Hello everybody.
I want to ask a wide ranging question, sorry if it goes on a bit. I know its too much for people to answer all of it but any tips you can give on any part of it are much appreciated.

I am British and currently live in Northern France. I bought a house here in 2002 after being moved here with my job, without doing any real research. It quickly became apparent we had made a mistake as we can’t find anything about the area we like.
Where we live is flat, miles from the sea, it rains pretty much every day summer or winter and there is absolutely nothing to do. We live in one of those typical French villages where the day ends at 5pm and people close their shutters and you never see a living soul, in short it’s hell. However at the time we were amazed at how much you could buy for you money so we didn’t see the problems.
We are older and wiser now!!!
We are planning to sell our house around next March time, which means if it sells fairly quickly we should be in a position to move around next July. I have been doing a lot of research on where to move and it would appear the lack of “life” is common throughout France so it seems probable we will give up on France and try elsewhere.
So now we are thinking where to go. I am lucky with my job as I can move wherever I want. We have been on holiday to Spain and really loved it.
We have 2 small children so schools are important. We are avid snowboarders so would like to be near the mountains and we also want to be near the coast.
If we come to Spain we are thinking of moving to the Barcelona area. So what I would like to know is:
Are the schools good? Are there many private international schools if we should decide to go that route?
What are the rates of income tax compared to France (or the UK)?
What is the cost of living compared to France?
Are Spanish mortgages painless? We should have a deposit of around 250,000 euros so hopefully we won’t need a large mortgage.
Are their any UK banks which operate in Spain? I bank with HSBC.
We plan to do a few fact finding trips. Can anyone recommend any places to check out?

I think thats all for now. As I said sorry it goes on a bit, but all advice would be very appreciated. I would especially like to hear from anyone else who made the move from France to Spain.
Many thanks

Hi LostInFrance

So, many questions and so few answers.  I?ll start with ?banking for 10? or another beer would also do the trick.  The most prominent British banks in Spain are Natwest, Barclays, Solbank and Lloyds as far as I?m aware:

http://www.natwestinternational.com/spanish.asp
http://www.barclays.es/en_UK/noresidents/index.html
https://www.solbank.com/en/
https://www.lloydstsb.es/ing/index.htm

The Spanish mortgages are relatively straightforward.  You?ll need the usual docs if you work for a company:
o   Last three pay slips
o   Contract of work
o   Tax declaration
o   NIE number

If you?re self-employed you?ll need a few more bits of paper.  Once you?ve found a property to purchase you need more bits of paper ? but Spain?s like that.

I?m not sure what you?ll get for 250K? (41.5 million Pesetas in real money) in Barcelona, it might come as a bit of a surprise because it?s pretty expensive up there.

Someone else can do the schooling bit.

Don Carlos

Generally the cost of living in Spain is lower than that in France.  For example, the 2007 Cost of Living Index for Barcelona is 89.2 and 92.1 for Madrid.  Paris is currently 101.4.

Many thanks fo your reply Don Carlos.

I wasn’t hoping to buy outright for 250k, as I want a house not an apartment. The 250k was just the equity I will have when I sell my house here and will go as my deposit on my new house. I am not really a city person so I hope to buy just outside the city so I am not sure if that will push the price up or down.

One thing that is worrying Mrs LostinFrance is what she has read in the papers about something I think they call Urbanisation, where the government can confiscate your land to give to property developers. I am sure it must have been covered here before so any links to the truth would be great as I have not had time to trawl through all the threads yet. Does it exist or is it the usual thing with the press not letting the truth get in the way of a good story? I just want to put her mind at rest.
Once again many thanks

By the sounds of your problems in France yes Spain could be a very good option for you! My learned friend (I have not forgotten the beer) Don Carlos has very helpfully supplied you with web links to UK banks but to be honest I find it strange that if you serious about living and working etc in Spain you want to deal with British banks! In my experience here the best people to do business with especially banks are the Spanish! One notable building society (am I allowed to name them?) set up over here and its been a disaster - they dont understand the Spanish system or the language! If you are worried about speaking Spanish most banks now have multi lingual personnel.

