Martinbjulieb

I think @suesmalls is technically Australian, her parents were English and she has never lived in England. She has moved here with her English husband and is looking for some advice on settling in when England is not her home. She is not looking to be negative just wants advice.

Totally agree with the above. I found it an enjoyable experience and I have a dog! I made tea when required and just moved from room to room to keep out of the way of packing. I did end up packing some CD’s and DVD’s though!! Good luck, it will be fine?

Absolutee tosh! Unless perhaps you’re self employed. We enquired about a mortgage a few months after being home after 10 years away. We were told there wouldn’t be a problem. We have just completed on the purchase of our house. We used The Mortgage Advice Bureau who were fantastic. Get on the electoral role straight away, register with GOV.UK for tax purposes and just about anything else, drivers licences, child benefit, and many other things can be done through this portal. Did you maintain a bank account whilst away? Good luck

Thanks. I have and I also have it in writing and our broker has confirmed it for us with them too. Extra cautious ?

Just to say our insurances through our Super are valid overseas as long as the premiums are paid via an Australian bank/Super fund so it is worth checking with individual companies.

It’s YOUR decision as a family alone! Don’t listen to anyone else, family, friends or even us lot on here. No matter what one person tells you another person will say something different. As others have said perhaps your friends and family have never moved away from home so of course they are going to think you’re crazy, but they haven’t walked in your shoes, they will never truly know what it is like. Yes, of course you worry that it is the right decision but if it truly is, as ours was, then you will FEEL it. We made the move last year after 10 years and are happy we did. Of course there are bumps in the road but they were there when we moved to Australia too and you overcome them because it’s part of the journey and the adventure. Wishing you lots of luck. Any advice just shout, you can PM me too if you like. Julie.

I have an airline compliant dog crate for a small to medium dog. £30. I am near Retford, Nottinghamshire if anyone is interested.

We took our dogs ashes (x2) to Australia and back without even a thought about it! Both in carved wooden boxes.

We returned to the U.K. in March 2017 after having spent 10 years in Perth. Our children were aged 11 and 13, and had just started years 7 and 9 in the February. And our dog was nearly 2! Without a doubt it has been the best move for us. We had grown to feel so isolated and alone in Perth and no matter how hard we tried we couldn’t make a single proper friend. The move back was just a dream at first, a “maybe” but because we were getting to our 50’s and with younger children it didn’t seem achievable. Our decision was finally made when we came on holiday to the U.K. in July 2016 and spent almost a month touring round, staying in our own accommodation but meeting up with friends and family along the way. This is when we realised that this was what was missing, not just the family and friends but the place itself. It was HOME. The beautiful countryside the diversity of each place that you can visit and never get bored. The weather, yes the weather! Those long summer days we had on holiday were amazing and our children couldn’t believe how light it was at night. Once we returned to Australia we got our house ready for selling and put it on the market. When we arrived in March last year we had booked holiday accommodation for 3 weeks, we ended up staying for 3 months and made two wonderful friends of the owners, whom we spend a lot of time with now. We had to remember when we arrived that we weren’t on holiday and whilst neither of us had a job every penny that we spent was coming out of our savings. It took nearly 3 months for my husband to find a suitable job, the construction industry has changed massively in the last ten years and there were a few courses he had to do first. I won’t lie and say it was all plain sailing because it was an extremely stressful time. Waiting every day for phone calls and emails was awful. Because we didn’t know where we were going to finally end up living we had to put our children in a temporary school for those first 3 months, they have coped admirally with the move and are both very happy. Our son, who had just started year 9 in Australia, went back a year at school as starting Year 9 here so close to the end of the year would have been unfair on him. So for the March to July last year he went into year 8 and then started Year 9 in September last year at his permanent School. Once my husbands job was sorted we looked for a rental property in a central location just in case things didn’t work out job wise and then he would be ideally located for other positions. We ended up renting a Grade II listed farmhouse in a lovely village. It is lovely and we have been in it almost a year. Our first cold Christmas was amazing, we all had a wonderful time with the added benefits of having many people over at different times during the festivities. SNOW! Wow we have had so much, the children didn’t remember snow at all and even though they are a bit older they still loved it. Schools were closed for 3 days which was a complete novelty for them! We are in the process of buying our own home now and are excited to feel totally settled. It is in the same village that we are in so no major moves there. We are so happy that we braved the move, it was stressful, scary and exciting. We didn’t do it for anyone but ourselves though, yes, of course having friends and family nearby is an amazing bonus. BUT you have to remember if you have been away a long time things will not be as they once were. We are lucky and see friends and family fairly often, but sometimes I want a bit “more” and have to remember that we no longer have that “right” just to slot into peoples lives who have had to move on from the hole we originally created when we left. But that’s ok, because even seeing people once or twice a month is a whole lot more than once every 4 or 5 years! And nothing beats the feeling of “belonging” again. Here’s to a lovely summer, we are certainly enjoying some superb weather at the minute and sitting watching our son play a village cricket game in the sunshine is lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Definitely recommend Letton Percival. We used them, had a claim and settled within 2 weeks, no quibble and easy to do.

