[Closed] UK citizens in Europe/planning to stay/leave uk?

I need to improve my German and do the test, it is quite hard though, our office environment is English speaking, so I never get to practice enough to really learn it well. I start to learn and then never have need to use it.

I intend to stay but I could really do without this **** fest and the worry it is causing.

My wife is deeply upset over the whole affair. She has spent 20 years here and had up to Brexit considered it her home. Now she is not so sure and despite the fact that obviously she will be able to stay as she is married and crucially for the govt, a highly qualified high earner we are looking at potentially moving.

The final straw may come at any time and certainly if she is forced down the road of applying for anything like citenship or right to remain then that will do it. Her right to remain is 20 years of high taxation, commitment to many of our institutions including volunteer work and a family life.

Both our children are bilingual in her native language and so moving wouldn't be so hard on them.

So I reckon we are 50/50 at the moment.

Living in France. Absolutely zero interest in moving back to the UK.

Been here long enough and speak the language well enough to have a good crack at taking French citizenship, but it's a long process and not guaranteed. I qualify for an Irish passport, so applying for that as a simple solution for the moment.

I have no plans to leave Spain. Mrs. mogrim is Spanish, and with two kids here + over 20 years residency I don't suppose I'd have any problems sorting out citizenship were it necessary. Major case of CBA though, the Spanish do love their paperwork and I can see it being a seriously tedious exercise...

Funnily enough had a conversation with my fork lift driver today who is Lithuanian. Yes it's on the flipside of the op but he's zero intentions of leaving, loves it here and couldnt give a **** about brexit. I hope there are any others like him.

Learning Swedish and planning to leave the UK.

Not quite what you asked for, but it'd probably be New Zealand for us if things fall apart. Though I'd rather stay in Europe - maybe Belgium?

Lived in spain 15 years so have state healthcare, residency and tax residency. No idea re future but the state healthcare, free at point of purchase, is a nice to have.

No idea re future, nice to have a choice i suppose. I have uk assets and am nearly finished paying the uk state pension. Doubt i ll have to leave spain as i pay tax here and that would disappear.

I do feel for the spanish in london though, those with houses, kids at school etc.

Living in Tallinn, Estonia with my GF (who is Estonian) with no intention of returning to the UK. This place is ace apart from how difficult the language is to learn, but i am studying. After many years together in the UK we up and left to come here as this place seems good to start a family. I currently have a 5 year residency permit which hopefully will become permanent unless Brexit messes it up.

I've got a job offer for Canada.

My partner is German/French. Been here 11 years. But we are considering the possibility of going elsewhere.

Point at the moment is that we don’t have a solid reason (Orher then Brexot nonsense). so now we have to decide between various places and I guess just start applying for jobs and see what happens.

Not coming back but I've heard Northumberland is nice

I'm in Spain now, was in Germany before that. Might move on again (my partner is Italian) but certainly not back to the UK.

We've lived in Cataluña for 2 and a bit years, the leave vote happened 10 months after we arrived. We immediately applied for Residencia but our status cannot move beyond this for several years. Being "retired" but under the actual retirement age here, we had to take out private medical cover. Mrs PB has now got a part time job teaching English and pays tax and autonomo so once she has 3 months of contributions, we can drop the private cover and go onto the public healthcare Capsalut. The biggest changes we're facing are the 30+% depreciation in Sterling and the possible independance of Cataluña but the lifestyle and weather outweigh these inconveniences. Can't envisage returning to live in the UK anytime soon.

no immediate plans, but if it all goes to shit like I expect it too, then canada beckons. got family there and the sector I work on is heavily supported & funded by the canadian government

Been in Germany since... erm quite a long time, and Netherlands for 4 years before that.

No intention of moving back to UK.

If I'm no longer eligible to work on the project that I'm working on now, then I'll have to reconsider options. One is to get as far away as possible.

i moved back to UK 2 months before the brexit vote, doh! I didn't want to come back to the UK, but the job was too good to turn down.

Gf is french and we both have itchy feet. Belgium, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, US, Aus, NZ and Spain are on the cards for us, mainly for language proficiency. After spending 5 years in Finland, I've learnt that I need complete language fluency to settle in a country. This rules out any of the Slavic, German, Nordic and Fenno-Ugric countries for me.

