The logistics of moving to a
new country are many. These include:
passport; visa; bank accounts; health insurance; renting our place; finding a
place to live; getting a phone and making arrangements for proper financial
flow.
We renewed our passports earlier
in the year so that was done. The visa
was a scramble. Fortunately, since my
mother and her parents etc. were British citizens I was eligible for an
Ancestry Visa. This visa is good for
five years and permits me to work.
Carolene came on my visa. To
apply for this there was an online form to fill out various original documents to
gather. Many of these documents we had
to request from the UK. Even though I
had a birth certificate I have to get another because the visa people wanted
one that gave both my parents place of birth.
We had to make an appointment and go to Vancouver to hand over the
documents to be couriered to New York and to be fingerprinted and have retina
scans. New York required further
documentation which involved some middle of the night phone calls to the UK for
Carolene and the expense of rush couriers.
There were a number of
banking issues to deal with on the Canadian side and the people at the RBC were
fantastic and helpful. We will be paying
income tax to the Canadian government on both our Canadian income and our UK
income. The Brits will do the same. There is some provision so that we don’t pay
double tax so we will be working with an accountant on that one! Also on the Canadian side we decided to rent
our house and engaged Remax to be the property managers. They have been very helpful and have found
some excellent tenants.
Finding a place to rent here
was a scramble. We tried to secure a
place before we moved but all the property managers that we talked to said we had
to be in the UK to rent. The property
manager who found us a place said that is not necessarily true. We are happy with our place and we have the
world’s best land-lady. When she found
out we wanted the place furnished she went out and bought some very good furniture
and also got kitchenware. When we moved
in there was tea, coffee, milk and flowers waiting for us. She has been no end of help to us.
Our next challenge was
opening a bank account. We tried to open
one from Canada. No go. We even opened an HSBC account with the hope
of opening an account in the UK. No go
(unless we had $100,000 – lol). The
first bank we went to asked for a lot of documentation which we expected. Every time we brought in the documentation
asked for she asked for more. We
produced the letter of appointment from the Headmaster which outlined my job,
pay etc but she wanted a letter from the Headmaster stating my date of
birth. I pointed out that we have
supplied my passport and my original birth certificate but the Headmaster only new
my DOB because I put it on my resume.
She said she had to have it for further documentation. That was when I realized that she was John
Cleese in disguise and this was some horrible skit. As it turns out it probably was a good thing
we didn’t get an account there. There
are certain problems with bank transfers and if the UK transfer number has a
certain digit the transfer will probably get lost and we would lose our money. When we started asking banks about their
transfer number we found most had the troublesome number. To get the deposit for our rental we had to
withdraw money from a bank machine (not efficient but it worked). We finally went to Barclay’s bank to make a
credit card transfer and found out that they had an “acceptable” transfer
number so we asked about opening an account.
I got out a pen and paper and asked for a list of all the documentation
we would need. The account manager did a
quick check and said all he needed to see was our passport because we were
Canadian. “What about proof of residence”
we asked. “Once I see your passport I will
believe whatever you tell me” he replied.
He opened an account for us that very day and made sure we understood
the procedures for online banking. We
will not get a credit card until my first paycheque comes in.
The next obstacle was health
insurance. We have lost our Canadian
extended health but it will get reinstated when we return. We are still paying into MSP but our coverage
is limited over here and is full if we return to Canada for less than a
month. We considered private
insurance. Carolene needed to see a
doctor a couple of weeks ago so we gave it a try. We are now on the UK NHS plan. This is a great relief for us.
A telephone will have to
wait. I bought a cheap cell phone to
tide us over but we want to get a smartphone.
This we cannot do until we have at least three months recorded paying
bills in the UK. We need to establish a
credit rating. An alternative is to pay
for a phone in full and purchase monthly time.
We are reluctant to do this.
We have decided to try to
live without a car. The public
transportation system is good here.
During the week a bus stops within 50 feet of our door every fifteen
minutes and will take us to the core of Cardiff. Any senior in the UK can purchase a rail card
that will provide a third off of rail costs.
As a senior ratepayer in the Vale of
Glamorgan I am eligible for
concessions on buses anywhere in Wales.
