Working-class British expats living in Spain and the like - how they do it?

[PlanktonSideburns]

Would love to become one of these fat cunts.  9am sharpener on the balcony, sun's over the yardarm (somewhere), mid-morning medium fry up, skin wrinkled to fuck getting some rays, afternoon drinking in the sports bar, barbecue poolside with your sexy beast friends, everything behind you except torpor and suffocating painful death.

GOUT CLAIM ME

[derek stitt]

Some bloke (under fifty years old) in the village just sold off some land he inherited from his gran. That lovely old orchard and garden is now going to be another fucking set of crammed in, over priced, poorly built new builds. Fucker got £500k just for the postage stamp sized building plot and is planning to buy a place in Portugal. Regards working class credentials, his gran was the daughter of coal miners and a house wife married to a bus driver. The bloke is the manager of a social club.  Draw what you want from that.

[mothman]

It's just more othering really. Here we are, a bunch of above-average-intelligence types, speculating about how a bunch of people we generally regard as intellectually inferior can afford a certain lifestyle (it's not a class thing - many here would self-identify as lower class and/or lower income). Like there probably aren't at any given time a bunch of them sitting round a pool, glistening pinkly, talking about how metropolitan elites or immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers have it so easy and everything is handed to us in a plate.

Though of course they are overlooking that many of the factors others have listed in this thread - Right To Buy, a historically better and earlier-accessible pension provision etc. - have allowed them to be where they are while being now forever denied to the likes of us...

Of course they're able to do so

[Jittlebags]

[Blinder Data]

Thanks, all. I now know the answer. In summary they:

- worked cash in hand for many years
- bought overseas property when prices were low (and the pound was strong)
- sold UK property when prices were high (having bought it for buttons)
- received generous redundancy pay-outs

The last three were only available to workers of a certain age during the period of 1980-2010. These boomers are uniquely lucky, having cashed out in extraordinary economic circumstances - sorry mate, no, of course, you managed it through SHEER BLOODY HARD WORK

I wish gout and post-Brexit complications on all of them.

[gilbertharding]

I'd hazard that it's not 'just' cash-in-hand.

The specific kind of 'working class' person you might be imagining might well have been a skilled tradesperson, who was able to charge a lot for their labour. Probably started their own company. The village (in Kent) where I live is full of people with better houses and cars and holidays than I could afford, in spite of them not having the benefit of a university degree. They probably work harder and are more ambitious than I am, as well.

Some of them probably do evade tax too, to be fair...

[Buelligan]

I know some people here, me, others, a couple I know, he was an engineer in the army left in his early thirties, couldn't afford a house.  They wanted to have a family and bring up their kids with countryside and so on, could afford a home here, wanted their children to learn an extra language, thought moving would give the kids a better life.  He does car repairs, she works cleaning, mostly holiday homes.  They pay tax and live just like normal human beings.

[katzenjammer]

The last three were only available to workers of a certain age during the period of 1980-2010. These boomers are uniquely lucky, having cashed out in extraordinary economic circumstances - sorry mate, no, of course, you managed it through SHEER BLOODY HARD WORK

Yep. Luck. Everyone's finances are 100% luck, and that generation won the fucking lottery. Free education and apprenticeships, loads of job opportunities, decent salaries, hassle free dole if you got the boot, final salary pensions and dirt cheap property that multiplied by 20x in value.   

[canadagoose]

I'd hazard that it's not 'just' cash-in-hand.

The specific kind of 'working class' person you might be imagining might well have been a skilled tradesperson, who was able to charge a lot for their labour. Probably started their own company. The village (in Kent) where I live is full of people with better houses and cars and holidays than I could afford, in spite of them not having the benefit of a university degree. They probably work harder and are more ambitious than I am, as well.

Some of them probably do evade tax too, to be fair...

Yeah, you can make a decent living as a tradesperson. If you're good with your hands (I am not), it's worth looking into becoming qualified as one.

[Fonz]

In-laws have a small place in Spain.

Most of the expats they know do manual jobs over there: cleaning, pool maintenance, car mechanics etc

It is cheaper to live there.

Most work mornings only, apart from the car guy.

A couple do cash taxi rides to the airports.
They tick over, but eat cheapo stuff from supermarkets, rather than caning it every night in bars.

[Blinder Data]

I know some people here, me, others, a couple I know, he was an engineer in the army left in his early thirties, couldn't afford a house.  They wanted to have a family and bring up their kids with countryside and so on, could afford a home here, wanted their children to learn an extra language, thought moving would give the kids a better life.  He does car repairs, she works cleaning, mostly holiday homes.  They pay tax and live just like normal human beings.

That's great, but that's not who I'm talking about. The idea that people move to other countries for a better life, work and integrate is well understood. I'm talking about the sort of aging Brits who live in Spain the whole year or at least part of the year, are locals at Corrie-themed bars and are well-respected members of their lawn bowls club (in Alicante).

I'd hazard that it's not 'just' cash-in-hand.

The specific kind of 'working class' person you might be imagining might well have been a skilled tradesperson, who was able to charge a lot for their labour. Probably started their own company. The village (in Kent) where I live is full of people with better houses and cars and holidays than I could afford, in spite of them not having the benefit of a university degree. They probably work harder and are more ambitious than I am, as well.

Some of them probably do evade tax too, to be fair...

Fair enough. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some creative accounting going on though...

[Buelligan]

That's great, but that's not who I'm talking about. The idea that people move to other countries for a better life, work and integrate is well understood. I'm talking about the sort of aging Brits who live in Spain the whole year or at least part of the year, are locals at Corrie-themed bars and are well-respected members of their lawn bowls club (in Alicante).

