Spain isnt cheap

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markwilding
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby markwilding » Sat Dec 23, 2017 2:28 pm

One thing that is really expensive in the UK especially around London is Public transport. However, looking at it from a working perspective, salaries are generally lower in Spain so even though costs are higher in the UK, it might be that overall you are better off financially in the UK.

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby katy » Sat Dec 23, 2017 5:36 pm

Miro wrote::lol:
I stress again, my findings are based simply on our own circumstances; anyone else would have to recreate (as near as possible) the exact same living conditions in Spain & the UK to draw their own comparisons. But I feel safe in saying that if you can live comfortably in the UK, then you should have no difficulty recreating a similar, or better standard of living in Spain; on the other hand, if you struggle and just "get by" in Spain, you'll have a hard time making ends meet back in the UK unless you're willing to make significant sacrifices. Having said that, for anyone who is considering moving to Spain simply because they struggle to make ends meet in the UK and believe they can live cheaper in Spain, I would say think very carefully! There are all sorts of potential hidden factors that can crop up, some of which you can't put a monetary value on, and moving abroad is unlikely to solve all your problems!

)
I think if expats are struggling to make ends meet in Spain they would be financially better off in UK because of benefit top ups. Eg. Pensioners could get pension credit and most of council tax paid. Likewise low paid get tax credits, not to mention most of their rent paid if not owners. The ones you know who are smokers and drinkers will be better off in Spain. What do cigs cost there now?

I used to pay community fees in London for first apartment I owned. More years ago than I care to mention. Was£1000 pa but included indoor pool and my central heating. When last in Spain we paid €850 pa para nada. Just road maintenance and street lighting and still paid around €1250 IBI. Where I live now council tax is around £2700 which is a rip off too as we live in a private lane and I don't know anyone here who uses any council services except the library.

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby Free at Last » Sat Dec 23, 2017 5:50 pm

This story is in the Manchester Evening News today:-

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... p-14075008

Leaving aside the question of these payments for making the building safe, the normal annual charges these residents are paying are 1800 for maintenance, 800 for parking and 250 for the lease. i know this development doesn't have any facilities such as an indoor pool.

I wouldn't have wanted to live there myself (looks like a load of shipping containers piled on top of each other to me) but these weren't cheap properties.

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby peteroldracer » Sat Dec 23, 2017 6:27 pm

The plus point of high second-hand values of cars in Spain is that depreciation is less, so you should get more for your car when it comes time to sell or trade-in. Same as in the UK, buy a car with a full manufacturer's service history and you should be OK....at least there will be no body erosion from salt on the roads, even if there is the odd parking dent!
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby elusive » Sun Dec 24, 2017 10:14 am

Depends alot on as said above if you pay community fees etc. We went our property out in the U K and rent here.so we are hugely better off as the renter pays vertually everything in the U.K bar building insurance.here we pay no council tax no community fees.our gas bill is hardly anything as we use gas bottles. Water and rubbish the same.the only "expense"is the electricity. For many years you have had community fees for apartments.it restricts the market as i would buy a flat in the uk but resent paying what is basically double council tax interms of the price so wouldnt.

Imo if you are struggling in spain then you struggle more in the U.K .Its ok talking about the benifits you get but pension credits only takes you to the standard pension rate of what is it around £150 a week if you have no savings. Hardly much. And if you are working you only get tax credits if you earn less than around 13k a year and around 18k a year as a couple. Then add on gas/leccy bills etc etc

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby Wicksey » Sun Dec 24, 2017 10:52 am

We've owned flats in the UK and the leasehold system there drove us nuts. The freeholder controls everything about the exterior of the property so we couldn't change our windows even though they are rotten and we paid through the nose for all their admin and maintenance costs. Buying and selling took much longer and was more expensive as there were so many questions about the lease. The Freeholder then charged us to answer those questions and had also previously charged us fees to get permission from them to rent it out.

We said we'd never buy leasehold again although nowadays there's a chance of having a share of the freehold which is preferable, although still involves community fees. I also notice that many flats for sale have short leases and once they have less than 80 years remaining the cost of renewing the lease are much more. Owning an apartment here was far less fraught!

