I think one of the most important things
is to completely research the
destination that you're intending to go
to go online look at forums look at the
online newspapers talk to people that
are already out there join in the forums
and ask the questions that you want to
know it's really important to research
the health care system of the country
that you're actually in a great place is
NHS UK forward slash health care abroad
and then you move and click on country
guides often health care systems vary
enormously in their sort of capability
their skills the ease of access the same
procedure will vary in terms of its cost
that's charged to you by a factor of 10
or even 20 fold as you move from one
country to another so it's vital that
you actually think about taking out some
form of health care insurance to cover
these costs whilst you're abroad
expatriate organisations can be a great
help telling you more about the country
you're buying in and what the pitfalls
might be when one of overseas first went
alive in 2006 we were receiving about a
million searches a month for overseas
property that's increased to three and a
half million in 2012 and now we're
predicting that we're gonna get about
five million searches this month yeah
for most people it is a positive
experience by an overseas we get
positive feedback from people who have
made to move abroad through our Facebook
pages and actually directly through to
our website as well it's a better
quality of life the weather food the
transaction process is a lot easier
because there is a lot more specialized
help online we work with hundreds of
estate agents around the world and there
that's probably the real heroes in terms
of helping people make their dream
become a reality probably if I was to go
down this road again and and buy a
property out here
what I do is try and get nearer to a
town you know that has a little bar a
little restaurant or lingerie the bakers
I looked at the weather maps
infrastructure everything I've got a big
supermarket ten minutes away and I've
got a selection of four or five large
supermarkets 20 minutes away a mile and
a half from the nearest village there's
local Baker's there this local bars
there
and it's there's a very large community
are far more frenzied than I've had in
the UK we would always advise that
someone starts looking some 18 to 24
months beforehand so you should be
visiting websites you should be reading
magazines and also visiting exhibitions
where you can pick up a lot of
information which is free up to date and
you can gauge for yourselves whether
you're on the right track we have a lot
of expats that come out buy a nice
property
they haven't had lots of land at home
they've had a small courtyard garden or
maybe lived in a city or flats and they
love the dream that they're going to
have a small holding with their chickens
etc but they don't realize that a being
isolated can be very lonely particularly
in a foreign country where you've got no
community whatsoever and also the amount
of time it actually takes to look after
at a large amounts of land and you can't
just leave it local authority could
possibly take the land off you if it had
just been left there are beautiful lakes
to visit for free beautiful forests to
walk in for free and you don't have to
upkeep them even a house with like two
or three fields it still has to be
maintained taxes you have to pay you've
got the utilities you have to pay and
you can't came as a bit of a surprise to
us about the additional running costs of
a second house in in a foreign country I
really would recommend that you think
carefully about the size of the
investment that you make it's meant to
be and it is a very enjoyable great
experience owning a second home where
you can go on holiday with yourself your
family for many years to come that
enjoyment is tempered hugely if you
start worrying about the money that you
have to put into it year after year it's
fair to say that when people buy
properties abroad they get caught in the
enthusiasm of the process and they they
seem to forget the basic rules which are
that you've got to check out who's
selling it to you where the property is
whether the property exists many of my
clients have quite often left their
common sense at the airport and they
pick it up with her luggage when they
come back from their tour
Brod and then I get the telephone call
saying mr. Luke Otello
we've signed up a contract we've paid
over money we've handed over money on a
credit card my wife and I have decided
that we no longer want to buy the
property abroad can you please help us
the other thing to consider obviously is
if you're transferring money from the UK
used to shop around on exchange rates
currency brokers are the best the banks
with one man's currency brokers those
are your two options really aren't the
banks or currency brokers I normally
have two or three currency dealers the
iPhone and I play them off against each
other to see you is gonna give me the
best rate which is best to do each time
we also want people to think about what
happens if the exchange rate changes and
that might affect how financially viable
your life abroad is so what we really
encourage is for people to think about
what if scenarios and make sure they
have a back-up plan for those different
situations it's most important that you
take out a mortgage which first of all
you can pay the currency should always
be the same currency that you earn your
salary in there have been many many
problems with people taking out
mortgages in a different currency for
example in Cyprus there is now a spate
of mortgages which were in Swiss francs
and the people who took out the
mortgages they were earning in pounds in
England and that has caused them
substantial problems because of the
Swiss franc having been devalued people
are now having to repay two if not three
times as much as they originally thought
they were borrowing and they're finding
that their properties are being
repossessed by the mortgages the banks
in Cyprus before you leave the UK you
should be looking at the organizations
that offer financial advice and being
able then to make informed decisions
about what to do with your money make
sure that you research before you go
overseas it's how much money you can
live on you must look at the tax
situation before you enter into any
contract because every country is
slightly different taxation wise as a
rule of thumb there will always be an
annual tax on land and the property
there will always be capital gains tax
when you sell a property if you buy a
property and your sole intention is to
rent that property out and to derive a
rental income then of course you will be
paying in
in tax however it is called in that
particular country that you rent the
property out in
first of all I'd say that you need to
decide if it's meant to be for pure
investment or if you want to use it
yourself and have an investment if it's
gonna be a pure investment you made your
decision on the marketing stats you look
at where's popular where maybe hasn't
got as many properties for letters the
market would like at the moment if you
want to use it yourself as well then
obviously you should pick some weather
that you love and that you know so I'd
say the location is very important
people tend to search for the location
first and then they pick a property
rather than looking at a blanket set of
properties and then picking which one
appeals to them most however the most
important thing you can then do is to
have some great photos particularly your
