Dilemma - Page 3

John I was replying to Paul - my point being that he seems mixed up. He's been brutalised by the decision the UK made to leave the EU, wants to re-join but has no love for Spain.

I've already replied to the OP.

I've no problem with what you have said ,I just dont like to see peoples plans wrecked due to things that are outwith their control 

I like Spain but I don't love it, the people are welcoming but not as welcoming as they are in England, as I said what I do love is opening those shutters in the morning and seeing the blue sky, I love the warm sun on my skin. You chose to misinterpret my earlier post, so just to be clear I like Spain, I may grow to love it but I'm not there yet.

It will be of no comfort to you Stephanie but sorry to see you were forced due to circumstances to sell at a vastly reduced price ,we will only sell when time is right for us

I'm sorry Paul, but that's just wrong.

As I said, the people in Northern Ireland do not retain freedom of movement due to a customs union, some retain it due to the passport they hold, that passport being Irish. As such they are a citizen of a member state, Ireland, so retain FOM. Those with UK passports don't, but since posting earlier I've read up on it and anyone in Northern Ireland can apply for an Irish passport, so anyone born there can get an Irish passport.

FOM for the people of Northern Ireland has nothing to do with the withdrawal agreement or where the customs border is, or isn't. Even if the UK made a hard exit from the EU with no Irish Protocol and no special arrangement for Northern Ireland, if they held an Irish passport they would retain FOM because in the eyes of the EU they are Irish not British.

There is no EU FOM in Northern Ireland. People living there do not get defacto FOM in the EU, likewise, people of the EU do not get defacto FOM in Northern Ireland.

But I'm with you on not loving Spain. I love the weather, the people, the way of life, the cost of living, and so on. But I've no love for the country itself, as it seems to be run by people who put bureaucracy above everything. I've only been to the UK a few times and can't remember a single thing I even liked about the place.

Hi Julie and Tony,

If it hadn't been for Covid-19 and you'd been able to regularly visit your holiday home since March 2020, how do think you'd be feeling about it now?  In the last year, have you been able to have holidays in the UK, that were more amazing than being at your home in Spain?

Obtaining residency as a Third Country National is more challenging since Brexit, but 6 years is a long time in which things could change - perhaps, for the better.  Many people are feeling shocked now that the implications of Brexit have become a reality, but it's early days and for the next 6 years, work commitments permitting, you can still spend up to 180 days each year in Spain, albeit in maximum periods of 90 days.  Assuming that you're both vaccinated, you could be sitting in your Spanish home, with a glass of your favourite tipple under the Spanish sun, perhaps as soon as July.  How do you think you'll feel after a couple of weeks back in Algorfa?

I do understand the frustration of paying for something to which you currently have no access (I haven't seen our UK property for 18 months), but you've said you can afford the £100 per month to cover your costs here, so it doesn't sound like you need to rush any decisions.  With 6 years until you retire, you're already considering the timing of selling your UK property to avoid CGT in Spain.  It appears to me that your greatest concern is the financial requirements for TCNs to obtain a Non-Lucrative Visa and subsequent residency permits for each 2 year renewal - perhaps you can ring-fence the capital sum required for residency from the sale proceeds of your UK property?  As that's the main 'unknown', why not give the Spanish embassy in London or Edinburgh a call to clarify?

http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Consulados/LONDRES/en/Consulado/Pages/LocalizacionContacto.aspx

http://www.exteriores.gob.es/Consulados/EDIMBURGO/en/Consulado/Pages/LocalizacionContacto.aspx

Filling the gaps in your knowledge from accurate sources is the best way to gain back control of your plans; stay focused on what you want to achieve for yourselves - and good luck!

Best wishes,

Kim

Hi Kimmy,

Thank you for your kind and positive reply. Good questions! One positive thing to come out of not being able to go to Spain is that we have bought a caravan and last week had an amazing time in the Cotswolds with wonderful weather, which made us realise really how little we go on holiday in the U.K., keen as we are to get to Spain. The weather must have been a fluke though, especially for this time of year!

