Scotland

[CyanLurker]

Hi everyone! me and my boyfriend are considering moving to Scotland and starting a life there. Can you tell me what life is like there? is it affordable to buy a house or maybe a plot of land? we are interested in a quiet life so we are open to living outside the cities.

A lot depends on where in Scotland - what interests, do you need to be able to commute to an airport? You can look on Rightmove to get an idea of costs. Do you have a budget?

It very much depends on the area. Some are more affordable than others, it all depends on what you're looking for and what your budget is. I will say that the Scottish property buying process seems much simpler than the English one though.

Why do English people keep treating Scotland like a safari park? YABVU.

Far too general a question (sorry!) I'm English and moved to Scotland (central belt ish, don't want to be too specific) my twenties and am very happy here. It feels like home to the point that I would not ever move back (nothing against England, simply that I have such a good life here now and feel very settled). However, any country will vary a lot depending on where you are talking about! House prices are often cheaper than in England but again it varies (certain areas of England can be very cheap, comparatively, and areas of Edinburgh and the St. Andrews area, off the top of my head, can be extortionate here).

As far as what life is like, it will depend on the area.....what do you enjoy? If you like the outdoors, skiing etc., somewhere like Aviemore could be amazing..... the west coast can be stunning and have incredible beaches.....it depends so much what you are looking for!

As some have said. It depends where in England you are moving from and where in Scotland you are moving to.
a lot of England other than London is much cheaper to live than where I used to live in west of Scotland.
Go if you like the area but not for cost saving. Also spend time wherever you pick and make sure you have people like you that you can befriend and that you have any amenities like a nice gastro puB and coffee shops etc. in walking. distance if that’s what you like doing. There are plenty of outdoor opportunities like water based sports and hill climbs/cycle runs etc.
Just really think what is important to you to have access to locally.

Scotland is a big place with a massive range of villages, towns and cities. There are some very expensive places and some very cheap places. You need to come a travel about a bit and see for yourself.

Scotland isn't a town north of Carlisle ou know. Though you'd think it was at times

Your question is impossible to answer just with your post

What area of the country are you thinking of
What are your priorities. Is it schools, a night life, walks in the country?
What's your budget & what do you want for that

Narrow it down a bit.

Where in Scotland are you considering moving to? Do you have work restrictions? Budget?

It's impossible to describe in any decent detail the cost and experience of living in the country with so many variables and unknowns. If you can tell us more about budget, location, working needs etc we can provide more relevant responses

Geez us an idea of where? We’re a fairly big country.

Where are you moving from? That might highlight things by comparison

Yes, there are places with affordable housing...but if you decide to move back to England you're unlikely to be able to buy again because of the disparity in house prices.

Try posting on the Scotsnet board, and give a few more details of what you're looking for, budget etc.

"What life is like (t)here" will vary quite a bit...

Scotland is much bigger than it looks on the map, you need to come and have a good look really, because it depends on the kind of life you want to make at the end of the day . If I wanted to move somewhere now I would join a facebook group that covers that particular area and ask the locals lots of questions about what it's like to live there.

Scotland is a huge landmass. Very different terrains so you need to work out what type of life you are looking for and consider work etc. Some of the Hebridean Islands aren't too far out whilst others could be an 11 hour journey. Lots of opportunities for gorgeous property if you wfh but beware travel will be severely impacted by weather from October til May at least. West end of Glasgow is an incredible life, lots of pubs, cafe, restaurants, galleries, parks etc. Read up online, it's a very big place in comparison to an English region which some envisage!!

Yes, as above a it very much depends on where you want to move to.

Taxes are higher in Scotland too- across the board. Do income tax, stamp duty etc. and I don’t really see any benefit in terms of services in that respect.

If I had a pound for every thread where someone who has (presumably) never set foot in Scotland asks vague questions about moving here, I could buy a lot of Tunnocks teacakes!

Scotland is arguably a bigger space to consider than England. Mainland Scotland? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee? Or are you talking about Uist, Lewis, Harris? Or many, many other locations.

