardless of which way they're going) and that the handbrake is never used. Under any circumstances. If you get into a car previously driven by someone else in CZ, it will be parked in gear with the handbrake off. Don't turn the key without checking. Also there, electronic alarms / immobilisers are not trusted and some mechanical transmission lock of byzantine complexity to release will be fitted.
One huge problem. Over eight years in Europe and right-hand priority *still* causes me at least one closeish shave every couple of months. I think you have to grow up with it....
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Concur with reasons for return to Blighty - they were ours, too.
Very happy to be back, though!
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How many forum members live abroad? - ....