We have made some lovely friends in Spain and are missing our other life, I’m sure we would feel better had we been able to visit there, and no doubt will do when we are sitting as you say on the balcony in the lovely sunshine with a nice G&T, although I think the Brexit thing would still be a niggle, it’s such an unknown. We have discussed doing a winter let, at least then we will feel like we are getting something back, and it’s not as intrusive as say holiday let’s would be. We could manage the first year deposit for residencies and the health insurance but we won’t have £32k a year income when retired, and the annoying thing is that you don’t need that much to live in Spain especially if not paying a mortgage/rent. I suppose our outlay for bills annually is cancelled out by just one two week holiday for us both with no accommodation costs, but it’s the thought of the money spent on buying costs, the cash tied up in the property without the planned outcome and then selling costs if we decide not to take the gamble on it all changing. 

There is nothing to be done, plenty of people in the same or worse positions as we have seen in other replies . But its good to thrash the options out and see different perspectives, I think I feel better now than when I originally posted so thank you to all who have replied!

Hi Julie and Tony,

Good to hear that you're feeling more optimistic about things now👍

I don't know whether you saw the "Good time to buy" thread earlier this week, but I posted this article from ThinkSpain, which gives a good overview of Spain's immigrant population in 2020. It's an interesting read, factual and still shows growth, despite Covid and Brexit.  Of course, immigrants need housing, whether buying or renting, and I think it gives a more positive view than some other perspectives on offer.

Kind regards, 

Kim

Foreigner numbers rise: Brits show second-biggest growth, despite Covid and Brexit

ThinkSPAIN Team 13/04/2021

FOREIGN residents in Spain increased by 2% last year - a six-figure sum – despite the pandemic and Brexit, and broke the 5.8 million barrier for the first time ever.  Non-Spaniards living in the country account for just over 12% of the total headcount, of whom about six in 10 are from EU and EEA countries.  For the purposes of the research, even though the figures were taken as at the last day of 2020 when the UK had been a third country for 11 months, its nationals were considered as being among those of the EU and EEA régime given that the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement allows for British citizens already resident in the other 27 to be treated broadly the same within their adopted countries.  This means they lose their freedom of movement throughout other EU member States, where they would be treated as third-country nationals, but retain their EU 'green certificate' of registration if they do not wish to swap it for a foreigners' photo ID card, and are not subject to non-EU immigration rules if they are already officially resident in the member country.  This definition, which puts Brits among citizens of the remaining EU-27 and also Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, may change for the purposes of statistics-gathering in future years.  As it happened, Brits were the migrant community which saw the second-largest growth in Spain, at 6%, although a long way short of the Venezuelans, a segment of the population which swelled in size by 53% in 2020.

Romanian, Moroccan, British and Italian nationals most numerous 

With the Covid-19 crisis reducing movement, migration to Spain has seen considerably less growth in the past calendar year, according to the Permanent Immigration Observatory, part of the department run by the Secretary-General for Inclusion Policy and Objectives and Social Prevision, which falls within the remit of the ministry for inclusion.  Whilst growth in migration into Spain has been rising consistently since 2014, the pandemic broke the trend, but even then, 137,120 non-Spaniards made the country their home in 2020, even though this was the smallest increase seen since 2016.  In the past decade, foreign resident numbers have risen by 19%, and in the past five years, by 16%. Last year's 2% rise was largely due to arrivals of citizens from the European Free Trade Association area (EFTA) – being the EU and EEA countries, with the UK included for the purpose of the research – and who totalled 100,930, or 3%, compared with third-country nationals who amounted to 36,190, or 1.6% more.  Of the complete total of 5,800,468 foreigners officially resident in Spain, only 39% are from non-EFTA nations.  In fact, just 15 nationalities make up three-quarters of all foreigners living in Spain, and who have been consistently led by Romanians, followed by Moroccans, for many years. The first of these totals 1,079,726, whilst the latter accounts for 811,530 – not including those of Moroccan birth or origin who have taken out Spanish citizenship, or children born in Spain to Moroccan parents.  Brits are the third-largest foreign resident group, totalling 381,448, with Italians – whose community saw a similar level of growth in 2020 to that of British nationals, at 5.6% – not far behind at 350,981.Chinese (227,415), Bulgarians (200,468), Germans (179,437), Portuguese (176,772), French (176,488), Venezuelan (152,017), Ecuadorian (147,974), Colombian (136,762), Polish (104,481), Ukrainian (93,350) and Pakistani (87,251) nationals made up the rest of the top 15.

