If You Planned to Retire in an EU Country what Are You Plans Now?

[ZaraW]

Not really AIBU but interested to see what others plans are. I'm 50 next year and always hoped to retire to Italy when I was around 60.

Obviously, that's not going to happen. If you planned to do the same what will you do now?

A) Relocate within the UK to countryside, coast etc.
B) Retire to a country outside of the EU. I thought about Thailand as I love it but the heat and humidity would be too much on a permanent basis.
C) Stay where you and travel to Europe for the permitted time.
D) Other

Covid has got me thinking about future plans and I just don't know what I want.

I would have thought it would be cheaper now to buy a place. Like everywhere property prices are tumbling and what you save on the initial price of an apartment can then be spent on other things where the cost has ramped up.

Never understood about the supposed free health care as when on the 2 occasions we have needed medical help when holidaying in the EU we have always been charged before we could see a doctor

I went abroad to Scandinavia, wanted to become a citizen before Brexit but COVID put paid to that and had to return. Won't go back now, it will be too complicated.
I have retired to the countryside instead, to a much better part of the UK than I was in before, much quieter, very pretty and peaceful, and much cheaper to live. Think I will stay here now as I've done too much moving about in the last couple of years.

Oliver's mummy - it's not "free" health care - you have to pay the same as local residents and in some places that means paying (at a reduced rate).

Well yes, you kind of can just rock up and get a job. You apply for a job like any local and then you just have to show your passport to prove you have the right to work in the EU.

This means that all sorts of jobs were open to Brits, including lots of minimum wage or unskilled jobs, for younger people or people without a lot of experience.

Now you'll have to get a work visa, it's a tedious process that not all employers will want to deal with, so realistically only the higher level jobs for better off people will still be available.

The chance to work overseas during the ski season in northern Europe and then the holiday resorts in southern Europe will be taken away from a lot of young people in the UK. Bloody Brexit.

Yes, I hope our young people are angry about this and never forgive the people (especially lying politicians) who stripped them of these rights.

And do you remember Priti Patel telling the Tory party conference that she will end FoM once and for all. Big cheers for the audience.

I definitely just rocked up to the first job I had in Spain. "Hi, I've got experience working in bars and I speak some Spanish" was about the extent of my "interview".

That was a great summer.

On a more serious note, shame that our scientists will probably find it more difficult to share and develop their skills especially wrt specific enterprises like the European Space Agency etc.

On a more serious note, shame that our scientists will probably find it more difficult to share and develop their skills especially wrt specific enterprises like the European Space Agency etc.

"Why on earth would anyone want to work with and for foreigners ?"

We are moving to Ireland in Summer 2021, but there are different rules for Ireland , it is not the same as the rest of Common Market area.

The common market hasn't existed since 1993.

Ireland and the UK come under the CTA: common travel area, which is totally seperate to anything EU.

I remember "rocking up" in Munich one summer and getting a job selling bread. We were treated the same as the natives. I did speak German though.
If you want a house in the EU, you'll only be able to spend 3 months a year there. And you'll have to pay for private health insurance, which will be very expensive or unobtainable for the elderly, surely. And you'll have to get someone to keep an eye on your house and any pets back home. Not worth the hassle or expense in my view. Makes more sense just to go on holiday, until you can't get the insurance cover and are stuck in the UK.

Europilgrim
That is what I was trying to explain.

From people’s perception you would think it was free health care if you went to an EU country

[quote ZaraW]I've been looking at Ireland. This house in Donegal looks amazing....

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/80952539?currencyCode=GBP#/[/quote]
If you’re worried about cold, very wet, windy winters, I would NOT live in Ireland...

@Oliversmumsarmy

I didn’t think you could just rock up and get a job anyway. There was still paperwork to be filled in

You very much could just rock up and apply for work (as I did in Spain) there’s usually setting up a bank account and getting a tax number etc, but all that was quite easy really

I know, I was just looking. I have a friend who lives on the West Coast and they call it the Wild West... if I was rich would use it as a holiday home.

@ZaraW my fathers family is from around there and it is very beautiful, but the weather is atrocious - almost all year round! Maybe a few sunny (windy) days in the summer. The people are great though

Friends bought their place with the intention to retire there....they have to now seek residence which will cost thousands

I didn’t think you could just rock up and get a job anyway. There was still paperwork to be filled in

Another one here who just rocked up and got a job. In fact, I've done this more than once at various stages of my life. Paperwork was always minimal and usually completed by the employer. The only thing that I ever had to do in person was to register at the Town Hall, which only ever took 5 minutes.

Yes- was able to “rock up” to study at a university in an EU capital, paying the local rates to study, as an EU citizen, minimal paperwork and work to support my studies. Once this is no longer an option it will mean paying more expensive non - EU fees, and having to apply for a specific student Visa

My DC went on holiday to the EU last year and ended up in hospital. It was very nice not having to pay the £1500 cost of the stay. I only had to pay 20%.

Our friends live in Spain, they will just have to apply for residency.

I didn’t think you could just rock up and get a job anyway.

Yes, I went to Paris and took my CV around to different hotels and eventually got a job - pretty easy. Later I got several part-time jobs in Italy - probably wouldn't have been possible if I had needed a visa as there were low paid and short hours but they gave me the opportunity to stick around and look for something better.

Companies in the EU are not supposed to offer a job to someone from outside the EU unless they can't find anyone in the EU who can do the job.

I didn’t think you could just rock up and get a job anyway. There was still paperwork to be filled in

As I posted above, I've done this on several occasions - as have millions of other British citizens over the last 40 years.

Moving to Cologne or Copenhagen was no more difficult than moving to Cardiff or Coventry - that was the major benefit of Freedom of Movement.

The difficult part was making the original realisation that 'Europe' is not some far away, strange land filled with weird people who speak in tongues and eat unusual food, but that it is a continent filled with opportunities where the people are as friendly (or unfriendly) as those in any British town, where they watch many of the same films, listen to much the same music and eat much the same type of food but who also have their own cultural and social backgrounds. Washing up in a restaurant in Hamburg was no different to washing up in a restaurant in Huddersfield, but being exposed to different cultures and approaches to life was priceless.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”. ― Mark Twain.

No wonder the current government wants to curtail it.