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby Pamela1 » Sun Dec 24, 2017 10:56 am

peteroldracer wrote:The plus point of high second-hand values of cars in Spain is that depreciation is less, so you should get more for your car when it comes time to sell or trade-in. Same as in the UK, buy a car with a full manufacturer's service history and you should be OK....at least there will be no body erosion from salt on the roads, even if there is the odd parking dent!
It would break my heart to buy a new car in Spain, at times we are hard pushed to see a car without some kind of dent!

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby olive » Sun Dec 24, 2017 11:29 am

Agreed. It is colouring just what we buy. Two days ago, I watched a woman successfully park her car in a space that was a good foot too small. She just rammed the other cars away a little. I wonder if that would damage an auto transmission in park?

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby Miro » Sun Dec 24, 2017 1:34 pm

Well the direction of the thread seems to have changed a bit again, but never mind! Some interesting comments about community/maintenance fees etc.
elusive wrote:I would buy a flat in the UK but resent paying what is basically double council tax in terms of the price
I think properties where the maintenance fees are similar to council tax must be relatively few, and presumably only luxury developments (UK). As you can see from my own example, I pay £1790 council tax, but the maintenance fees are only £386pa. I don't really see the point in comparing maintenance fees to council tax anyway, since they cover completely different things. For example, our maintenance fees include the buildings insurance, which clearly is not covered by council tax anywhere in the world! Also maintaining communal elements that on a freehold property would be down to the individual owner to maintain (at their expense) - unless the owner prefers to let their property fall into disrepair!
Wicksey wrote:The freeholder controls everything about the exterior of the property....we paid through the nose for all their admin and maintenance costs.
I certainly would have preferred to buy freehold (here in the UK), but any property that has shared elements with neighbours is almost certainly going to have to be either leasehold with a management company controlling things, or shared freehold (commonhold) as in Spain where it's left to the owners to fight and bicker over every petty little thing like what flowers to plant in the garden. Before we left the UK (over 20 years ago) we lived in a leasehold flat; the management company took good care of the property, and the fees seemed perfectly reasonable for what we got. In our new home, we pay no ground rent because every owner holds a share of the management company (which is also the freeholder) so we'd just be paying ourselves; the communal grounds are immaculate, just after moving in all the exterior paintwork of the development was repainted (every 5 years for no additional payment), some fences (which I didn't even realise were communally owned) were repaired, there are no debtors and overall things seem to be professionally handled and we're perfectly happy with the set-up.
Owning an apartment here was far less fraught!
By contrast, almost every property we owned in Spain (and even our first home in Mallorca which we rented), was fraught with community problems - either massive debts (resulting in) poor maintenance/management, corrupt administration on the take, or in the case of our last home where only 4 out of 12 owners actually lived year-round in the property, and the other 3 were either incompetent or complacent/plain lazy, constant headaches and battles with other owners to get the simplest of things done just to keep our own vested interest in the overall property viable. Community living in Spain really was one of the worst experiences of our entire time there. Commonhold in Spain v Leasehold in UK? No contest IMHO!

But I do agree about short leases in the UK - I think once the lease is less than 80 years or so, buyers may struggle to get a mortgage. Our property here was built in 2000, and has the balance remaining of 999 years, so that should never become an issue.
Buying and selling took much longer and was more expensive as there were so many questions about the lease...
Why conveyancing in the UK takes so long really is a mystery, but ours was done & dusted in the usual 6 week time frame, despite being leasehold. Cost? Perhaps with selling (can't remember when we sold our UK flat) since selling in Spain incurs very little expense, although if using an estate agent the fees are usually much higher than the UK, but buying? Surely just the transfer tax alone (compared to UK stamp duty) makes buying property in Spain unbelievably expensive compared to the UK?
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby Miro » Sun Dec 24, 2017 1:52 pm

katy wrote: I think if expats are struggling to make ends meet in Spain they would be financially better off in UK because of benefit top ups. Eg. Pensioners could get pension credit and most of council tax paid.
Forgot to comment on this very good point. I knew two English gents in their 80s in Spain. Both renting their homes, living alone, speaking no Spanish, no family, failing health....and both totally skint, trying to survive on UK state pensions. One of them returned to the UK to live close to his brother and extended family. He received pension credits, housing benefit et al. and got the health care he needed in his own language. Sadly, he passed away this time last year, but at least in his final days he didn't have financial worries anymore. The other one stuck it out, and sadly also passed away just over a year ago - in a Spanish hospital, totally bewildered, and worrying himself, probably literally to death, about how he was going to afford to pay for the care he was going to need when (if) he was discharged.