Seven provinces are home to six in 10 of Spain's foreigners

Two-thirds of foreigners live in just four of Spain's 19 self-governing regions -Catalunya, Madrid, Andalucía and the Comunidad Valenciana, in that order – and in just seven provinces.Madrid, a single-province region, is home to the most, followed by Barcelona, Alicante, Málaga,  Valencia, and the single-province regions of the Balearic Islands and Murcia.In these seven provinces, 57% of Spain's total international residents live, and in all of these, their numbers exceed 225,000.  The Greater Madrid region is home to 877,717, based upon figures as at the last day of 2020; the province of Barcelona, to 747,812; Alicante, to 388,789; Málaga to 270,435; Valencia to 266,436, and the Balearic Islands to 270,200.  As for Brits, though, even neighbouring provinces show vastly different figures: In the Comunidad Valenciana, just under 79,000 residents are British, of whom almost 70,000 are in the province of Alicante and the remainder scattered between those of Valencia and Castellón.  Taken as a percentage of the total census, though, Madrid and Barcelona are far less cosmopolitan than much of the east coast: the provinces of Almería, the Balearics, Lleida and Girona (Catalunya), and Alicante have the biggest proportion of non-Spaniards among their inhabitants.

Average ages: Non-EU nationals younger than Spaniards and northern Europeans older

The socio-demographic profile of foreigners in Spain is highly diverse, although men generally outnumber women, and the average age across the board is about 40, a few years younger than the average age of a national-born Spaniard, meaning, as the Permanent Immigration Observatory states, non-Spanish residents are 'contributing to reducing the ageing of the population'.  Foreigners from EFTA countries tend to be older – both older than the average for non-Spanish residents, and older than the average for Spaniards. The average age of a British national living in Spain is 54; the average age of a German national is 49, whilst, on the flip side, the average age of a Moroccan or Pakistani national residing in Spain is 33. These are mean averages, or the combined total of all ages divided by the numbers of inhabitants, so it does not mean that 'most' or even a 'typical' Brit or German is aged 54 or 49; the age scale among northern Europeans in Spain is very wide, due to its appeal as a retirement idyll at the same time as being home to younger, working-aged adults, and British and German children born there – however, for eastern and southern Europeans, and third-country nationals, the average age is typically lower as they are more likely to be moving to Spain for work.Between 10 and 20 years ago, Latin American countries tended to be among the largest output nations for Spain's foreigners, after Morocco, particularly Colombia and Ecuador, but the financial crisis saw a high number of these returning when work dried up and, conversely, their numbers fell because Latin Americans are able to acquire Spanish nationality after a much shorter time, and hold dual nationality, meaning they 'became Spaniards' and 'fell off' the foreigners' list.  In fact, the only nationality in Spain whose numbers declined in 2020 was Ecuadorian, but the report does not confirm whether this was due to residents returning to Ecuador – or leaving to live in another country altogether – or whether more Ecuadorians than before had successfully applied for Spanish citizenship."

Wow that’s a very interesting read, thank you for sending it. I’m staying optimistic that it will all work out in the long run and in the meantime look forward to getting back out there 😎

We live in N Ireland, born and bred here and are British! We have British passports and can also have Irish passports (my partner has and I’m applying) as we were born on the island of Ireland.  We may travel on the Irish passports if it will make European travel easier in the future but I still class myself as British!