# looking to relocate to costa del sol



## sophieandted (Mar 23, 2008)

hi,
Glad to come across such a great forum as was starting to give up hope on finding out some information about living and working in the costa del sol.
Me, my husband and two small children are seriously looking at leaving the uk for a better quality of life.

At present we have a success plumbing/heating/air con and solar panel business in the uk, but my husband would just like to work for a business in costa del sol as a corgi registered engineer rather than the stress of starting another company up at this stage. 

Every business plumbing/heating business i have contacted in costa del sol said that the work situation is dead at the moment which we find strange.

Are we likely to struggle to find work? Can anybody give us any advice please?


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

sophieandted said:


> hi,
> Glad to come across such a great forum as was starting to give up hope on finding out some information about living and working in the costa del sol.
> Me, my husband and two small children are seriously looking at leaving the uk for a better quality of life.
> 
> ...


No ...... its not strange

The property market is on the verge here at the moment. Too many villas being built, and not enough buyers. Therefore there are several sites around us where building has just stopped, and a few more sites that had been cleared for building are now just left.

Its going to be a bit of a struggle for ther building industry in Spain over the coming years, hence why jobs in the industry will be tight.

There is of course always the domestic market, but you have a lot of competition there, especially with people who would have normally worked in the construction business becoming involved in domestoc as well


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## chris(madrid) (Mar 23, 2008)

Stravinsky said:


> Its going to be a bit of a struggle for ther building industry in Spain over the coming years, hence why jobs in the industry will be tight.


Tight is I think understating it. I work for a small town hall (temp contract). Where I work 84% of all local labour is construction related. There are massive concerns about supporting local unemployment as the boom is dying fast. 

Prices are dropping (here anyway) - lots of unoccupied properties and the indications are that unoccupied properties will be taking a TAX HIT. Many Spanish have 2 (or 3) properties due to inheritance or simply holiday homes - a fair few friends have already sold a flat as the running costs are soaring and there is no price gain to compensate. 

Also there is masses of cheap and qualified building labour from Eastern Europe. Not to mention Portugal. We had Portuguese guys working here - do they work! - Fast, cheap and good. Many Spaniards don't care one bit about certified labour. Good sparkies are worth their weight in gold as they HAVE to be certified for house insurance!


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## sophieandted (Mar 23, 2008)

*relocating to spain*

hi,
Thank you very much for your fed back. It really sounds like a bad situation at the moment for the building trade. Like yourselves we have more competition in the uk due to all the immigrants working for peanuts. It makes us so angry as we live and breathe our business and pay out so much in taxes etc that we do not have the lifestyle that all the hard work deserves.

The other option is to scale down our uk business and my husband coming back 2 weeks out of 4 to work solidly.

Is there any one else out there who is left in spain with small children like that? if so how is it? i am not sure that i would feel safe or get lonely.

I would really appreciate any fed back.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

sophieandted said:


> The other option is to scale down our uk business and my husband coming back 2 weeks out of 4 to work solidly.
> 
> Is there any one else out there who is left in spain with small children like that? if so how is it? i am not sure that i would feel safe or get lonely.
> 
> I would really appreciate any fed back.


We do that! My husband does two weeks in the UK working and two weeks here. Fortunately we still have our house in the UK which my older daughters live in with their partners and my husband stays there. That leaves me here on my own with my two kids 10yo girl and 13 yo son. So far, I've not been lonely and actually I seem to be rising to the challenge quite well and its making me feel quite strong - although I dont know what will happen when we find a spider in the bath LOL!! 

We miss my husband, but in many ways its better. In the UK we hardly saw him during the week cos he was always working, tired, pre-occupied etc, only spending Sundays together and even then it was rushing around doing "stuff". Now, when he comes back to Spain we get two weeks of total "daddy" time!

So far, so good!!? Its only been 2 months!

Jo


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## sophieandted (Mar 23, 2008)

Hi
That just sounds like our life at the moment. The kids only see there dad really on a sunday and odd moments during the week and even then he is trying to juggle answering phones, replying to emails with doing puzzles etc with the kids.

I would probably be better if they had 2 weeks solid per month with there dads undivided attention. My husband is really concerned that he is going to miss us all to much to keep it up though.

We are going to stay in mijas in a few weeks time to do a bit of research on the areas we like etc in the costa del sol and go from there. 

It is good to here that your experience so far has been positive though.


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