# Move to spain



## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

Im coming over to look at property this summer having had the worst weather in Cornwall that I can remember. I am a dementia nurse also and would like to do some care work if possible. My questions from a new and niaeve member are 1)Is it easy to get work?
2)Not looking for the bright lights but a more sedated village setting. Can anyone with their own experience give me areas I should be looking at. I thought between the sierra nevadas and the coast? Any ides?


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

lynnba said:


> Im coming over to look at property this summer having had the worst weather in Cornwall that I can remember. I am a dementia nurse also and would like to do some care work if possible. My questions from a new and niaeve member are 1)Is it easy to get work?
> 2)Not looking for the bright lights but a more sedated village setting. Can anyone with their own experience give me areas I should be looking at. I thought between the sierra nevadas and the coast? Any ides?


Perhaps the first thing to point out is that basing yourself in a small village would be making the possibility of finding any kind of work even more remote than it would be in a more highly populated area.

If you don't already speak very good Spanish, the only places that care work might be available would be with an agency serving the English speaking expat population, and obviously they are only going to be found in the areas where there is a large number of elderly foreign residents, primarily around the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca.


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## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

Lynn R said:


> Perhaps the first thing to point out is that basing yourself in a small village would be making the possibility of finding any kind of work even more remote than it would be in a more highly populated area.
> 
> If you don't already speak very good Spanish, the only places that care work might be available would be with an agency serving the English speaking expat population, and obviously they are only going to be found in the areas where there is a large number of elderly foreign residents, primarily around the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca.


Hi thanks
Im happy to travel, speak ok spanish and there are a couple of english serving agencies that are interested in me.Just wanted to know really whats what. Thank you for your help,kind regards


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

lynnba said:


> Hi thanks
> Im happy to travel, speak ok spanish and there are a couple of english serving agencies that are interested in me.Just wanted to know really whats what. Thank you for your help,kind regards


As you are Spanish speaking and have skills that employers want, you seem to be better placed than many people of working age who enquire about making the move to live in Spain.

I've always thought that there should be a market for support services for elderly expats, especially dementia care, given that such facilities are scarce and difficult to access in Spain, but I've no personal experience of how easy it is to find work.

As far as housing is concerned, it surely must be a good time to find a bargain, but the general wisdom seems to be that if you have a property in the UK, it is wiser to hang on to it and rent it out, in a rising market, and use the income to rent a property in Spain as rents along with property prices have fallen so much in recent years. At the very least, probably a good idea at first rather than tying yourself into a property and finding out later that either the property, the area or the work situation doesn't really work for you - if you're renting, you can easily move on and try somewhere else.

Living a short distance inland from the coast works for me - means you don't suffer the extremes of hot and cold weather that places further inland experience, nor the very busy peak tourist season in the coastal areas (and the higher prices associated with them), but you're close enough to access all the facilities of those areas when you want to.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

I would most definitely not sell any UK property as no job in Spain can be said to be 100% permanent in these times of high unemployment.
There are to be sure many elderly immigrants along the Costas so,I would have thought there could be some demand.
But moving because of the weather...the sun doesn't always shine in Spain. It can be very cold and wet in winter..it even snows.


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## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

Lynn R said:


> As you are Spanish speaking and have skills that employers want, you seem to be better placed than many people of working age who enquire about making the move to live in Spain.
> 
> I've always thought that there should be a market for support services for elderly expats, especially dementia care, given that such facilities are scarce and difficult to access in Spain, but I've no personal experience of how easy it is to find work.
> 
> ...


I agree with you, looking forward to the challenge anyway, life is too short not to try, hope to catch up sometime
lynnx


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Care work is very "bitty" in Spain. I did it for a while - 5€ an hour. Shifts were 8am - 8pm with a 2 hour break in the middle. The agency could only offer me bits and pieces (some months, nothing at all, other months, 2-3 shifts) and proper full or part time contracts were like "hens teeth" I'd been a band 6 nurse prior to arriving in Spain. I also did a few shifts, looking after the care needs of patients in hospital, as the nurses in Spain only tend to do medical assistance.

