Moving to Malaga As a Spaniard
Moving to Spain is a topic that has been discussed, written about and even televised to quite a large extent now, which I am sure many of you reading this will agree.
However, I feel my personal story is quite unique in a sense that I see myself as a Spanish person who was born and raised in the UK until the age of 27 when I finally made up my mind and decided to move to Malaga.
My parents from Galicia were essentially amongst the first wave of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese people that emigrated to the UK in search of a better life which in turn has made me part of a first generation of people that were born and raised in the UK but lived within an entirely Spanish home and community.
Since my teens, I always had dreams of moving to Spain and I have always felt a very special connection with the country and in particular Galicia where my roots lie.
I was lucky enough to travel back to Galicia from a very early age and sometimes up to 3 times a year, each year up until the age of around 17.
The reason I chose Malaga over somewhere in Galicia in the northwest corner of the peninsula was partly due to the fact of wanting to live in an area of the country where the climate was warmer and where a summer season was always guaranteed, and partly due to the fact that both my partner and I believed it would be easier to find work and that the type of jobs we were looking for would pay much better here as opposed to the north.
My partner only spoke English so again we felt that Malaga would be able to offer her more opportunities due to the number of expats already living here and the various international companies that are either based here or have offices in Malaga.
After having now lived in Malaga in southern Spain for a number of years I have an interesting outlook on not just how I see myself but also on what it is like to actually live in Spain as a fluent Spanish speaker and as someone who was brought up by a Spanish family in the UK but never actually lived in Spain until now.
As Spanish as I am, I feel completely English at times simply due to the fact that I lived and learned the English way of life which makes perfect sense.
Yes, it is true that my home was completely Spanish and that my first language was essentially Spanish until the age of 4 when I begun primary school.
Also, the gatherings we had for parties, religious festivals etc was mainly within a Spanish community in the UK.
However, I now know that this can not be compared to actually living in Spain and dealing with the day to day life over here.
The difference is that in the UK I knew all the Spanish people there who were connected either through family or friends and the people of my parents generation created this kind of special expat community if you like.
Everybody knows about the Spanish 'red tape' and how confusing or frustrating it can be to organize or get the simplest of things sorted over here.
Let me tell you, it gets no easier even if you speak the language fluently.
Of course it is better to be able to communicate in Spanish but by no means does this mean that it will make the process any easier or speed things along in any way.
An example of this is when I decided to begin the process for registering my UK plated vehicle in Spain to obtain Spanish number plates.
After obtaining information from the Internet and department of traffic in Malaga I had a good understanding of what I needed to do.
Getting it done however is a completely different ball game.
There is a multitude of documents that you have to present, get officially translated, paperwork to fill in and present in different places as well as vehicle engineer reports to obtain.
It is not so much a case of the quantity of things you must do.
The problem is when you try and get things done because one day someone will tell you it is done this way, the very next day someone will tell you that is not right and it is actually done like this.
You begin to feel that you are just being messed around but part of the problem lies in the fact that some people here are a law on to themselves and I have even experienced cases when they do not even know what the laws, regulations or procedures are themselves, but still happily make out that they do.
Ultimately, I had to end up getting a Gestoria who specialized in registering foreign plated vehicles to sort the paperwork out for me as I just did not have the time or any patience left in going up and down constantly and wasting hours and hours of my time, and remember, this is all while I could completely understand everything that was being said to me and requested from me.
You do of course have to pay for their services but a Gestoria is an official body who have members of their team that can get things done very quickly and that do not have to wait in the mayhem of queues at the department of traffic.
They will also take all the details they require from you just once on that day and organize everything else for you.
If you do plan to import a UK registered car into Spain remember that you do not have to pay import tax if you are a property owner and resident in Spain and the car in question has been registered in your name at least 6 months prior to buying a property.
You must also apply for registration within 30 days of declaring yourself as a resident at your local town hall known as empadronamiento, Otherwise you will be required to pay the import tax which is 7% of the estimated value of the car for engines up to 2000cc and 12% of the estimated value for engines over 2000cc.
This experience is just one example, buying a property on the other hand brought with it many different scenarios and situations including a lawyers negligence on property transfer tax that I am still fighting today, attempting to get a phone line installed, getting the electricity connected, organizing repairs on a new build property etc, etc.
None of this has been straightforward and I speak Spanish perfectly! The moral of the story is that if you are living in Spain and struggle with the language and communicating with people the way you would like to in situations such as those mentioned above then I hope you can at least have some peace of mind that even if you did talk the language you would still struggle such as I do to actually get things done.
You can not substitute being able to speak the language but moving to Spain and settling here has been harder than I imagined and I think you need to be very brave to do it without understanding the language at all.
From my perspective I also now see a significant difference between northern Spain and southern Spain that I was not aware of previously and to be honest they both have their pros and cons.
Nevertheless, I would never regret making the move and I feel very privileged to live & work in such a wonderful part of the world.
It is all too easy to think none of these problems are experienced in the UK, but they are, and I constantly have friends and family in the UK reminding me of that.
I think the solution is to try and integrate with society and just accept that the people here have a different mentality than in the UK.
