Viewing 40 posts - 81 through 120 (of 1,174 total)
  • Buying and renovating a rural property on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees
  • jambalaya
    Free Member

    8)

    Shades seem appropriate. Love the updates and best of luck

    spekkie
    Free Member

    The ship carrying our container has docked at Barcelona harbour!

    Now we have to supply a few last bits of paperwork to the shipping agent in Spain for Customs and then the container should be checked and released for road delivery to us. We have had to apply at the local Land Registry office for our “we own a property in Spain” certificates (although we are not official residence yet) and on Monday first thing (which is 10am in Spain) we will pick up our official Tax Clearance stickers from the local(ish) Tax Office.

    The Tax Office gives you official stickers (with your Spanish tax number on them) that are then stuck onto your paperwork by the customs officers.

    🙂

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Our container has been checked and cleared by customs

    We’ve paid the final customs fee – for some sort of “scan” (imagine the size of the X-Ray machine that scans 40ft containers!) and for storage over the Easter holidays. The container is due to be delivered to us at our storage unit (4km from our house) next Thursday morning.

    We were worried that we would end up paying some import duties on our belongings but it seems our “proof of residence outside of the EU for the last 12 months” was good enough. Initially Spanish customs wanted a letter from the British Embassy confirming we’d been living abroad but when we phoned them to ask for this letter the Embassy told us they have “no clue where British citizens are around the world” and that they do not supply these letters, that Spain know this and should stop asking! Anyway our docs (utility bills) were enough.

    So, one week and I will have my beloved mountain bike and Mrs Spekkie will have her beloved shoes!

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    jambalaya
    Free Member

    All good news. I am a bit confused as to why you’d have to pay import duty if your goods / personal effects came from inside the EU ?

    spekkie
    Free Member

    No that’s not the problem Jambalaya.

    We had to have been living “outside of the EU” for a minimum of 12 months in order to bring goods from SA to Spain (and therefore into the EU) without paying EU import tax.

    So you for instance, being an EU resident, would not be allowed to bring in a container of goods from outside of the EU tax free. You’d be hit with import tax, like UK residents are if they buy something in the USA and have it posted to the UK. If we’d moved from the UK to Spain we’d have been fine (until the referendum anyway).

    A years worth of utility bills in SA did the trick for us but we weren’t certain it would work because customs were at one point insisting on a letter from the British Embassy.

    joeegg
    Free Member

    Spanish authorities will try any way they can to get import duties from you,even if it breaks EU rules. Try importing a UK registered car into Spain.Spain was breaking EU rules for donkeys years charging import tax until taken to court,so they changed the charge to a pollution tax !
    Spekkie has done it the legal way by getting private health insurance,proof of savings,etc. Very few people do this.
    A lot of ex pats living full time in Spain use the EU health card to get free treatment even though they are not entitled to it.This is why the authorities brought in the rules Spekkie has just adhered to.
    I know a British guy with a business who has 8 Brits working for him.He is the only one paying any Spanish national insurance and minimal income tax.
    The tax authorities never needed to chase up income tax as they were getting plenty of money in from property sales,but thats down the pan now.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Got it

    badnewz
    Free Member

    Good luck with it all, you come across as having the positive personality to make it all work, post pics as and when you have them.

    senorj
    Full Member

    Fair play op.
    I’ve followed this thread from a far , just a little jealous. 🙂
    Best of luck.

    wilburt
    Free Member

    I love and hate this thread-
    As I age want to move permanently to an area I’ve spent many happy holiday but also I’m envious of the OP’s competence at making happen so easily whilst knowing I would be living in a container by now.
    ??

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Cheers guys. Your good wishes do help us along, especially when things get a bit stressy.

    We are, with the help of a Spanish friend, doing everything by-the-book (I hope!) The plan is to end up with a nice home to live in & a business that pays the bills and feeds us. If we can get to that point we’ll be happy and we don’t want there to be any “skeletons in the closets” in the years to come. The area is beautiful, the mountains are stunning, the cycling – both MTB and road, is fantastic and the locals are friendly. We couldn’t ask for any more.

    I will take some progress pics at post them, although my picture posting has only been possible so far with the help of Stoner!

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Photos. More than one way. Photobucket account/app. Upload to there. Click on photo and seelct <I info icon> click on Direct and then paste that into stw popup you get from the IMG button above

    Advertising on here isn’t allowed but if you put your website into your profile 😉

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Cheers Jambalaya 🙂

    I’ll post some updates soon.

