Talk Quesada forum

Hi Guys,

My wife and I own our apartment outright in Quesada and we use it as a family holiday home. However, when we retire, we intend to sell up in England and retire to Quesada. But more and more we are wondering about moving there earlier and actually working till we reach retiring age. We come out for a holiday about 4 or 5 times a year and each time we have to leave it get harder to do so lol!

I am a plasterer/tiler by trade but also studied architectural technology at university, got my degree, and now work as an architectural technician in an architectural practice and do odd building jobs to keep my hand in so to speak. My wife is a nurse and is very good at her job.

We were wondering how realistic it would be for us to rent out our house in England and move to Quesada full time and try and get some work to sustain us.

We still have 12-15 years before we both retire and would be happy to take on less demanding jobs. There is no way we will ever get what we earn in the UK because we do both have very good salaries, but our quality of life is pretty poor. It is work work work, all the time, with very little time together.

So, although we are both professional's we would prefer to have jobs where we could spend more quality time together than earn great salaries. If we do this, it will be 2018 before we did this, as we are putting a conservatory onto our own house here and upgrading it for potential rental market. Any money made from rental of our house in England will be used to pay our existing mortgage in UK. So we have time to develop a long term plan. But we have to start somewhere and this forum seems the perfect place.

Is this a pipedream or is there work out there? I consider myself a good honest tradesman. I don't think I would get a job as an architectural technician, but would hope to get some plastering/ceramic tiling jobs.



Any thoughts/opinions would be welcome and appreciated!

Andy

Hi AndyBDM, it all depends on what you are expecting when you come out to Spain, I've had friends who thought likewise, but soon found that they could not live on what they earned and soon returned to the UK. A good tradesman is always in demand in Spain, and it would depend on whether you want to go self employed, in which case you would have to register with the Spanish authorities, or try to earn a living cash in hand. There are certain firms in Spain that would relish employing a properly registered tradesman, but at the end of the day you really need to do a bit of homework and find out what is the best deal for you.

Big decision. If you rent out your house and move here I suggest you use Martin and co as agents. There's lots of paperwork to comply with legislation + inventory, repairs and worst case no rent paid. Expect to pay 9% initially, they'll probably get 9% more than you would anyway. Leave them a list of your preferred tradesmen for each job.
As for work here, notta clue. Would your wife do home care and €/day?

Manxmunk,

Thanks for the advice. I have never had any problems getting work in the UK as my work is to a high standard ( so I have been told many times!) and is alsobacked up by my technical knowledge and UK regulations through my work as an architectural technician. I appreciate the rules and regulations are different in Spain, but my level of professionalism has always stood me in good stead so I know there is no issue with the quality of my work. I would ideally prefer to work in an architectural practice, but I am sure the language barrier would be an issue. This is the start of my research and I hope to spend the next 12 months researching just how feasible this is and this also gives me time to learn the language.

Simp,

Thanks for replying to my query. I have some experience in the rental market and would consider Martin & Co. alongside other letting agents. I don't think there will be any great difficulty letting out our home, but you are right, it is important to get the paperwork up to scratch and ideally, a good tennant! I think my main focus will be on what our lifestyle would be if we moved over to Quesada. My wife is a qualified nurse in an Endoscopy ward and has two degrees, but more importantly she is compassionate and cares about people. She has worked in various care homes in England, while studying for her degrees and would be happy to do home care. We plan to spend the next 12 months evaluating the potential move so I will keep this stream posted on any developments.

manxmunk,

When you say there are certain firms that would relish employing a properly registered tradesman, did you have any companies in mind? If so, could you please give me their names and I can start talking to them?

I do a lot of design work on computer nowadays in my role as architectural technician and because of that, I can design flyers and business cards and advertising leaflets to advertise my business as a builder/plasterer/tiler. I also have access to a good printer to print this stuff and I thought it would be a good idea to make some stuff up and just go round the area dropping off adverts and chatting to local businesses to try and generate work.

I am sure that once I have done a dozen or so jobs I will get recommendations based on the quality of my work. I suppose it's like everything else and will depend on the economic situation, particularly Brexit, which may make people decide to put off doing work to their homes for a while to see how things go.

Thanks again for the useful comments

Andy Millar