Before you go and buy something, its better to visit and then rent - Our first rented house was our dream house - from our armchair in the UK. It was perfect when we first arrived and we loved it. After a few weeks, we realised that we needed different things for reality and ended up moving - thankfully we didnt buy, we only rented

Jo xxx


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## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

jojo said:


> Care work is very "bitty" in Spain. I did it for a while - 5€ an hour. Shifts were 8am - 8pm with a 2 hour break in the middle. The agency could only offer me bits and pieces (some months, nothing at all, other months, 2-3 shifts) and proper full or part time contracts were like "hens teeth" I'd been a band 6 nurse prior to arriving in Spain. I also did a few shifts, looking after the care needs of patients in hospital, as the nurses in Spain only tend to do medical assistance.
> 
> Before you go and buy something, its better to visit and then rent - Our first rented house was our dream house - from our armchair in the UK. It was perfect when we first arrived and we loved it. After a few weeks, we realised that we needed different things for reality and ended up moving - thankfully we didnt buy, we only rented
> 
> Jo xxx


I guess thats what worries me, and renting sounds a good idea I could rent my house for 6 or 7 hundred month first off. Im a qualified dementia nurse so know there will be ex pats that need that care out there .What do you think?


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

lynnba said:


> I guess thats what worries me, and renting sounds a good idea I could rent my house for 6 or 7 hundred month first off. Im a qualified dementia nurse so know there will be ex pats that need that care out there .What do you think?


I think that you will be undervalued. Dementia would be assessed and confirmed by the Spanish national health service - which you wouldnt get into without "jumping thru hoops" to get your qualifications ratified. Private hospitals may be interested if you speak Spanish????? On the private carer side of things, it would be great for an agency to have a "specialist" in that field, but private care agencies pay you to be a carer - and nothing more, altho maybe they will see the benefit of your qualifications, but I suspect not - well not financially.

I was horrified when I first applied for a job with an agency who also ran care homes) at they told me the wages 5€ an hour - they didnt take my qualifications into account at all - eventho I was qualified to do bloods and IVs. They still called the doctor/local nurse for that

That said, I doubt all care/nursing agencies work on the same criteria and maybe some specialise in different issues of the elderly and may welcome you, but I wouldnt hold my breath and as I say, they may not reward you financially??????

Jo xxx


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## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

jojo said:


> I think that you will be undervalued. Dementia would be assessed and confirmed by the Spanish national health service - which you wouldnt get into without "jumping thru hoops" to get your qualifications ratified. Private hospitals may be interested if you speak Spanish????? On the private carer side of things, it would be great for an agency to have a "specialist" in that field, but private care agencies pay you to be a carer - and nothing more, altho maybe they will see the benefit of your qualifications, but I suspect not - well not financially.
> 
> I was horrified when I first applied for a job with an agency who also ran care homes) at they told me the wages 5€ an hour - they didnt take my qualifications into account at all - eventho I was qualified to do bloods and IVs. They still called the doctor/local nurse for that
> 
> ...


Ive been in touch with angels nursing.?????who said they would have work for me??? I expect not to earn what I earn in England im just looking for less full on life style.If you been in nursing you know exactly what It mean


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

lynnba said:


> Ive been in touch with angels nursing.?????who said they would have work for me??? I expect not to earn what I earn in England im just looking for less full on life style.If you been in nursing you know exactly what It mean


Yep!!! I'm now back in the UK and back with the NHS , altho I'm in "Admin Overview" now (one of too many layers of management) and I wouldnt/couldnt do full on nursing now (altho my qualifications arent up to date) - but the pay in the UK does help. I was happy to work for less in Spain for the same reasons as yourself, but in the end, it was the lack of permanent hours and pay packet at the end of the month that made me stop - I then went and worked in a friends bar - til he went bust and eventually ended up selling time share over the phone. Fortunately, my husband commuted to the UK so he earnt the money.