For tax comparison purposes check out http://www.spainaccountants.com cant comment on French tax but definitely cheaper than the UK especially with allowances for children etc.

Finally I assume you are referring the Land Grab controversy (Urbanisations is the Spanish word for new housing estates) this seems to have been mainly an issue in Valencia region. Just use common sense and a good solicitor (Spanish!) to avoid any problems - if you are set on Barcelona I dont think you have an issue.

Good luck and as we always say on this site - this time do your research!

Many thanks Robi
I wasn’t particularly wanting to deal with a UK bank as such, but when I was buying my house in France my UK bank offered me a mortgage through their French counterpart and they explained that as I am a long time customer with them setting up a French account was easy and my good credit rating would transfer with me. I don’t know if its the same in Spain. By the way I ended up going with another bank anyway as they offered a better rate.

As you say reasearch is important. I never really understood the phrase “Location, Loction, Location”, but I do now. I bought my current house without taking that into account and have had a miserable 5 years as a result.
I am looking forward to travelling down to Barcelona in the next few weeks to do my first fact finding tour and get a better feel for the place.
Once again many thanks

Yes Rob is absolutely correct.  For your day to day banking issues including things like mortgages, there?s no reason why these should not be carried out through a non-British bank.  I?ll refrain from saying Spanish bank because, for example, the ING has a very reputable presence in Spain.

But Rob one good reason for maintaining British-based bank accounts, albeit offshore, is for the interest return on the savings accounts.  I must admit that the Spanish banking systems do not encourage savings of any type.

I Bank with the BCH and they don?t have a single saving?s account.  This is also the case with some of the Cajas.  ?Her in doors? was advised by the Caixa to let them handle a small investment and to our amazement she ended up losing money after seven years.  Put this together with the Afinsa disaster and you can understand why some individuals would prefer to have the savings out of Spain.

Buenos Don, I agree keeping a UK based account is a very good idea and I did not suggest otherwise - in the original posters latest email to me he has admitted that being introduced via a UK bank to their French operation turned out to be more expensive than dealing direct with the French - of course it was the UK branch were taking commission!

Talking of Spanish investments you seem to have had a bad experience - I would say this - many banks in this area (Costa Blanca) are offering very competitive rates for sterling investments. For Euros - I have just made around 7,000 euros from a 35,000 euro investment with the Caja Murcia which I was pleased with - tax will be due next year.

I was involved with off shore accounts (also the UK tax people are now having a huge project to look at off shore accounts - the days of privacy have gone!) but decided there was no real benefit and also I think you will find that the Spanish will take more tax on offshore investments thus wiping out any advantage assuming there was one in the first place.

Another very good incentive the Spanish government does offer is by way of additional pension contributions (bit live UK AVCs ?)
and also bonds.

By the way sorry but the beers off you called me Bob!

A thousand apologies, Rob.  I think that I had one too many last night.  It?s very interesting what you say with regards to the investments, I?ll need to look into this again.  I must admit, I?ve been threatening to change banks for sometime now but I just haven?t gotten around to it yet.  I know that this is sidetracking from the original issue (sorry LostInFrance), but is there someone in your local Caja Murcia branch that recommends investment funds or do they have a specific scheme for their customers?

Don Carlos,

Hombre no pasanada - and the beer is back on.

We use the Caja Murcia San Miguel de Salinas branch - 96 572 00 32 - ask for Carmen and mention Rob/Julia (this is when she slams the phone down!) she has had training courses on the Caja Murcia investments - you can look for yourself on http://www.cajamurcia.es - mercados - fondos de inversion

She might be on her hols at the moment you know what Spains like in August!

Caja Murcia has suited us very well but as always - research!!

Very, very interesting.

Much?simas gracias Rob