# Greetings. UK family moving to Dubai



## leeski09 (Jun 27, 2012)

Greetings all,

Myself, G/F (will be getting married), and 7yr girl are looking to move to Dubai in June / July with her job transfer. I\We will no doubt ask some questions already asked prior, but I have to say that I am away working offshore and the internt is almost non-existent! So any repeated request will be merely so someone with forum know-how / good memory can point me straight to something to save me an age of waiting for pages to load up.

Anyhow, looking forward to it. She has a new position with the same company but the Dubai office. I will remain in my offshore job unless I find something around Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah etc. I am a QA/QC Inspector in the oil & gas industry dealing with pipelines, installations and fabrications. Any help here would be good as I'm sure theres a few of me aorund here!

Any good up to date advice of residential areas, tax, driving, schools (a big deal for us), will help massively. We may be coming over for a look next month and i have filed for a few jobs already. Fingers crossed.

Cheers for now.


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## saraswat (Apr 28, 2012)

Residential Areas/Renting in Dubai: http://www.expatforum.com/expats/du...4-ultimate-guide-renting-apartment-dubai.html

Tax issues for UK nationals: http://www.expatforum.com/expats/dubai-expat-forum-expats-living-dubai/142469-uk-tax-question.html

Driving / License issues: 

http://www.expatforum.com/expats/du...iving-dubai/82210-cars-driving-questions.html
http://www.expatforum.com/expats/du...riving-license.html?highlight=driving+license
http://www.expatforum.com/expats/du...-licence-dubai.html?highlight=driving+license

Schools: http://www.expatforum.com/expats/dubai-expat-forum-expats-living-dubai/42945-schools-dubai.html

Hope that helps.. good luck..


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## leeski09 (Jun 27, 2012)

Thank you.... some good info there, much of what I have seen and some new stuff.

Tell, me.. I read that women cant sponsor there spouse or only for certain vocations. Would a senior manager earning good money be able to?

Unless I find a job in UAE (which is tricky because i work offshore mostly and pick and choose my contracts as and when depending on what the vessel(s) are doing), or indeed i may take onshore work somewhere, do i face living month to month on a visitors visa forever? What the best way around this.... how long would i need to work for a UAE company before I got my residency. And if i left that company to work for an overseas company, would i lose my status?

Thanks.


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## saraswat (Apr 28, 2012)

leeski09 said:


> Tell, me.. I read that women cant sponsor there spouse or only for certain vocations. Would a senior manager earning good money be able to?


This should help: Conditions for sponsoring husband and sons | GulfNews.com

The best way to go about getting around the visit visa would be to get sponsored by your wife, but as the link mentions above she would need to get permission for that if not a Doctor/Engineer/Teacher. From what I understand, if the job is senior enough and wage high enough, this is just a formality. 

In regards to your question about how long it takes to get residency, you misunderstand the process. For you to be able to work for a UAE employer, a work visa is required, this will be applied for by your employer, upon getting the work-visa you are deemed a resident, there isn't a specific period of time that you need to complete before getting residency. When leaving that job, your employment visa will be cancelled, at which time you either continue on a visit visa or you look for another job which sponsors you etc...

There isn't any way to get permanent residency in the UAE, you can however invest in real-estate (not recommended for a multitude of reasons) or in business, whereby you would be eligible for an 'investor' visa, this is still a visa and needs to be renewed every so often... the renewals are simple enough and mostly just formalities for those who invest, one of the main reasons people mistake this option to mean permanent resident....


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## Elphaba (Jan 24, 2008)

Gulf News tends to be so badly written it's not as helpful as it might be!

There is up to date info on a woman sponsoring her husband here:

Keep your UAE bank in the loop, especially if you have a loan - The National


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