Moving to Brussels and after advice please!!

[SalM]

Hi all, my DH has been offered a job in Brussels and we're trying to decide whether to go for it so any advice you could give would be gratefully received! He would be based out of an office in Louvain la Nueve which I understand is a little out of central Brussels. I have a dd (2yrs 6 mths) and am expecting another baby 4th October. I have many questions!

I'm just wondering where I would start looking for pre-school / nursery care for my 2 year old and what the available / recommended options are.

With regards to rental properties / location, what is the best website to use for this and which areas would you recommend based on the location of the office? Would we be better living somewhere more central and commuting (I guess DH would be going in opposite direction of the rush hour traffic?) or staying closer to Louvain la Neuve? I would ideally like somewhere not too quiet but I would like a house with a garden, not an apartment.

Giving birth to baby number 2! Has anyone experience of this in Belgium and any advice you can give?

I currently work 4 days a week from home and I will be able to continue working for the same company when we move...I assume that althought I would be paid by a UK company I would need to pay Belgian VAT?

Sorry for so many questions, I have ALOT on my mind! Thanks.

If relocating to east Brussels, definitely worth joining the BCT and specifically contacting the ladies who run the pregnancy in Belgium courses. They would be able to help you with choosing a hospital. Home births and midwives are rare here, birth is normally quite high tech compared to the UK, but I do know someone who gave birth at home recently who had midwifry care rather than the normal gyne led care here, if interested, I'm sure she would let me pass on her email. For east Brussels, UCL St Luc in Woluwe St Lambert is a big teaching hospital and there is even a British gyne who practises there called Dr Hutchings.

We need Belgo - I think she had 2 of hers at home (?).....and she is a trained medical professional

ffionsmummy, it's lovely here (if a bit challenging at times) - I wouldn't move back to the UK if you paid me.....

Thanks everyone for all your advice, we're pretty much decided on coming. I've been house hunting on Immoweb but everything is soo expensive! today I stumbled across Overijse which seems quite nice (and fairly reasonably priced). If anyone has any views on this area I would love to hear them. And also any advice / recommendations on kindergartens in the area.

I'm a bit stumped on what to do childcare wise. We're looking to come over Mid July so schools will have finished for the summer, however I do work from home and need to continue working until my maternity leave at the end of September (from home in Brussels) so would need to find somewhere short term for my dd to attend (she's 2 yrs 7months) until kindergarten starts back and I can get her into one. (though I would like to get the Kindergarten place sorted ASAP as it sounds like places fill up pretty quickly.) I am also happy for her to go to a local school, we simply cant afford any of the English schools as we would have to pay ourselves and I think it would do her good and force me into learning the language too.

Another added complication...I keep reading that they are accepted at school from 2 1/2 assumming they are reasonably toilet trained. My daughter is for number ones, but number twos is a different story, she was quite constipated as a toddler and when we started toilet training we realised that she was actually holding them in, and the whole vicious circle that comes with it. Now she is doing number 2s but most of the time in her knickers. Sorry if this is TMI!!! Anyway I'm obviously hoping this minor blip will sort itself out but wondered how it would affect her chances at Kindergarten?

ffionsmummy - lovely to hear from you, it certainly sounds like a very similar situation. Our friends and family also think we are mad! Where is your husbands company located?

not sure why I keep saying Kindergarten, did I read that somewhere?

I mean maternelle (French) / kleuterschool (Dutch)

I would say that they are used to this. My dd was barely toilet trained when she started Maternelle - still having lots of accidents. I was a bit worried. But in the first year, they do the toilet like a military operation. As in, they are taken en masse at regular intervals. This is one of those occasions, like eating school dinners, where peer pressure really kicks in.

Dd had a change of clothes at school for maybe the first 18 months. It was RARE that they were needed.

Overijse is very nice - lots of expat families there too. Don't have a clue on the schools though. Something to bear in mind, there are lots of private creches all over but in my experience many will shut for most of August. I got hit with this our first year, and ended up hiring a nanny whose family were away. It was fine, but I basically handed my net wages over for that month.

Mind you, in the UK I would have been faced with another 2 years of nursery fees, so one month, then maternelle was a bargain really.

www.xpats.com and www.expatica.com are big for info and finding household help.

Hi again
do not worry at all about the toiletting issue and maternelle and kleuterschool. Some maternelles even accept non potty trained children, though they do not perhaps like to advertise this, or they might be inundated.