first photo so that first photo imagine
where you're going to take it when
you're going around the property and you
looking at them think about the shot
that's going to sell your property to
the holiday maybe on average about
30,000 Brits lose their passport or have
it stolen while they're abroad every
year if that happens the Foreign Office
can issue a emergency travel document
which we can get you home but it's not
the same as a real passport it just does
what you need in that emergency right
you're there you've bought the sun is
shining you poured your first glass of
wine well done but what happens is today
if something goes wrong in your house
one of the main things to do is to find
out who you would call in an emergency
and have some phrases in the local
language handy by the phone that if you
need to phone somebody in they don't
speak English you can get yourself
understood we would always suggest that
you take note of local laws there are
some countries that require you to
register with the local authorities for
example in Spain if you've been there
for more than three months you have to
register you need to remember that in
some cases by registering it will
entitle you to some benefits across the
system
it's worth thinking about some
contingency plans like what would happen
if you became ill had at lack of funds
or lost your mobility one of the most
important things is health insurance and
what happens when things go wrong once
you move outside the EU in the EEA
you'll find that there are not always
reciprocal health agreements you may
have to come up with private health care
so what you need to do is research find
out what health care and options are
available for you and if there aren't
any then you need to prepare that before
you go once you are bound to buy a
property abroad you must ensure that
property whether you have a mortgage on
it or whether you don't have a mortgage
on it so that it safeguards that any
sort of peril is fundamental and make
sure that the value that you insure your
property for and the content is enough
we really recommend that you seek the
advice of an independent lawyer not one
necessarily associated with the property
developer that you might want to buy
with to make sure you have good
independent advice it is very important
that you get the right chronology and
the purchaser gets the right chronology
done there is no point in handing money
over to an agent sign your contract
before you've had some form of legal
advice so when people say to buyers oh
no you don't need to know about that it
is the total contrary you must be able
to understand what's happening and we
will guide you through that maze of
technicalities so that the end of the
day it is a simple process because you
are being held by someone who can assist
you after six months abroad in the EU
you lose your entitlement free NHS
health care and in fact you could be
charged for NHS health care that you
access even after returning to the UK at
that time but it's also important to
realize that often the treatment that's
best for you can't be accessed in that
country and you may need to actually
travel to another country to access any
specialist treatment such as major heart
surgery you should consider purchasing
some form of healthcare cover for life
abroad but it's also important to
realize that often the treatment that's
best
can't be accessed in that country
knowing before you go will be a real
help in making your trip a success
international private medical insurance
probably is the top range product in
terms of the flexibility it gives you to
be treated in any country of your choice
by any specialist of your choice many
expats who are globally mobile and
moving from one country to another want
that ease of access and also want the
peace of mind that they can return home
for treatment if they develop a sick a
serious condition
most international private medical
insurance plans will be able to give you
cover for chronic disease which is a
vital consideration it's really
important to be able to integrate well
and one of the main ways of doing that
is being able to speak the language take
some time before your trip and try and
learn as much as you can about not just
the language but the culture of the
country that you're going to live in
both of those will help you integrate
with the locals much quicker and
actually it really is a lot of fun you
get that invited to things that perhaps
you would never have known about by just
being able to speak a few words of the
local language I think people really
underestimate how difficult it is to
learn another language now I think some
people are either really gifted and
talented and they can pick it up very
quickly but I would say that most people
that buy a broad array later in life
where it is much much harder to learn
another language and they do think that
they're going to arrive and they're
going to be speaking whatever language
that is within six months and it really
doesn't happen like that
you know unless you work physically at
school for eight hours a day it's gonna
take a long time due to this is you
don't have a go if you make mistakes it
doesn't matter
everybody will help you if you're trying
the fact that you're actually trying
will get you integrated into the
community and it's absolutely impossible
to get integrated into the community if
you don't speak any of the language at
all
it's worth thinking about renting in the
area you might want to buy in it gives
you a sense of the lifestyle you'll lead
there and what the local area is like
before you buy go overseas the
destination that you're thinking of
living in and rent so I'd always
recommend that people go and have a look
between October and say March probably
the best times to see a property in it's
worse condition but don't buy first go
out and try and then see what happens
there is always something we can do
whether it's a damage limitation
exercise or whether it's an actual
full-blown case against the developer or
in some cases more and more so now
against the agent who's selling the
property yes the cases in which we
cannot help are probably some five to
six percent only there are lots of
different things we do to help Brits in
trouble abroad we can issue emergency
travel documents to get people home we
can provide various kinds of help if
you've been the victim of a crime if
you're in prison or possibly in hospital
and we can also provide a range of
documentary services to help you live
your life abroad thinking about things
like notarial work and birth and death
registrations what we can't do is
provide legal advice because we're not
lawyers and we also can't translate
documents and do those kind of things
for you we also in the case of property
can't resolve individual disputes so
there we sometimes can give you advice
on where to find legal support one of
the things we definitely can't do is and
I'll give you an example I took a call a
few weeks ago in in Malaga from a lady
who called us from a hairdressers who
said can you explain to the girl that I
don't want as much off as last time
the the same English motor that applies
when buying property in England applies
when buying property abroad caveat
emptor
caveat emptor is a latin phrase for
buyer beware and remember that if you
sign a document you will be legally
bound to fulfill the requirements in
that contract if you pay money over you
may not get it back unless you've had
the proper due diligence so caveat
emptor and due diligence
you shouldn't go far wrong