Piston - is it 5 years you have to clock up to qualify for residency? I assume you have gone autonomo for state healthcare, in valencia you can buy state health care for a monthly fee, c 100e i think. I m sure you know but u need 15 years of spanish state contributions to qualify for a spanish pension. I dont know if u can add uk to make up that 15 years min.

Kids just started school here, have a big mortgage (for us), family (some terminally ill), so a few things keeping me. However, I sympathise completely with those who have decided to move, or don’t feel as welcome in the UK any more. I would naff off if I could.

Real shame as I was proud to live in a not necessarily perfect, but at least somewhat inclusive society. I think a lot of decently folk are just going to get the hell out of dodge and take their skills/contributions to society with them.

Poolman, yes I think it is 5 years for permanent residency and 10 if you want to apply for citizenship. We got health insurance via the bank, a provider called Adeslas but it's €150 a month for the 2 of us. The Capsalut system is better and allows you to go to local GPs rather than pitching up at the hospital with non urgent stuff. If you have been working officially for more than 3 months and pay autonomo, you can apply for yourself and spouse to receive this benefit. MrsPB is working at a local language school with school kids to improve their English as they need a good standard to apply for University. She is Tefl qualified and was a teacher in the UK for 30 years so it's right up her calle.

I’m 10 years+ over here in Belgium, with Belgian kids...

Not sure how it will actually effect me to be honest. I’ve got Swiss & a Norwegian mates who have no residency or travel issues so don’t really expect any for me either

I do plan to get UK passports for the kids though so I guess I should pull my finger out 🙂

I’ve been in Spain for 10 years, I have a business and employees and pay tax. I have a daughter here too and my partner is local. I’ll apply for a UK passport for my daughter before Brexit, she’s trilingual so keeps her options open. We would never move back though, nothing wrong with the UK but I have made a life here which i like a lot. If that means applying for citizenship then that’s what I’ll do. I can’t see it ever being an issue given the fact that I pay taxes, employ people, own a house and hablo el lingo. At the moment I don’t think anyone is really sure how it will affect us.

I feel more sorry for the cool peolle I know who are living out here but not working. They’re going to be screwed over.

Here in Germany now 4 years, no intention of going back to the uk. My view on Brexit from this position is it's something that is happening "over there" or somewhere else.

Woke up last June to the news of Brexit and simultaneously that we'd exchanged contracts on the sale of our house and were committed to moving to France (well, we could have gone elsewhere....). Biggest downside has been the exchange rate debacle - on the upside, we love it and can't for a whole load of reasons see ourselves moving back to the UK - all our neighbours think the UK is barking mad!

Same as Doug, though I don't employ anyone. Really don't want a Spanish passport, I'll hold out for Basque one 😉

I need to improve my German and do the test, it is quite hard though, our office environment is English speaking, so I never get to practice enough to really learn it well. I start to learn and then never have need to use it.

So you want to live in a Country but can't be arsed to learn the language and that is the fault of Brexit? FFS. 🙄

The general consensus from posts above seem to be that you live abroad and have no intention of ever returning to the UK, so other than the inconvenience of gaining residency wherever you are, could you explain why the UK leaving the EU actually bothers you so much?

Sounds like being a third country citizen is a major PITA. I hope that our government looks after your interests and doesn’t just abandon you unilaterally.

could you explain why the UK leaving the EU actually bothers you so much?

For me, it's completely unnecessary: Nothing that is wrong with this country will be fixed by Brexit and all it will do is focus attention, and money, away from doing what needs to be done and on to regaining a position we already have. It's a pointless vanity project, driven, in part, by the hard right.

Been living and working in Belgium longer than I have the UK now. If you have 5 years uninterrupted work at the point you apply you don't even need to do the language test although it doesnt seem too bad. I need to apply to become Belgian but haven't done so yet but can't see any reason not to. I like it here

My Mrs has indefinite leave to remain having been here 17 years and paid a lot of higher rate tax while doing so, she will get a uk passport (costing £1k+) so that she will receive a pension, which as far as we/she is concerned she should be entitled to.
but brexit has changed her attitude to this country and certainly not for the better, me having a few racist thicko’s in my extended family hasn’t helped.
i’m waiting for the opportunity to call them out on it “so which of your friends have lost a job to somebody like my girlfriend? only they struggle to get a couple of gcse passes between them let alone a masters and 20 years experience?
i’m crap at languages so dont really want to leave the u.k. have aging parents too.
i love the U.K. but sometimes it really stinks.