Working in a hospital as a carer is possibly more fruitful - so you need to be fairly close to one. As I say, Spanish nurses just nurse, the patients families are expected to do shaving, toileting, washing, dressing, making beds, feeding....... and there are expats (and Spanish?) in Spain who have no one who can



Jo xxx


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

If you could achieve a rental income of £600+ for your UK property, then given the current rental costs in Spain you would probably have enough left over to pay your utility bills here too.

If care work in Spain isn't sufficiently well paid or plentiful, another option might be to sign on with one of the UK based care agencies which are always advertising for carers based in Spain to undertake live-in assignments in the UK. I know a couple of people here who have done that, and given your qualifications and experience I would think you would be able to get placements at their higher rates of pay. Of course you would have to pay for your own flights, and I believe agency carers are responsible for their own tax and NI contributions too, but you wouldn't have any accommodation costs whilst in the UK and would be saving money on bills whilst away from Spain, too. I think the agency people I know have worked for is called Country Cousins, but there are others too. The higher rates of pay they advertise is around £1,400 per fortnight.


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## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

jojo said:


> I think that you will be undervalued. Dementia would be assessed and confirmed by the Spanish national health service - which you wouldnt get into without "jumping thru hoops" to get your qualifications ratified. Private hospitals may be interested if you speak Spanish????? On the private carer side of things, it would be great for an agency to have a "specialist" in that field, but private care agencies pay you to be a carer - and nothing more, altho maybe they will see the benefit of your qualifications, but I suspect not - well not financially.
> 
> I was horrified when I first applied for a job with an agency who also ran care homes) at they told me the wages 5€ an hour - they didnt take my qualifications into account at all - eventho I was qualified to do bloods and IVs. They still called the doctor/local nurse for that
> 
> ...


Do you know what Jo if I paid as a carer and happy what does it matterxxxx


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## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

lynnba said:


> Hi thanks
> Im happy to travel, speak ok spanish and there are a couple of english serving agencies that are interested in me.Just wanted to know really whats what. Thank you for your help,kind regards


Thank everyone for their input today, cant wait to meet you all. 
Watch this space my friends xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

lynnba said:


> Do you know what Jo if I paid as a carer and happy what does it matterxxxx


Only you can give an answer to that question, really. If you have no dependants you have little to lose.
But what you have to take into account, sadly, is money. It may not buy happiness but it does make life easier.
If you rent your house in the UK you'll be taxed on the income and you may need to pay an agent to look after it. We did that ..for six months then decided to sell. But we weren't looking for work when we left the UK and knew our move was permanent.
Depending on where you settle in Spain, you may find the income from your UK rent may not be sufficient to cover rent and utilities in Spain. It certainly wouldn't round here.
If you get contracted work as Jo says the pay will not be high. You may take home less than €800 a month. Covering any excess on utility bills, phone, internet, fuel, repairs and insurance for the car you will most certainly need, groceries, clothes, money for replacing items....there wouldn't be much left over, if anything.
If you were self- employed, you would have to pay a basic autonomo rate of over €200 regardless of earnings. 
In order to become resident and get your NIE you have to prove an income of around £600 a month and have substantial savings. If you aren't working and contributing you won't be entitled to health care.
I'm telling you this not to pour cold water on your plans but to make sure you realise that moving to Spain isn't just a case of packing up, catching the plane and finding work. Sunshine and leisure don't come free, sadly!
But as you have no dependants and if you plan carefully, for example taking into account currency fluctuations you could rent your UK house short-term and give it a go.


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## lynnba (Feb 22, 2014)

mrypg9 said:


> Only you can give an answer to that question, really. If you have no dependants you have little to lose.
> But what you have to take into account, sadly, is money. It may not buy happiness but it does make life easier.
> If you rent your house in the UK you'll be taxed on the income and you may need to pay an agent to look after it. We did that ..for six months then decided to sell. But we weren't looking for work when we left the UK and knew our move was permanent.
> Depending on where you settle in Spain, you may find the income from your UK rent may not be sufficient to cover rent and utilities in Spain. It certainly wouldn't round here.
> ...


No your right ,to talk things through both good and bad is the best way not to make a mistake.Rose tinted glasses will not work.


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