Part of me still thinks they have got it right, after all, one of the things that drew me to Spain was the laid back way of life and the manana attitude that it is renowned for!
However, I feel my personal story is quite unique in a sense that I see myself as a Spanish person who was born and raised in the UK until the age of 27 when I finally made up my mind and decided to move to Malaga.
My parents from Galicia were essentially amongst the first wave of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese people that emigrated to the UK in search of a better life which in turn has made me part of a first generation of people that were born and raised in the UK but lived within an entirely Spanish home and community.
Since my teens, I always had dreams of moving to Spain and I have always felt a very special connection with the country and in particular Galicia where my roots lie.
I was lucky enough to travel back to Galicia from a very early age and sometimes up to 3 times a year, each year up until the age of around 17.
The reason I chose Malaga over somewhere in Galicia in the northwest corner of the peninsula was partly due to the fact of wanting to live in an area of the country where the climate was warmer and where a summer season was always guaranteed, and partly due to the fact that both my partner and I believed it would be easier to find work and that the type of jobs we were looking for would pay much better here as opposed to the north.
My partner only spoke English so again we felt that Malaga would be able to offer her more opportunities due to the number of expats already living here and the various international companies that are either based here or have offices in Malaga.
After having now lived in Malaga in southern Spain for a number of years I have an interesting outlook on not just how I see myself but also on what it is like to actually live in Spain as a fluent Spanish speaker and as someone who was brought up by a Spanish family in the UK but never actually lived in Spain until now.
As Spanish as I am, I feel completely English at times simply due to the fact that I lived and learned the English way of life which makes perfect sense.
Yes, it is true that my home was completely Spanish and that my first language was essentially Spanish until the age of 4 when I begun primary school.
Also, the gatherings we had for parties, religious festivals etc was mainly within a Spanish community in the UK.
However, I now know that this can not be compared to actually living in Spain and dealing with the day to day life over here.
The difference is that in the UK I knew all the Spanish people there who were connected either through family or friends and the people of my parents generation created this kind of special expat community if you like.
Everybody knows about the Spanish 'red tape' and how confusing or frustrating it can be to organize or get the simplest of things sorted over here.
Let me tell you, it gets no easier even if you speak the language fluently.
Of course it is better to be able to communicate in Spanish but by no means does this mean that it will make the process any easier or speed things along in any way.
An example of this is when I decided to begin the process for registering my UK plated vehicle in Spain to obtain Spanish number plates.
After obtaining information from the Internet and department of traffic in Malaga I had a good understanding of what I needed to do.
Getting it done however is a completely different ball game.
There is a multitude of documents that you have to present, get officially translated, paperwork to fill in and present in different places as well as vehicle engineer reports to obtain.
It is not so much a case of the quantity of things you must do.
The problem is when you try and get things done because one day someone will tell you it is done this way, the very next day someone will tell you that is not right and it is actually done like this.
You begin to feel that you are just being messed around but part of the problem lies in the fact that some people here are a law on to themselves and I have even experienced cases when they do not even know what the laws, regulations or procedures are themselves, but still happily make out that they do.
Ultimately, I had to end up getting a Gestoria who specialized in registering foreign plated vehicles to sort the paperwork out for me as I just did not have the time or any patience left in going up and down constantly and wasting hours and hours of my time, and remember, this is all while I could completely understand everything that was being said to me and requested from me.
You do of course have to pay for their services but a Gestoria is an official body who have members of their team that can get things done very quickly and that do not have to wait in the mayhem of queues at the department of traffic.
They will also take all the details they require from you just once on that day and organize everything else for you.
If you do plan to import a UK registered car into Spain remember that you do not have to pay import tax if you are a property owner and resident in Spain and the car in question has been registered in your name at least 6 months prior to buying a property.
You must also apply for registration within 30 days of declaring yourself as a resident at your local town hall known as empadronamiento, Otherwise you will be required to pay the import tax which is 7% of the estimated value of the car for engines up to 2000cc and 12% of the estimated value for engines over 2000cc.
This experience is just one example, buying a property on the other hand brought with it many different scenarios and situations including a lawyers negligence on property transfer tax that I am still fighting today, attempting to get a phone line installed, getting the electricity connected, organizing repairs on a new build property etc, etc.
None of this has been straightforward and I speak Spanish perfectly! The moral of the story is that if you are living in Spain and struggle with the language and communicating with people the way you would like to in situations such as those mentioned above then I hope you can at least have some peace of mind that even if you did talk the language you would still struggle such as I do to actually get things done.
You can not substitute being able to speak the language but moving to Spain and settling here has been harder than I imagined and I think you need to be very brave to do it without understanding the language at all.
From my perspective I also now see a significant difference between northern Spain and southern Spain that I was not aware of previously and to be honest they both have their pros and cons.
Nevertheless, I would never regret making the move and I feel very privileged to live & work in such a wonderful part of the world.
It is all too easy to think none of these problems are experienced in the UK, but they are, and I constantly have friends and family in the UK reminding me of that.
I think the solution is to try and integrate with society and just accept that the people here have a different mentality than in the UK.
Part of me still thinks they have got it right, after all, one of the things that drew me to Spain was the laid back way of life and the manana attitude that it is renowned for!
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