So you want to live in a Country but can't be arsed to learn the language and that is the fault of Brexit? FFS.

Maybe you need English lessons, your comprehension is extremely poor.

could you explain why the UK leaving the EU actually bothers you so much?

Because it affects our legal status to stay in the country we have lives in. For some it might just be [s]simple[/s]complicated bureaucratic process to sort out, for others that may not be possible. It is already affecting people looking for jobs, as our ongoing legal status is not guaranteed, and potential employers do not want to take a risk.

WOW, you really are making a plonker of yourself.

Any other fantasies you want to assume?

WOW, you really are making a plonker of yourself.

Any other fantasies you want to assume?

😀

Says the man who can't be bothered to learn the language of a country he wants to live and work in, because it's "hard". 😀

I take it that you wouldn't of bothered of all, if we have voted to remain?

You seem to not understand the word "improve" try looking it up before making such stupid accusations.

I take it that you wouldn't of bothered of all, if we have voted to remain?

The man who would fail a really basic English test such as First Certificate in English slags off MSP for admitting that the much harder German test would need some work.

My German is pretty good, I'm just as happy listening to the news in English or German. I can hold a conversation about anything I know anything about, but the German citizenship test would require a lot of hard work before I stood a chance because it's "hard". I've never learned German formally so make a lot of simple mistakes such as "wouldn't of bothered".

A great thread, with some interesting contributions, but as with just about every STW thread I've opened recently there's someone there to poison it. How did you vote, Gobuchul? When no preference for in or out has been expressed in the thread that divided STW I assume out.

*cheery wave at all the other STWers living in places other than the UK whatever their nationality*

I’ve been living in Germany for nearly 18 years now. I have four German kids of my own I am fostering another German child with my German partner and have bought a house here so it looks like I’m here to stay. I haven’t looked into getting citizenship yet but because I have been contributing to the German economy for the last 17 years and providing employment places with my company I hope it should be fairly easy.

Doug - why do u feel for the non working expats in spain? All the pensioners seem q happy, even with the post brexit exchange rate a good life here is still far cheaper than the uk.

"Livin' the Dream" for now and no plans to change it.

In the last 10 years I've lived and worked in the UK, South Africa and now Spain. No disrespect to the UK or SA but for me, Spain wins hands down.

Hope Brexit works out best for everyone in the end.

Doug - why do u feel for the non working expats in spain? All the pensioners seem q happy, even with the post brexit exchange rate a good life here is still far cheaper than the uk.

Indeed Neil, a couple of my ex colleagues bought a place in Spain 18 months ago, (Mojacar?) well before the referendum anyway, They'll be out there for good next November when they pack the shitty prison service in. Theyr'e not rolling in money, he'll have a Navy & HMPS pension & she'll have her HMPS pension. Haven't heard either of them complaining about Brexit. Theyv'e been planning the move for years.

The UK might not be the only ones. https://www.thelocal.se/tag/swexit

In Ireland and staying put. Wife is Irish and kids too, could get citizenship if needed but not spending €1,000 doing so for now. My only worry for now is my pension...i worked 15 years in UK and will have the rest in Ireland. May cause problems on retirement? We will see.

I'm in Austria. Once thing I do notice when I'm in the uk visiting is how anti Europe uk media has become. It's as if they want people to hate it. I have no passion to return but I like to visit.
Today I had the results of a bloody horrible small business/ book keeping/ law test that I took. It was all in German and I passed.
If you live somewhere, what's the reason you don't bother to learn their language? You will always be seen as an outsider and will never really be accepted by the locals.

Poolman, I’m just worried about whether they can remain and what will happen to healthcare etc.

Not us, tried to get a job in the middle east but it didn't pan out (wasn't Brexit related though).

Friends in Bulgaria aren't worried, the Bulgarians offered almost no questions asked citizenship to Brits pretty quick after the vote.