Mmmmmm, they can’t do enough to help you transfer your pensions in from other countries but just try to transfer it out again when you leave??Not bitter at all!!

Can absolutely recommend Chess, they were fantastic. They partner with Britannia at this end who were also great. Good luck.

@paulswin We were the same last year. Our house was priced well, within the suburb (Tapping) and we were open to offers. We put it on the market in the September, adjusted the price in the November and sold in the January, taking $40k less than we originally planned! By this time we just wanted to move and start the next chapter, it still stings a bit though losing that amount on the sale. Maybe consider changing your agent if you get no joy. We personally hated the idea of “home opens” but had to go that way because that’s how it’s done in Perth. Perhaps try an open night instead of at the weekend to attract different purchasers. I feel for you, it is a nightmare situation. Good luck.

As usual a topic has gone completely off track from “Quality of life for kids” to a debate about U.K/Australian weather, U.K/Australia bashing and talk of general “failure” of anyone who has the audacity to return home. Hardly helpful for the original poster or anyone else who had an interest in the topic to begin with!!

Cornwall Lake District Peak District

This is probably the reason we didn’t return earlier (4 years earlier!) I always thought that people would have thought we had failed and given up on something some people dream about, but until you have walked in someone’s shoes it is better not to judge.?

For us it was the isolation of Perth. Yes, I know it is the most isolated capital city in the world but until you have lived there you don’t really understand that. Unless you want to travel to Bali (we didn’t) or Singapore you really are looking at having to travel over east first to connect a flight to other destinations. As for driving, you can drive for hours and not see much except bushland so that’s not exactly a good way to travel either! As for the drivers, simply don’t get me started on that! ? Don’t get me wrong Perth is a beautiful city and so clean but there is only a certain amount of things to do. It was great when our kids were younger, so many parks etc but as they got older we were all very bored. I was looking through photos of when we first got to Perth in August 2007 and realised that by March of the following year we had pretty much visited every place in Perth that we would ever visit. Consequently later photos are in the same places but with us being older!!

This was our worry, the way we looked at it was if the kids decide to go back to Australia when they are older, so be it, but at least we are in the place we want to be right now and we have a choices. We couldn’t bear the thought of getting old(er) in Australia and then one day our kids saying oh by the way we are going to go back to England! Then we would have been stuck there. Our opinion only, our decision for what was right for us.

@jgt and @paulswin we moved back after 10 years last March and I can highly recommend Chess in Perth. They went above and beyond the call of duty to get everything in our container, including a motorbike. You could not have even got a hair in there after they packed it. A lovely team as well and Paul the representative who came out to quote for us was lovely. Also I recommend Dogtainers of Perth if you have any pets. Feel free to message if you have any questions about the move and I will be happy to help if I can. Julie.

I guess it depends on the timetables but ours took 5 weeks, we had the option to delay at the Perth end for a couple of weeks but decided we would rather know everything had been loaded and on the way before we set off. By the way Chess Moving in Perth were excellent if you are still deciding on a firm.

Generally people are in “holiday mode” for the first year, out enjoying all the sights, places, weather and just being somewhere different. Even if you are working everything should seem new and exciting! Homesickness comes later if at all. It did for us but only after about 6 years, and it took us another 4 to make the decision to move home. If you feel this way now I am not sure you will ever settle. This is, of course just my opinion and how it was for us. Good luck with your decision whatever it is.

Sorry to hear about your situation. I am pretty sure on here I have read of people getting their TOR within 48 hours. Ours took 3 weeks but that was the first week of the new system. As @LKC says it is needed for HMRC when you get here. Make your TOR application and then check with the shipping company. Good luck.

We actually did have an issue with this. Our children’s passports had expired and we got new ones and used them on a trip to the U.K. back in 2011. Their new passports didn’t have the visa page in and to be honest we never even thought about it but at the airport they made a terrible fuss saying that we might not be able to bring the children back in! We still had our passports with the visa pages in and at the time I thought how silly that they aren’t electronically linked to our children’s passports. We had to get a friend to go to our house and find the old passports and scan them to us, just in case! Their old passports were returned a week or so after we received the new ones.

I can’t even begin to comment on the relationship side of things but I would say that April is a beautiful time to come home. It would definitely be no good him coming over in winter for example if he already has a downer on the U.K. Personally we were excited for winter but that’s because we both wanted to be here. Good luck.

To this I just reply, we wanted to come home! ?