Yes, I don't know anybody who actually exists like that.  There are a fair few hedge fund managers, CEOs of food chains and people like that I know round here, some pensioners from high up in BNFL and BTL landlords but unfortunately, all the working class ones I know are just normal humans that pay their tax and don't even play bowls, most of 'em aren't even that old I'm sorry to say.

[Blue Jam]

Yep. Luck. Everyone's finances are 100% luck, and that generation won the fucking lottery.

It's all about the timing isn't it? Around 2005 I had a friend who fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying a chalet in the French Alps, where he and his wife intended to spend the winter skiing and snowboarding while letting rooms to tourists paid for it all, and the quiet summer season kicking back and living a blissfully stress-free existence off the profits. They lasted two years. The first winter was unusually warm which meant demand wasn't as high as they'd dreamed, and it became clear that they'd just missed the point where investing in a ski chalet would have been easy money. The second year was apparently better, but my friend "didn't anticipate how much I'd hate having to serve guests".

Some other friends of mine used to go on an annual snowboarding holiday to Bulgaria where a mate of theirs had bought a chalet. This would also have been around 2005, when Bulgaria was something of a best kept secret among winter sports enthusiasts, not a place people immediately associated with snow and mountains and therefore a place where you could get a real bargain of a holiday- and lots of dirt-cheap property which Brits were busy snapping up. Of course now everyone has cottoned on this is no longer the case. Good luck getting yourself a nice cheap Bulgarian chalet and living a comfortable life off the profits now.

I had a work colleague who was born and grew up in the Algarve because her Mancunian parents were running a restaurant there by the time she was born. Despite spending almost her entire life by the sea in southern Portugal she had a broad Manc accent with no trace of Portuguese and she didn't like seafood at all. Her family seemed comfortably well-off- again, getting in at the right time- but a life running an English caff for British expats sounds ghastly to me.

[Icehaven]

Aren't there some dodgy property laws in Spain that can mean you can be forced to demolish a house or building project if it's decided the land is disputed or something? I'm sure I've seen a few property programmes where they've warned about it. Would explain why some places are so cheap.

[Shit Good Nose]

Aren't there some dodgy property laws in Spain that can mean you can be forced to demolish a house or building project if it's decided the land is disputed or something? I'm sure I've seen a few property programmes where they've warned about it. Would explain why some places are so cheap.

Yes.  IIRC that's why incomers are recommended to only buy an apartment/flat in a long established complex (Mrs Nose watches those new life abroad shows on 4 and 5 and whenever they're in Spain houses and new builds are hardly ever the options on show).

And in certain parts of France it can take literally years to get basic utilities and services connected to a building that already exists because of their insane planning laws (from memory decisions have to be okayed by all of: local councillors equivalent, the local town/city planners, the planners for the region AND some national body as well, and if just one of those has a slight objection you go right back to the drawing board).  It took my aunt (who lived near Nice at the time) 7 years to get running water and power connected  to an outside shitter because one of the local marshals/sheriffs/whatever they were called didn't want to close the road for a few hours so they could dig up the road and make the mains connections.  Now, that was about 20 years ago, and I thought things would have changed, but I saw a program on TV a few years ago about a young couple who quit their UK big city grind to run a hotel somewhere over there (can't remember exactly where) and they faced very similar issues when they wanted to upgrade/update the existing supplies and services.

I'm told there's also still massive amounts of corruption in the planning world over there (to the point where it makes UK business planning corruption look like an above board corporate meeting), and if they don't like you (particularly if you're a forrun, particularly if you're a Brit or North African) they do everything they can to make you slope off back home.

[peanutbutter]

apparently I've almost enough money to buy an okayish flat in Barcelona at the moment outright, between my deposit and a mortgage I'd struggle to get close to as good in London

[mothman]

And in certain parts of France it can take literally years to get basic utilities and services connected to a building that already exists because of their insane planning laws (from memory decisions have to be okayed by all of: local councillors equivalent, the local town/city planners, the planners for the region AND some national body as well, and if just one of those has a slight objection you go right back to the drawing board).  It took my aunt (who lived near Nice at the time) 7 years to get running water and power connected  to an outside shitter because one of the local marshals/sheriffs/whatever they were called didn't want to close the road for a few hours so they could dig up the road and make the mains connections.  Now, that was about 20 years ago, and I thought things would have changed, but I saw a program on TV a few years ago about a young couple who quit their UK big city grind to run a hotel somewhere over there (can't remember exactly where) and they faced very similar issues when they wanted to upgrade/update the existing supplies and services.

I'm told there's also still massive amounts of corruption in the planning world over there, and if they don't like you (particularly if you're a forrun, particularly if you're a Brit or North African) they do everything they can to make you slope off back home.

We nearly bought a large house in France to do up in 2002. Ultimately the proposition scared me off, it was just too much. Suspect we'd have had much the same experience.

[chveik]

tbh british expats buying second houses in france is something that pisses me off a lot, the locals like yours truly have enough difficulty finding decent housing

[Jasha]

I'd hazard that it's not 'just' cash-in-hand.

The specific kind of 'working class' person you might be imagining might well have been a skilled tradesperson, who was able to charge a lot for their labour. Probably started their own company. The village (in Kent) where I live is full of people with better houses and cars and holidays than I could afford, in spite of them not having the benefit of a university degree. They probably work harder and are more ambitious than I am, as well.

Some of them probably do evade tax too, to be fair...

Yeah but their knees are fucked and their backs are fucked and their hearing is fucked too

[derek stitt]

Need to know how many of those I knew that fucked off to Spain and France  in their forties twenty odd years ago are back in Britain now. Am aware of a few divorces because of the move out to sunnier climes, being in each others company all the time I think. Others come back because of age related stuff or missing grandkids etc. The cunt in me wants to find out how bitter they are or how much like Uncle Albert 'when I was in Spain' they are now.