Have to laugh at the number of good lifer posts I see on here and Reddit from people looking to move to Scotland as if it’s an idyllic paradise. It’s cold, wet, still governed by Westminster and full of English goodlifers so just like being in England without the sunshine really.

My exH and I lived in Scotland for a while for work and a couple of areas were horribly anti English.... Talking out and out hostile! The Highlands and Skye were the worst. I'd definitely advise spending time in and around the area you're considering to make sure they're friendly to outsiders....

Aye. Tax is cheaper if you're a low earner, but if - like me - you're lucky enough to get a job with a decent wage, you can be hit a bit harder.

I took early retirement at 58 because of my late husband's health and got a reduced pension which left me with enough to live on. Now that I'm on my own, I've gone back to work part-time in order to pay for house repairs, etc and to give myself a bit extra.

To my chagrin, I've realised that I'll have to keep an eye on what I'm doing. On the one hand, I need to pay for repairs on the house. On the other hand, I don't want to finish up working a full day's wage and losing 42% of it in tax. (Yes, I get my Personal Allowance - that's taken off my work pension. I also get my lansaprazole and HRT without paying for it, so I shouldn't whinge.)

I inherited a percentage of my late husband's pension. That's taken me up to the Intermediate tax band which only exists in Scotland. I'm doing supply teaching at the moment, only two days a week. I've worked out that I'll either have to cut down to one day a week or stop haflway through the year next tax year, or I'll be working for 58% of my wage. (I know...I'm a whiner...but it's bad enough spending part of my working day being told to "Eff off!" without getting full remuneration for the privilege. It gets me out the house, but I have to pay for my petrol, etc.)

Yes, I realise that I'm privileged. A plus is that I now qualify for a free bus pass and my mortgage is paid. However, I still have council tax to pay plus utilities and my council tax reduction isn't that much.

For those that don't realise, the higher tax band in Scotland starts at a bit above 43k. As I said, I know that I'm privileged.

To answer your question OP

Scotland is a little bigger than a village. We all talk funny and ooh and aah at electricity and running water if we're lucky enough to be in the right bit of the village

Some gorgeous areas you could snap up a property cheaply, like Lochgelly, Larkhall, Paisley, Port Glasgow. Even their names evoke pleasure

Oh and OP

What's your AIBU?

Thank you for your answers! we are people who like nature, hiking and meeting people. We are planning a trip to travel a little more and visit different towns, the weather is not a problem. Your experiences are interesting, we find Scotland beautiful and the people are extremely friendly.

A good way to answer the affordability question is to ask a very different question to 'is it possible?' If you can find out the areas where a lot of English people have moved to, and cross-reference that with how much tourism there is in the area, you'll be on your way to an answer.

And it isn't that English people aren't nice, they're perfectly nice. What it is, is that the houses they buy were probably once someone's parents' or grandparents' house, and those folk can't move back because they've got teenagers in school or they can't do their job in that area, so they sell (of course) to the highest bidder. And all it takes is a few people to die in a village and a lot of new people to come in, and the existing population feels they've been supplanted.

The thing is that when you live in a bigger population, you see easily that there's a lot of movement, and nobody bats an eyelid. But if you live in a place with 400 people, it doesn't feel like people move around at all, it feels like people stay and that's what the focus is on.

Then if you cross-reference that with the areas where there's a lot of tourism, that's a double whammy because as well as houses going to incomers, some of those houses will be put to holiday homes, and prices go sky high, and there are too may tourists for the roads to cope with or the services to cope with, and it all feels far worse.

So basically, if it's an area that's higher populated and not touristy (most of the central belt? Fife?) it will feel easier to move to it. If it's an out-of-the-way place and has a busy tourist summer, it's pretty delicate in terms of how to behave so as to fit in, it's a real learning curve and an exercise in forbearance and humility. People do do really well at fitting into the community sometimes, but I've seen some total disasters too. Any rural Scot has a list of things that have been said to them that are completely outrageous and show no understanding of how life is there. I'm one of those, but I moved away. I'm so tactless, I wouldn't last 5 minutes in a village now haha.