Bridgeman Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 We are currently in Oz having come over on a parent visa to join our family. However, we are finding it is becoming more and more expensive here and are not sure whether we can sustain living here in the long term, especially with the inflated property prices, the exchange rate and frozen pensions. We are now trying to look into the possibility of buying a property in the UK, where we could get much more for our money and spending 6 months plus there, but coming over to Oz in the winter to see family. Wondering about the logistics of it all and whether anyone has done this. What did you do about cars? And did you live in Oz (not sure we want to burden our offspring for 4-6 months). Did you get a housesitter for your property in the UK? Bit worried about having to leave it empty in the winter. Any info appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 My parents did this for 15 yrs and seemed to manage ok. They basically left their house empty although a couple of times they had friends who needed somewhere to stay and who house sat. I think they just bore the cost of the cars sitting in the drive re registration and insurance. They had a car at our place which we used in the winter. They were able to bring 6 months meds with them and they built a granny flat on our block in Aus. They belonged to golf clubs in UK and Aus!! (That was their most pressing issue!). In the end they went with the UK to end their days because of their social networks, living siblings and service provision. They stopped at 81 because of the problems with health insurance given a couple of health scares but up to 80 they didn't really have any problems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramot Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 Not quite the same situation, but I lived between UK and Brunei for 9 years, as my husband worked there and our youngest was only 13 when we moved and had to go to boarding school. We were going to do the 6 months in OZ and UK when he retired, but I felt I needed to live properly somewhere by then. I had found it hard to keep moving between 2 lives in different countries. I felt I didn't quite belong anywhere. So we live full time in OZ and visit UK annually for about 3 months to see grandchildren etc. there are no easy answers, I don't know where you are in OZ, but to be honest, talking to Uk retired friends it's swings and roundabouts when it comes to the cost of living. We find we get more help as pensioners for some things in OZ. petrol is cheaper, council tax cheaper, first car tax has a reduction and so do your utilities bills. However I think food is cheaper in UK and don't get me started on the state pension being frozen!!! We have had 250pds extra per 4 weeks while back in the UK. basically no one size fits all, only you can decide what is best for you, good luck with your decision. I only know my old bones feel better in the sun and warmth, but I haven't lived properly in UK for an awfully long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisher1 Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 Hi Bridgeman Like Ramot, not quite the same situation but I lived in Bennelux countries for 24 years and travelled back regularly to see family. We are now in the UK looking after elderly mum while our daughter lives in Sydney with her partner. We have exactly the same doubts about finance as you (although we arent in a position to go out to oz permenantly at the mo).. When we were coming back to the UK to live four years ago we found that the house insurance situation is quite tricky. Most insurers wont let you leave your house empty for longer than two months (three max) and want you to drain and switch off the central heating if you are away in Winter. (We have actually done this and it cost about £60 to switch off and the same to switch back on. However you do risk something going awry with the boiler) Also you have to have someone regularly checking on the property while you are away. I dont know how risk averse you are but I couldnt sleep at night if I thought that our house in the UK was uninsured. Dont mind about the contents, but the building is too big a risk for me. However there is another way. We had a small flat on the south coast of the UK for three and a half years before we came back and it was empty most of the time -we just wanted a foot on the property ladder. There was no problem with insuring that because the buidings insurance is part of your service charges and you are covered whether you are there or not. So - one way would be to buy a flat in both countries and move from one to the other. You can buy in Australia as a non res as long as you buy new and get approval from the (????) agency (sorry the name escapes me). We have been considering the possibility of buying a shoe box in oz and renting it out to give us an Australian income while we are there - getting round the exchange rate lottery once and for all. As has already been said, there is no 'one size fits all' - these are just some of the ideas we have had. We met some people last year who were living in oz but back here for three months every year. They had a UK car and caravan which they paid to park more or less in storage when they were in oz (cheaper) but which gave them their own low cost home when they were here. We have also considered buying a park home in oz, although the site fees seem to be extortionate. Good luck, whatever you decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisher1 Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 PS Have you considered house swapping for part of the (potential) six months in oz? We did it for a month last year and it worked out really well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 PS Have you considered house swapping for part of the (potential) six months in oz? We did it for a month last year and it worked out really well. Who do you arrange them through? Lou Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bridgeman Posted May 12, 2013 Author Share Posted May 12, 2013 PS Have you considered house swapping for part of the (potential) six months in oz? We did it for a month last year and it worked out really well. Thanks Fisher1. A few things to think about. We hadn't considered the insurance angle. House swap is something we are also going to investgiate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisher1 Posted May 12, 2013 Share Posted May 12, 2013 Hi again We organised ours through homelink. You pay £100 or so for a years subscription. If you dont get a swap the first year they give you a second year free. You put photos and a blurb about your home on together with outline plans and wait for contacts by email through the site. Many people put their address etc on the ad, but we waited until we were in contact with someone. You are also free to contact people who's home you like the look of. In fact our month was two seperate two week swaps in the same area, both of which came about because I contacted them. We did non- simultaneous swaps and got quite friendly with our second couple - had an email a couple of weeks ago. Security issues loom large but this is what we did: - CHECKED WITH OUR INSURANCE COMPANY. Homelink advise you to say you are lending your house to invited guests and that no money is changing hands. I think next time I will investigate holiday home insurance as well although we had no probs. We also checked the gas and electric stuff as we would if we were renting out, made sure that all valuables were removed, and took away the lap tops and all personal records. We also stopped the post for two weeks (costs about£30 post office) or for longer you can redirect (about £40) and told all our friends. If you are interested, you can check out the site and look at properties up for swaps. You dont get the contact details