Sorry for the doom & gloom on what should be a festive day! So on a happier note:
peteroldracer wrote:The plus point of high second-hand values of cars in Spain is that depreciation is less, so you should get more for your car when it comes time to sell or trade-in
True! I got something like 5 times as much for my Spanish car when I sold it here in the UK than I would have for a similar age/spec UK vehicle. Unbelievable - especially when you consider all the dents on the bumpers (none caused my myself of course)!! :thumbup:
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby elusive » Sun Dec 24, 2017 6:41 pm

Your council tax seems alot miro. Ours was around 1200 in yorkshire. It was more of a general rather than exact comment interms of paying double council tax.

We looked at a couple of flats before moving here interms of selling the house in the U.K and downsizing to an apartment to then rent out.and the fees were between 800-1000 a year and these were only bog standard new flats costing only around 120k
Last edited by elusive on Sun Dec 24, 2017 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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quebin
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby quebin » Sun Dec 24, 2017 7:59 pm

£12000 for council tax in Yorkshire! Where did you live Castle Howard?

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peteroldracer
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby peteroldracer » Sun Dec 24, 2017 8:34 pm

£12000 for council tax in Yorkshire!
That covers all of Wakefield....
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby elusive » Sun Dec 24, 2017 10:49 pm

Whoops sorry that should be 1200!!! :oops: :lol: too much xmas spirit

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby maureenscot » Tue Dec 26, 2017 6:28 pm

Leasehold is practically non-existent in Scotland since about the seventies

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patricia
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby patricia » Wed Dec 27, 2017 2:45 pm

It is Commonhold now in Scotland the same as most of Europe. The UK need to change their system from a feudal system which is fraught with difficulties.

However even owning the freehold, which we do in the UK which is done by setting up a company, the system is still difficult. With different people having a priority for different areas. However it is a lot easier with Commonhold as people can feel their power in Leasehold properties regardless of whether you own the freehold or not and she laws are different. Leasehold is draconian and management can still do what they want whether you agree with it or not or whether it even makes sense.
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CielodeCadiz
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby CielodeCadiz » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:17 am

As Americans, we find practically everything in Spain significantly cheaper than California prices. Perhaps OP is shopping in the wrong place?

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby peteroldracer » Tue Jan 09, 2018 9:47 am

We have just had a week in Leeds (Ryanair €36 return pp, case cost more @ €50!) and had excellent meals for two @ £8.99 the both. Even with the eye-watering price of £3.79 for a glass of wine the total was 2/3rds what we would have paid in our local restaurant here. Anyone in Leeds could do worse than try the Lawnswood Arms!
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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby m&md&d » Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:31 pm

Miro wrote:
katy wrote: I think if expats are struggling to make ends meet in Spain they would be financially better off in UK because of benefit top ups. Eg. Pensioners could get pension credit and most of council tax paid.
Forgot to comment on this very good point. I knew two English gents in their 80s in Spain. Both renting their homes, living alone, speaking no Spanish, no family, failing health....and both totally skint, trying to survive on UK state pensions. One of them returned to the UK to live close to his brother and extended family. He received pension credits, housing benefit et al. and got the health care he needed in his own language. Sadly, he passed away this time last year, but at least in his final days he didn't have financial worries anymore. The other one stuck it out, and sadly also passed away just over a year ago - in a Spanish hospital, totally bewildered, and worrying himself, probably literally to death, about how he was going to afford to pay for the care he was going to need when (if) he was discharged.

Sorry for the doom & gloom on what should be a festive day! So on a happier note:
peteroldracer wrote:The plus point of high second-hand values of cars in Spain is that depreciation is less, so you should get more for your car when it comes time to sell or trade-in
True! I got something like 5 times as much for my Spanish car when I sold it here in the UK than I would have for a similar age/spec UK vehicle. Unbelievable - especially when you consider all the dents on the bumpers (none caused my myself of course)!! :thumbup:
My bolding.

This is indeed a very sad situation for the two gentlemen to be in.

However simply moving back to the UK isn't going to help with loneliness if you don't have family there -- the UK has lots of examples of elderly people fèlingisolated and going days and weeks without human interaction.

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Re: Spain isnt cheap

Postby maureenscot » Mon Jan 14, 2019 8:51 pm

It is freehold in Scotland not commonhold.


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