Living in Spain

Living in Spain

So you have your house in Spain, you're getting the keys and going to be living in spain!

Should you be panicking about anything?
Is there anything you need to do before you move into a house in Spain?
Do you need to register anywhere?

We as a company will guide you all through the process of moving to and living in Spain and by the time you get your keys all the relevant organisations will have been informed so you can just sit back and enjoy your new house. And enjoy it you will.

What is the difference with working in Spain compared to England?

Well. I have a very blunt answer to this when asked. If you were good at your job in England you will almost certainly be successful at it living in Spain, however if you didn’t make a success of it back home, why would you expect to do it in Spain?

I know experienced publicans who shudder at the thought of opening a bar in Spain. They know how hard they worked in England and the bars are open twice as long in Spain. But I know people who have opened bars in Spain and love every moment of it.

I know builders who are booked up for the next 6 months and I know “builders” who have to wait around in bars trying to get a bit of work. The good ones always have work, but there is always someone out there willing to give anyone a chance.

Look at what you want to do and really think about if the ex-pats living in Spain want it.

There are endless opportunities here and if you work hard you should be successful.

A lot of people want to do something different when they get to Spain. That’s ok, but if you stray too far from what you know it may not work. You may think you need a change of employment but maybe the same job but in a different environment could be all the tonic you need.

My Story;

I moved to Spain a few years ago and have not regretted a single thing about doing it.

I was scared that I would loose my friends where as in fact you find out who your real friends are. Your true friends in the UK keep in touch. In fact you can’t help but to make a whole lot more. I was also worried about not seeing so much of my family but in fact what happens is that you see them for a week or so at a time, instead of just for Sunday lunch.

I had been in the pub trade for all my life before I came to Spain and for the last 14 years in England I had a very successful pub in Farnham, Surrey. I decided that the time for a change was needed. So having spent all my holidays on the Costa Blanca as a child growing up here, meeting the people, sampling the culture this was where I wanted to go to. I was very fortunate that I do have some family here; this was a bonus not a necessity. This did give me the advantage of being able to come over and take my time to decide where I wanted to live.

I knew the location would be the Coast Blanca, but did I want coast or inland? In fact I think I already knew that inland would be for me. The peace and tranquillity can’t be beaten, the views are magnificent and the people, Spanish and English are wonderful. And I believe a good profit to be made in time.

I found a lovely house on my second attempt, well the location was lovely and the house was, shall we say, a little basic. It had no water, the power was low, the garden was over grown but it just felt right. I very quickly met some nice people who introduced me to more people. I also very quickly learnt who you could trust and who was helping you for the right reasons. Plenty of people would help because they wanted to and some would help you because that was where they made their money.

Nothing wrong with that as long as you got the right advice; As far as I know I did.

Having found a very good local builder I quickly got my house into shape and I now have a lovely property in a superb location.

The thing I did find with my builder, being a builder on his own you do have to keep an eye on them. They were given plans of how I wanted the house, but whilst they were building it he decided to make his own adjustments to those plans. They do this because they think they are doing you a favour or they think it would be better the way they are doing it. You need to be able to keep an eye on them or have some one close by who would be able to. I have realised that if I was not in the country whilst my house was being re-formed then I would have ended up with a total different house to the one I have now. A very nice house but not the one I wanted.

So I now have my house in a lovely location and I realised I needed a job.

I found out that a building company was coming to the town that I live in and they were going to be building a small urbanisation in between my house and this village. I went to have a look at the standard of the houses that they build and I was very impressed with what I saw. I then contacted the company and the rest they say is history. I did approach my boss about rebuilding his web site so it would be more search engine friendly but he did not feel the money was worth it. So me being me, I suggested that I would do it anyway to prove him wrong. And if you are reading this now then I guess at least one person has found this site.

Well I hope you all have fun looking at this site and I hope it proves helpful but most of all I hope I can convince you to come over and see for yourself how good it is here.

This site has been set up with a very good team in England who come over to Spain every few months to keep up with our developments so feel free to talk to them or of course you are more than welcome to contact me and I will help in any way I can.

Looking forward to seeing you soon

Andrew Baylis