Overijse?? Well it was in my original list of places you could consider. It is quite a large gemeente (commune), made up of several areas, the E411 goes right through the gemeente. Jezus-Eik in the north is very very popular with families who send their children to BSB. In the west there is Maleizen and you can access la Hulpe train station from there to get directly to Louvain-La-Neuve. Some things to consider about living there though :

1. you are neither in LLN nor Brussels, it's a completely self-contained town.
2. unless you are on the very west of the gemeente which is not too far from Hoeilart and La Hulpe train stations, you will have no fast public transport connections to either Brussels or LLN.
3. you are most likely to become a slave to your cars in Overijse, it would be hard to live with one car. If you lived in LLN or Brussels, you could live without a car or with just one car. Car costs are far greater here than in the UK for taxing and insuring, unless you have a small engine or insure 3rd party. Belgium has excellent public tranpsortation overall, Overijse is the worst place I know for public transport!!! In Brussels you are spoiled with metro, train, tram and bus, in Overijse you have only bus. So what you might save in rent in Overijse, you might end up spending on car costs.
4. due to the amount of expat families with children at BSB and ISB who live in the gemeente, I wonder what it might be like to be an expat family who is NOT connected to either of these schools, perhaps you might feel a bit left out? But the upside is that expats are dominated by English speaking Brits and Americans there. In LLN any expats you find there are likely to send their children to local schools as there are no international ones nearby, Brussels is a complete mixtures of expats who send their children to local, European and international schools, plus you get a huge mix of nationalities.
5. all local schools in Overijse are Dutch speaking. This is absolutely ideal if you are staying long term, the Flemish system consistently produces children who speak Dutch to mother tongue level and French to a high standard too, by the time they are teenagers, plus perhaps English too. However, if you are planning a short term stay of 3 to 5 years, it is hard to argue against the usefulness of French instead of Dutch, if you are to move on somewhere else. There are lycees francais throughout the world if you are expecting to move on, if you wish to continue with the French, plus French is simply spoken in more countries by more people than Dutch. So if you want absolutely French, if you are living in central Overijse, you are looking at a 6km commute to school. The Maleizen area is near enough to walk in some places to the French schools in la Hulpe. So really French and Overijse may not mix well, it depends entirely where in Overijse you are. The Dutch schools in Overijse I imagine are excellent, it's a middle class area, the schools are naturally going to be excellent. No idea about waiting lists in the schools though.

Look also at Hoeilart, it is also Dutch speaking but has train connections to Brussels and LLN, it's west of Overijse. I know a family with children in the local commune schools there, from what the mum said, Catholic one is more popular and hard to get a place, commune one very welcoming and not so difficult to get a place.

Here's the list of local schools in Overijse

www.ond.vlaanderen.be/onderwijsaanbod/lijst.asp?hs=bao&fusie=F&nis=23062&app=20

SaIM, if you list what you are looking for in a house, I might be able to suggest areas to look more closely at eg
maximum price
number of bedrooms
city, suburban, country
new house or period house
new town or period town
maximum commute time to work
near public transport for work / pleasure
near sports facilities
near parks
language of locality
language of schooling
number of expats and whether you prefer Brits / want to avoid them!!!
want to walk to school or happy to drive and how far

Oh on the point of child care, well I can only comment on Brussels for a 2.5 year old for July and August, in French you will have quite a choice of childcare. I think Portofino has the cheapest child care (was it 20 euro for the week in Evere?) but around ours, it starts at 50 euro per week and is more normally 90 euro per week. In Dutch in Brussels, there is not so much choice, but it is available if you know where to look. In the smaller places such as Overijse, you may struggle for a 2.5 year old.

Here's a few more links which might help.

Train map, connects Brussels (Central, Schuman, Luxembourg, Etterbeek, Watermael, Boitsfort) through Groenendal, Hoeilart, La Hulpe, Genval, Rixensart, Profondsart and Ottignies finally to LLN.
hari.b-holding.be/Hafas/folders/map_fr.htm

Buses arranged into 3 in Belgium, corresponding to the 3 regions. In Brussels run by STIB, in Flanders they are run by de Lijn, in Wallonia they are run by TEC. You sometimes have to look at more than one network map to work out how to go over from one region to another.

De Lijn map, connects Brussels with Overijse.
www.delijn.be/images/Netplan_Haltes_vervoergebiedBrussel_web_tcm7-16943.pdf

TEC map, connects Brussels to Overijse and LLN.
www.infotec.be/Files/TECBW/R%C3%A9seau_40x70_Recto.pdf

STIB map, on the peripheries of the map you see where lines run to Overijse and LLN.
www.stib.be/netplan-plan-reseau.html?l=fr

Natation and portofino - you are a mine of wonderful information, how long have you lived in Brussels?? Looking at all these threads, you must've helped so many people in their move to Brussels and your advice is greatly appreciated!