until you cough up the money, which is fair enough. Just google Homelink. We reckon it saved us about £3000 on accomodation alone - and of course we had a whole house not just a hotel room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starlight7 Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 We have a friend who does this- 6 months in UK, 6 moths in Scotland. His wife lives in Scotland permanently, doesn't like Australia. His children are mostly in Australia. He sold the big Melb house and bought a small unit- their main house is now in Scotland. It costs a lot but he has other reasons for coming here besides his children but how long he can sustain this I don't know- its been over 10 years and he is not getting any younger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramot Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 We are registered with Homelink as well. We have limited ourselves to swapping to be an hour from Bristol as that is where our son and grandchildren are, but had no luck this year. several of our friends swap regularly, but don't mind where they go and all their swaps have been fine. We are in Mountain Creek, Sunshine Coast, just in case any one wants to swap next year!!? perhaps swapping could be mutually beneficial to some of us who have grandchildren in opposite countries? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisher1 Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 Hi Ramot Yes it took us a long time to get where we wanted to be, lots of offers for the wrong bit of Oz and in the end settled for the northern beaches ( daughter in Bondi) which wasnt perfect but was do-able, especially since we had two weeks with her factored in and a family holiday in Port Stephens planned. In the end it was a really good solution - we had our 'own' place, got permission for her to come and stay for a few days, and saw part of Sydney we had only touched on previously. Have you thought of extending your travel limits a bit? you could possibly then arrange for them to come and stay with you, which makes a wonderful change! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramot Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Our daughter is also in Bondi and we visit Sydney several times a year but always rent near her. We like our own front door! have just been in UK for 8 weeks back yesterday. We have a DIL who won't travel!!! Won't say any more than that, but it's so alien to our life style, so unless we go to UK we would never see the grandchildren. They are only 5 and 3 so won't be back packing for a few more years! we like to see them most weekends so don't want to be too far as there isn't room for us to stay. we based ourselves in Bracknell this time as we were selling our other OZ based son's house, and got a bit fed up packing our bags every weekend and staying at the closest Premier Inn. we weren't too fussed about a house swap this year for the above reason, but it would make life easier to be close'ish to Bristol as we do seem to spend the usual time visiting friends and family all over the place. having said the above about DIL, they are coming in Oct as our other son is getting married, well they are at the moment. We intend to give them the best time ever!!!! We are a bit different to most as we retired to OZ with no family here and 2 of ours have followed us here, but they were very used to livng in Asia and love the climate here. will definitely chase up a house swap in plenty of time before our next UK visit. are you sure you don't live near Bristol!!!! You would love the Sunshine Coast, just not near to Sydney sadly, have to keep a sense of humour as a bit jet lagged today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramot Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Our daughter is also in Bondi and we visit Sydney several times a year but always rent near her. We like our own front door!have just been in UK for 8 weeks back yesterday. We have a DIL who won't travel!!! Won't say any more than that, but it's so alien to our life style, so unless we go to UK we would never see the grandchildren. They are only 5 and 3 so won't be back packing for a few more years! we like to see them most weekends so don't want to be too far as there isn't room for us to stay. we based ourselves in Bracknell this time as we were selling our other OZ based son's house, and got a bit fed up packing our bags every weekend and staying at the closest Premier Inn. we weren't too fussed about a house swap this year for the above reason, but it would make life easier to be close'ish to Bristol as we do seem to spend the usual time visiting friends and family all over the place. having said the above about DIL, they are coming in Oct as our other son is getting married, well they are at the moment. We intend to give them the best time ever!!!! We are a bit different to most as we retired to OZ with no family here and 2 of ours have followed us here, but they were very used to livng in Asia and love the climate here. will definitely chase up a house swap in plenty of time before our next UK visit. are you sure you don't live near Bristol!!!! You would love the Sunshine Coast, just not near to Sydney sadly, have to keep a sense of humour as a bit jet lagged today. Ps son definitely still getting married, it's the visit that I'm still not quite sure of!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisher1 Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 ha ha the glad to hear the wedding is not in doubt! We have always travelled around Europe but it was definitely us following only child which led us to visiting Oz. Hopefully one day we'll be in a position to move there permenantly but till then we're doing the yo yo thing :-) We live a long way from Bristol unfortunately! Good luck on the house hunt this year. My latest off-the-wall idea is to buy a camper van in oz and pay for it to be stored while we are not in the country - daughter's flat is very small and not shareable for more than two weeks max. (Is shareable a word?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bondiboy Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 Hi Ramot, we need to look out for your property on Homelink ! We moved back to the UK in 2007 after 5 years in Australia and now live in Cheltenham, only 45 mins up the road from Bristol. Lovely part of the world, edge of the Cotswolds, etc. We're probably going to be moving back to Australia at some point in the next 2/3 years and are very keen to head towards the Sunshine coast. I've even looked at properties / schools in Mountain Creek as we loved the Noosa area and spent several holidays up there when we lived in Sydney. We have two children, primary school age, but would be very interested in talking about house swap over UK summer holidays if that had any attraction for you. We haven't enrolled with any house swap site yet but have been looking for a while and discussing it as a possible route of getting back to Australia for a trip. Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fizzybangs Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Some great advice there with lots of ideas. Do you mean the Foreign Investment Review Board who allow non-Australian residents to purchase new properties? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wishful Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 My mum and dad are going to do this 8 months here and four months in UK for next few years until their health dictates for them to make a choice. They will stay with family over in UK some of the time and cheap digs at other times. They have a unit near Sydney here and wont sell that I don't think. They are just determined to make it work , I shall be doing th same thing but hopefully a lot sooner xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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