    We will sort out official advertising on here when we’re ready to roll, meanwhile people can love / hate our story on this thread 😉

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Container arrives from Barcelona this morning . . .

    doug_basqueMTB.com
    Full Member

    We drove past your house a few times over the last couple of days Spekkie. If you see the BasqueMTB vans give us a wave and we will stop to say hello. We will be here a couple of days a week for the next six weeks or so.

    nickc
    Full Member

    jealous, love this thread, can’t wait to see the updates. Looks an amazing part of the world for biking

    😀

    spekkie
    Free Member

    We drove past your house a few times over the last couple of days Spekkie. If you see the BasqueMTB vans give us a wave and we will stop to say hello. We will be here a couple of days a week for the next six weeks or so.

    Did see you towing a trailer, but we were a little way away.
    Are you still here?

    doug_basqueMTB.com
    Full Member

    We are in some other areas just now but will be back Tuesday! We will be here a couple of days each week until mid May I think.

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Will keep an eye out . . .

    Potdog
    Free Member

    When do you plan to be open spekkie? I’m planning a trip to the Ainsa area in early September.

    poolman
    Free Member

    Good luck in the project. I had a bike touring holiday years ago and stayed in the area, set off in Barcelona and ended up in Pamplona staying in casa rurales and camping.

    I now live in Spain so well done going legal, most expats don’t bother but if something goes wrong and you aren’t legal it costs a fortune.

    Anyway I would love to return to the area so if anyone else is up for some cycle touring post summer get in touch. We did all the small villages alongside the Pyrenees.

    Best of luck my emails in profile if you need any help.

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Potdog – We’ll have a bed for you by September I’m sure (if not we’re going to be broke and in trouble!) and by then I’ll have ridden all the trails so I’ll know my way around 🙂

    Poolman – would be great to see you for some riding sometime and maybe pick your brains by email meanwhile. Cheers for that.

    MTB-Idle
    Free Member

    I don’t have much to add other than well done, I’m following this too. Keep on keeping on…

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Thanks MTB-Idle.

    Potdog
    Free Member

    That’s great news spekkie. Please drop me a line, my email is in my profile and I’ll arrange some dates with you nearer the time. Will be around the 12th / 13th September for 2 or 3 nights before I catch my ferry from Huelva back to Tenerife.

    Good luck with the build in the meantime!

    pistonbroke
    Free Member

    Hi, your story somewhat mirrors ours, we moved to Southern Cataluña last September. Mrs PB and I decided to make the leap before we were too old to do athletic stuff like multi-day mountain bike trips(me) and triathlons (her). We bought a 200 year old finca with 8 acres of almond and olive trees. We joined the local bike club and trail running group, the local people have been really friendly and helpful and despite not speaking much Catalan, we get along brilliantly. Take the last 3 weekends as an example, Easter I did a 3 day bike packing trip, 200km around the El Port mountain range, Details here, following Sunday, a 40km race around the local mountains which we both did and yesterday a middle distance triathlon, wife did the full race and I was talked into doing the bike leg in a team. She finished 2nd female and our team finished 3rd. Not bad for a couple in our mid 50’s.
    The people we bought from happen to be British and still live locally, they are amazed that we have already made so many Spanish friends, they have been here 20 years and seem to exclusively associate with ex pats. We are determined to not go down this road, our biggest challenge is that we are learning Castillian Spanish where most people speak Catalan. I’m assuming being in Aragon, this isn’t so much of an issue for you.
    I too have made a big effort to get to know the local trails to enable us to show people around when they visit. It’s a dirty job etc. Not sure if we will make this a business opportunity, we have a self contained flat attached to the house which sleeps 4.
    Good luck with your adventure, Ainsa is getting a good rep with the Zona Zero trails, that and the magnificent Ordesa canyon should mean you don’t get bored anytime soon.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Nice

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Hi, your story somewhat mirrors ours, we moved to Southern Cataluña last September . . . .

    The people we bought from happen to be British and still live locally, they are amazed that we have already made so many Spanish friends, they have been here 20 years and seem to exclusively associate with ex pats. We are determined to not go down this road, our biggest challenge is that we are learning Castillian Spanish where most people speak Catalan. I’m assuming being in Aragon, this isn’t so much of an issue for you.

    Ainsa is getting a good rep with the Zona Zero trails, that and the magnificent Ordesa canyon should mean you don’t get bored anytime soon.

    We vowed to “try and fit in” with the locals and we got a fair bit of negativity from people regarding this who said the locals would not accept us, but so far all the locals we’ve met have been fantastic.

    Zona Zero is awesome. Trail discovery starts tomorrow afternoon . . . 🙂

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Our stuff arrived on Thursday. Most of it went into storage until the house is ready but some things came back to the apartment with us.

    Lot’s of help from the locals and our framer neighbour and his tractor – the last bit of lane was too narrow for the truck . . .






    The Farmer supplied lunch and a shot of wine midday 🙂

    spekkie
    Free Member

    No idea why the images show as broken links – I did a Get Link from my Google Photos.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    photo embed SOS 😉

    When I’ve lived abroad (US and Singapore) have always tried to avoid ex-pat only existance. Its tough but IME it really helps if you have a hobby/activity and you join a local club as you’ve done.