OK so we've scrapped Overijse and in response to your questions...We're probably looking to stay 3 years so in that case I think you are right about the french / dutch thing. At least we have a basic knowledge of french, we would have to start from scratch in dutch and we could use french elsewhere if needed.

Regarding the house, we are looking at:
maximum price - ?1300
number of bedrooms - minimum 3 (with additional office or a corner for an office), preferably 4 beds
city, suburban, country - Suburban (happy to be on the outskirts, probaby wouldn't spend too much time in brussels itself, occassional trips at weekend
new house or period house - not overly bothered about age of house, but would like something fairly modernised)
new town or period town - again, not bothered, as long as there is a supermarket not too far away (10k)
maximum commute time to work - 30 min drive
near public transport for work / pleasure - added bonus but not overly essential, husband will be given car and I was planning to have a car, am so used to having to use a car that havent used public transport in years! If we could get away with just his car then great!
near sports facilities - happy to drive a few km to swimming pool etc
near parks - bit of green is always nice, but again happy to drive a few km to get to it.
language of locality - french based on above
language of schooling - french
number of expats and whether you prefer Brits / want to avoid them!!! Not bothered about avoiding but a bonus if there are some english speakers around, dont want to live in a complete expat area
want to walk to school or happy to drive and how far - happy to drive, but preferably no more that 5km

We did see a house in Rixensart today which seemed nice, do you know anything about the area? It seems to be on the trainline into Brussels and not too far for husband to get to LLN.

Thanks again for your help!

Hi there again
With a budget of 1.3k per month, you will manage a 3 bed in Brussels Region, 4 beds you will not get so much choice. Best communes of Brussels would be Watermael-Boitsfort (1170) and Auderghem (1160), you would be close to both Watermael and Boitsfort train stations and also near to E411 for the car journey. You could walk to shops, schools, sports centres, parks from much of these areas.

Here's one house I found last night for another Brussels thread in Auderghem with 4 beds. Remember you can knock off 10% a a rough guide to prices advertised. It might be a push to get this house down to 1.3k as it is a private landlord, just reading the advert it seems a great price already for size and location, but you never know....
www.immoweb.be/en/Rent.Estate.cfm?IdBien=3160477&xgallery=gallery&xpage=1

You will get all you are looking for also in the communes of la Hulpe and Rixensart which have 3 train stations connecting to LLN. Rixensart includes Genval and Rosieres. I'd personally go for Rixensart as close to the centre as possible, as there is a sports centre with swimming pool, running track, all a 5 minute walk from the train station, the sports centre there really is great for such a small place. La Hulpe has no pool. You should find a place in a school around this area without too much problem, just don't expect so much English to be spoken in the schools there, whereas in Brussels you can usually find a parent or a few teachers with English. There are not so many expats around here, not as much as Brussels, but there is a BCT group in this area. I cannot get on Immoweb at the moment, but I am sure you will find a 4 bed for 1.3k in this area. You could of course look in LLN itself, Rixensart is very near to LLN and I am guessing that is where Rixensartois gravitate for shopping and entertainment, rather than Brussels. LLN has great sport facilities, a large shopping centre "l'Esplanade", a cinema, supermarket. It's a bit like Milton Keynes - only been to MK once but in fact I think LLN is more pleasant.

Here's a stage I have managed to find in the Rixensart area for 2.5 year olds running htis Summer.
www.loisirsetdetente.be/

PS don't completely scrap Overijse, the streets east of La Hulpe train station are in Overijse, just a few metres away. It's officially Dutch speaking, but plenty of French speakers there and you are free to send your children to the la Hulpe schools.

PPS Dutch is not really that difficult for English speakers, your greatest problem would be getting the Dutch speakers to allow you to speak Dutch as they like speaking English! The only exception to this is in the gemeente offices (town hall), especially in places like Overijse and Hoeilart where a great proportion of the population so NOT speak Dutch and these gemeenten are surrounded by French majority areas, the Dutch only rule is often in force there. If you can, take advantage of the very low cost Dutch courses available through local adult education services. Same goes for French. Hubby pays 60 euro per year, that is effectively free tuition and covers photocopying.

Well within budget and near the station

another

another

That last house is around 5 minute walking distance to Genval station and 5 minutes walk to 2 local schools, Maubroux and St Augustin.