Moving England - Scotland, where to start?!

[DefinitelyMaybeBaby]

Hi,

I'm Scottish but been living in England nearly 10 years. My husband and I have been talking about moving back for a while now and really feel sure in ourselves about the decision now.
However we have 2 kids (2 & 4) the eldest starting school here in a few weeks, and recently found out we are unexpectedly expecting #3. We have a mortgage which we are in the middle of contract for so I believe we couldn't sell up down here and rent up there for a bit, we would need to move our mortgage to a new property. We both have jobs.

I literally do not know where to start and it makes me feel stressed thinking about it. If you have done it what did you do first; pick a school, find a house, find a job? If we could click our fingers and be there now we would but I feel paralyzed by not knowing where to begin and it feels like a mammoth task.

Thanks.

Do you know what area you want to live in? Narrowing that down is your first objective.

Some people choose based on proximity to certain schools, others would like to be near a beach or whatnot. Decide what’s important to you and then fathom out if where you fancy is doable for your budget.

The rental market in popular areas is swift so be prepared to compromise a bit and move quickly

Agree - general area for a start. Do you have family in Scotland or other networks? Do you want to be near them? Do you want to return to a familiar area or somewhere new?

It’s scary, but also really exciting. Good luck!

Thanks - my family are south side of Glasgow/east Renfrewshire so we would be looking to be close to there. One of the main reasons for moving back is to be closer to family and help with childcare.

East Renfrewshire rental market is difficult. There’s a lack of housing stock and lots of competition.

Can you afford to buy in east Ren? You’re not going to lose money on a property there unless you grossly overpay when you buy it.

To get the kids into the local schools you need proof of address etc as the catchments are strict.

For school attainment/amenities/proximity to town and grandparents I totally get why you’d want to live there.

okay, first of all, when is your elder child's birthday? Would he be due to start this year or next.

I'd then start researching what you are likely to get for your house and how long it will take to sell, and what that could buy you where you plan to go. You are not looking for a small village, so properties should come up reasonably regularly in your search area.

How close you need to be to family will be determined by what childcare you'd be getting, e'g' would they need to be near school/nursery for pick ups.

If all things property wise look like they will be straightforward enough, I'd focus on employment and where would be the sweet spot in terms of travel to jobs/closeness to family and school.

He's 5 in November so I'd starting school here in England this September but would also be starting now if we were in Scotland I believe.

He'll be one of the younger ones in Scotland as opposed to one of the older ones

There are plenty of rentals in Shawlands, Strathbungo, Cathcart and Pollokshields - depending on what you want to pay and the sort of place you want to rent.

Primary schools are mixed: I've heard good reports and/or have direct experience of Shawlands, Langside, Battlefield, Glendale, Merrylee and Tinto Primaries.

Shawlands Academy is a really good school, getting good results even though it has an extremely mixed demographic, from really poor in Govanhill and a high proportion of Roma (10% of S1 intake ) to millionaires (children of ) in Newlands or Pollokshields , plus is highly multicultural (55 languages spoken at the school ).

Good public transport links if you were to get a job in Glasgow.

If going for Glasgow south side then try hard for East Renfrewshire because of the schools
You will get less house for your money but much better schools

Meant to add: because Shawlands has the mixed demographic catchment, it doesn't feature highly on the newspaper versions of the exam "league tables" - although once you add in the Virtual Comparator and even that doesn't include the added complication of multiple languages as it only calculates expected results based on deprivation levels it does pretty well.

I certainly can't fault the school: it celebrates sporting and artistic endeavours as well as academic success and turns out well rounded, self sufficient young people so that those that are academic cope well at Uni. I'd say it was a better school than mine (Bearsden Academy )

Its head teacher was a great leader though and recently retired. I hope its new head teacher maintains the standards and ethos of the school.

We did the move a few years ago, here’s a few tips (which you may know already)

• The property market is moving fast up here, so if I was you I’d focus on a broad region with a range of good schools if possible, this will allow you to have a bigger pool of property to choose from, and increase your chances.
• LA Schools tend to have defined catchment areas, and you can’t confirm a place at a school until you have an address. (There are placing requests available for going to a school outside of your catchment but these aren’t guaranteed for future siblings.)
• When looking at property, “offers over” advertised prices are usually much lower than property value, especially in popular areas. So a home report value of £200k might have an offers over price of £180k, but end up going for 10% over HRV i.e. £220k. Please bear this in mind when using rightmove!
• With wfh being the norm, could either of you continue doing your current jobs remotely from Scotland? That would greatly ease the pressure of everything changing all at once.

And above all, good luck. It was a really good move for us, despite feeling momentous at the time. The DC love it, there’s so much to explore and it’s great being closer to family.

I think it depends on your situation. For us the priority was to find a job, and applying for the jobs also took into account the location and whether it would suit us (basically, would there be sufficient opportunity for DH to also get a job here).
What type of fields do you work in, and does that affect where you could work? There's not much point deciding where to live if there are no suitable jobs! Then it narrows down your options in terms of where to live.
We sold in England first which made things much easier. If you have family in Scotland could you stay with them short term?
I also moved up before DH as it took him a few months to get a job, but we had no kids at that point. Would one of you be able to stop working without a job to go to?
Finally, finding somewhere to buy is much easier if you are already there. Some parts around Glasgow have competitive housing markets, so you'd need to move quickly... Particularly if you are looking in the good school catchment areas.

Thank you all for really helpful tips. It feels a mammoth task but I do feel it will be right for us.

We are currently in a fixed term mortgage for another few years so I don't think we could sell up here and then rent up there for a bit without paying a big fine, although that would make things easier.
Our jobs are pretty general - we wouldn't be able to work our current jobs from there - but it shouldn't be too hard to find jobs up there once things are more back to normal.
I could move up first and stay with my mum I think but it would be difficult to manage around moving DS school. I guess his school would be worked out on my mum's address which would necessarily be the area we would stay in.

Moving over summer holidays probably makes sense. I guess we may need to plan farther ahead for moving next summer 🤞

Another point about Rightmove - ignore what any estate agent tells you about “ local schools are x y and z”. It doesn’t matter how local they are - all that counts is which catchment they are in. You can get the accurate information from the Council website.

If your children have a Catholic baptism certificate then they will have a choice of two schools in most parts of the west of Scotland. Otherwise they will have one.

Usually once you choose denominational / non denomination you have to stick with it, or it’s a placement request. It’s not like CoE schools in England.