    Post the raw link – lets have a look (as I said I can’t link from Flikr anymore)

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Maybe Stoner can fix this for me . . . .

    (Looking at “view page source” didn’t clear matters up but there are some funny comments by the page designers hidden in there 🙂 )

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    Edukator
    Free Member

    our biggest challenge is that we are learning Castillian Spanish where most people speak Catalan

    The Catalan population was diluted by Franco. We found lots of friendly Spanish lived in the region (and a few friendly Catalans happy to speak Spanish). There were a few miserable ****s too. Our boss for example who later did three years in jail.

    And for Spekkie, we’ve found the people in NW Spain great, even the ones who don’t like the rest of the Spanish.

    The Ordesa Canyon had zealous guards.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @spekkie same reason I cannot get Flickr to work – those are “page links” not references to specific JPG or PNG file references. Also I’ve found if path uses https that needs to be edited to http. It may be possible to use that Google site to host/link but I’m not sure

    I uploaded one to my photobucket – this is the sort of link you need (imo) ending in JPG

    http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w375/agbird8/EE098FDF-9D14-4D36-A32A-0D681A913E25_zpsvng5q2lg.jpg

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Cheers Jambalaya – I’ll have a proper look when I get home.

    I used google photos because I was worried about getting the silly “frog pic (or worse)” if I linked to somewhere I wasn’t supposed to! Lol minefield!

    spekkie
    Free Member

    Yesterday we took an hours drive to the Historic town of Alquezar we’d been told was worth visiting. It certainly was beautiful.

    spekkie
    Free Member

    We’ve had three builders look at the plans and the property now and we’re waiting for quotes. We’ve applied for planning permission and we’re waiting for that to come back now.

    Lots of waiting going on, but lots of Trails around Ainsa to explore, so not all bad 🙂

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Spanish builders, perhaps the honeymoon is about to be over 😉

    pistonbroke
    Free Member

    Ditto Spanish bureaucracy, it has taken 6 months for our local ajuntament to stamp our house deeds and return them to the solicitor so our retention money can be released to us. It was “only” €800 but the wheels move very slowly. We have been told that if we want to make alterations requiring plans to be authorised, the official architect works in our area 1 morning a fortnight ! Never mind, the sun’s shining and the trails are in great nick after the bit of rain end of last week has dampened the loose marbles.
    You might be interested in This in a couple of months, I entered a couple of weeks ago.
    Salut.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    good luck with the builders. If ever I were to get the chance to do as you, fortunately Im comfortable enough in my own building capabilities to crack on myself. But still organising subbies to do sparks, or groundworks would be a nightmare!

    Re pictures,

    google photos is a pain for embedding in threads because the Image adress is too long for STW.

    eg:
    https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/HapLSdpp1ku41vOVY60ZvqdGEPkjByrUsmUoxU72sLIHsV7n0JlsROS_-JBypkwDAfFxV5iZ-MnqdYukNnxGQC-zwR_DHm0zGxLLaoI0j5tPboXulQgTOEdCLKOS9Sn5q32iXUxuFa-FmCYCdElzUnrWI6D9sWBQFQl-v8w4mJIlpFTYWXzlaiWRU5PNABZ3QlOvN9Dt2lO1i29NSkrQYTM1hjdZgCpjrR5iMfrU-p2rKvkBttAMkyNID0OFQqbzjpRLtgxShgXgSa4-twEVzmmdlpbE4vUZHM3mhMWpQZhLFgFOeBOB9DkOh058RynLshH5L6U49RtW6aj-IKB63qgaNfhq-PZNdUxngwhIiC65k7SUhaZFBd5R3xMGJ45u-zJbSrfGdYvMXZ8m1DtXJMHDzpgu-mhXaS9E15MAlQrlKpxuC5_E8wBZNCMMoT-ci4F3xABVim1Lky24L3L4SKvJMlc5K6XdhnGQkpjN9AhT_tJONqzu5r6gpHQwkP7OvgUX35gk4nAncKH3twlsvpIgbpCPiu3lkVLTCWq5gfHB0rR9FYWYbWCf6h5d_tzUiWbw=w1680-h945-no

    however, if you go to https://picasaweb.google.com/ instead, you should be able to see your photo folders through the old picasa portal. in the Right hand dialogue box of the photo screen you will find “link to this photo”

    check “Image only”, select “Medium-640” from the Select Size drop down, and then copy the text in the Embed img window.

    the Alternative is to paste the long url from the img address in Photos into a url shortener like: https://goo.gl/

    and then use that :https://goo.gl/2fooI2

Viewing 40 posts - 81 through 120 (of 1,174 total)

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