Owning and driving a Uk car as spanish resident. - Page 2

Kelvin I am surprised with Admiral, we had a multi policy with them, home and 2cars all renewed at same time and when I asked what maximum time abroad at the renewal they stunned me. They actually refused to cover any insurance as their policy is only to Uk residents who only go abroad for 90days maximum in a year. As we go 2x90days they stopped the auto renewal and gave me a list of companies they umbrella so I wouldnt waste time going to those co,s. More than, shielas wheels cant remember rest. When I asked about us being Spanish residents in the future they said under no circumstances. I had to rush last minute to get cover as I was actually in Spain at the time and it worried us as what could be till we got home 3weeks later. As to Liberty seguros, we use them for our spanish car so I,ll give them a ring once in Spain in a months time. I hope they can as we renew in November and that would nicely tie in with gaining residency.

You mention you still have a car in Uk, please check at renewal you are insured as a resident as it never dawned on me car insurances like homes have a time limit on being away from the vehicle. Its all a minefield.

Thankyou for your information, its appreciated. 

Regards

Pauline.

Thanks Pauline

Admiral were very fair with us. At the time our renewal came up, my wife had just been diagnosed with cancer. We were unsure where we would be living for the next year or so. They agreed to insure the car for the year, subject to review. 

As it happens, my wife had her treatment in Spain, and we are seldom in the UK. So Admiral will probably refuse to insure us next time. Hence we will move the car to Liberty Seguros. 

Re household insurance .... if you keep a home in the UK while holding Residencia in Spain.... this is problematic. We changed the insurance on our UK home to holiday home insurance. It cost a bit more, but we stayed legal.

Hi Kelvin, I hope your wife is a lot better now and boy you were both brave to make the move in that situation. Big respect. Yes they were fair to us too as they said they would refund our premiums and we could just claim we changed our minds under the 1st 14days, so it didnt go as a rejection or refusal to other companies.

Yes we cover our spanish home with Uk towergate(having lost over 20,000€ worth of belongings in a ransacking in 2008 with a spanish insurer refusing to pay out,  and if they cant do our Uk home as a holiday home then we will look elsewhere. We will be spending 5/6months in Uk to refurbish and 6+months in Spain as holiday(bit of work), at our age we cant just work on Uk home without a holiday.lol. I insure our Uk home under an insurance that gave us 180 days away and tbh I dont think I,d bother to change our status on that one. They,d never know if we were just away on holiday or otherwise. We know we might have to pay non res tax on Uk home until we rent it but no differrent to paying same on spanish home now. We cant gift it to son as he,s disabled and it would screw up his benefits and anyway he lives in our rented out home as a tenant and we get rent from Dhss for that. 

I must ask is your Uk home rented out, or why keep it?. We are 70&76 so as we never wanted to die in Spain(if we can help it) lol., nor could we live in it if we couldnt drive (inland, nearest neighbour 1km away) so we knew we,d have to return home(we,re very patriotic, Uk will always be home). Only then when as a non spanish resident would we sell and downsize. Can I also ask have you had any professional advice re tax or inheritance? If so who did you use?.

Your experiences are invaluable and I thankyou for it.

Wishing you and your wife the best of wishes and good health

Regards

Pauline.

Yes Pete its so annoying, we can insure holiday home without any time limits, they dont ever ask "how long are you there etc" so why should home be so differrent. I had to search hard to get a company to give us 180days away with no limitations. However that was as a Uk resident so it,ll probably change when not Uk resident, but we,ll sort it.

Are you now a resident in Spain or have you still got your Uk home?

We would like to keep our cars in Uk, maybe go down to one, but got to get the insurance right and if possible a van for driving in both countries but that seems impossible unless its a Spanish van.

I,m happy there are now some people replying to give me advice.

Thankyou for your input

Regards

Pauline. 

Hi Pauline.

Thanks, but we weren't brave at all .... just how things worked out. We had not long been granted Residencia when my wife was diagnosed. We had taken out private healthcare in order to gain Residencia, but the Residencia itself was delayed due to admin delays (partly our fault, partly due to the Spanish authorities). So it just so-happened that our private healthcare had been in place long enough to qualify for cancer treatment. My wife had excellent treatment in Spain, and the prognosis is good.   

We had changed our UK home insurance to holiday home insurance (as we planned to be in the UK every six weeks or so), but the cancer thing changed all that. Weekly chemotherapy precludes travel. We rented our UK home out - and we needed to find non-resident's landlord's insurance for that (as we had Residencia in Spain and plan to be Spanish tax payers this year). 

Our Residencia dates mean that we have to reconcile our income tax in Spain (and our Modelo 720) in the next couple of months. We had a couple of independent tax assessments last year, so we have a reasonable idea of how much pain that will bring. But we won't know for sure until mid-year. We use Britannia legals in Pinar de Campoverde (4 minutes walk from our house). Given my wife's situation, I stubbornly refused to even think about death/inheritance issues last year. This was stupid, I know, but things look brighter now, so we'll get on with that (so sorry, no advice to share). 

Best wishes

Kelvin

Ahh Kelvin, its only money and sometimes it has to take 2nd place to other priorities. I dont think spanish tax for us would be so differrent, Jim Taylor has told me if our income is 14,265€ it would be tax free and only taxed if it goes over. So not much differrent to £12,500 Uk tax threshold. We,d still pay our council tax and a holiday home tax for Uk home so no differrent there either. Most important dont sell Uk home. I dont see you fairing so bad, you have exchanged your Uk council tax for private healthcare but next year go onto convenio at 60€month ea unless you get much better treatment then keep it. Hubby and I have just been discharged from self assessments so no tax in Uk to pay, but maybe a tad more in Spain but not much if 14,265€ is threshold.(we get a little more cos of our ages). Driving is our biggest obstacle, if we can get it right and it seems in Vallencia inheritance tax is only paid on over 1million€ of assets according to another poster (rememberring thats half of what you have if all co owned.)

Just when you think you,ve done now you need to apply for TIE,s and again in 2years twice before you can get a permanent residency. Actually my daughter in law is American, she has had to go through this and last November got her 2 and half year Uk visa costing £1600 and another in 2 and half years, another £1200 and then can apply for permanent with a further cost. She is disabled so her income was discounted as not allowed to be discriminated on income requirements, so she was lucky. She's not allowed to work for 5years and her American social security has stopped so no income at all. The old adage 2 can live as cheap as one is very much alive in their household, so I guess we,re a bit luckier financially. 

Kind regards

Pauline.

You are correct ... it's only money.

My wife and I do OK. Looks like you have your ducks in a row as well.

Kind regards

K

Hi Pauline,

If your son is living as a tenant in your UK home, why don't you switch your Home insurance to Landlords' insurance?  That's what I have on our UK property and there's no limitation on how long we can leave the property.

Kind regards, 

Kim

Hi Kim

Nice to hear from you. My son lives in another house I bought as a pension investment 20years ago, not in our home. Recently we had hubby added to title with a transfer of rent as he only had government pension on retirement, this enabled us both to fall under Uk,s tax threshold. We would have 2 homes here, 1 rented(sons) and 1 which would be classed initially as 2nd home in Uk and our spanish one. I had hoped you especially could answer my query re inheritance tax as I knew you still had your Uk home rented out. I know as a non resident only our spanish house could be affected by spanish IHT but if we became residents, then as a resident if all our assets are taken as a whole(as it does for tax ) it would cause a large amount in IHT for the surviving spouse. I feel sure you will have investigated it but Jim admitted to not being so genned up on IHT. Since his reply I,ve read over 65yrs residents are exempt from IHT providing they have been residents for 3years, but then I,ve had a reply stating Valencia has a 1million€ tax threshold for inheritance tax, which is great although things can change.

I,m down to the finer points of residency implications as initially we would have to spend a considerable time refurbishing our Uk home and probably only gain maybe 1 more month than the 180days (Shengen time limit) and it could take us 2 years to do everything at our age. However the 1 stay of 6+months in Spain including the hot mid summer months is very appealing.

Just dont want any more nightmares 

Kind regards

Pauline.

Hi Pauline,

For the reasons that others have already explained, I don't think you need to worry about IHT.  

However, have you looked into the implications of CGT (Capital Gains Tax) when selling your primary residence in the UK AFTER you've gained residency in Spain?  There are things you can do to mitigate some of the tax, such as keeping copies of all bills associated with the refurbishment, but CGT is likely to be more significant for you because you own another UK property and presumably you own one in Spain too?

We bought our UK property for the rental income potential, rather than the capital gain, which is just as well - at the initial meeting with our tax advisors, Abaco in Torrevieja, they said, "Don"t sell it!"  We have no plans to do so, but once Brexit has been resolved, we hope to gift it to our niece.  As you've explained why you can't do this for your son in the UK, have you taken tax advice in Spain to understand the tax implications of gaining residency here?

Sorry, I feel that I've given you another headache with CGT, but it can be very costly, so it would be good for you to know the implications upfront and what you can do to defray any amount of the tax.

Kind regards, 

Kim