Immigrating to the UK

prod said:
True, rent is very expensive and demand is very high. I've hopefully managed to get a property now and moving in this week, but it's honestly above what I wanted to pay but at least it's pretty big (4 bedroom) and allows pets, in a nice area, so it's a place we can stay for the forseeable future.

As for alchohol, I haven't really felt like it's much more expensive, I was looking at some whiskey and the bottles here are comparetively priced to buying at Whiskeybrother in SA (although WB is usually a tad more than the others). Also helps the get the stuff from Tesco that is on sale using the card - got a bottle of Dalwhinnie Winter's Gold for £20 recently
Click to expand...

Maybe buying alcohol at home is not so bad (I dont really buy at home) but if you go to a pub, it is expensive. Go into london and you will feel it.
 
syntax said:
Maybe buying alcohol at home is not so bad (I dont really buy at home) but if you go to a pub, it is expensive. Go into london and you will feel it.
Click to expand...

Ah yea, fair enough. And agreed...that's what I meant with 'eating out' - including a drink or two at the place.
 
killerbyte said:
I meal prep for most of the month. This month I made Cottage pie and chilli con carne. With lunch portions of Bobotie.
I think I cooked around 4kg of mince.
Made 25 dinners, stored them all in those foil dishes to get when you buy takeaway lasagne.
Total cost was 60 pounds.
I spend probably another 30 pounds buying other food stuffs over the month.
Also found a nice butcher down the road that sells good pork chops.
I eat a lot of mince because I really enjoy mince, so my red meat intake has not dropped since I left SA.
Next month I am thinking Bobotie and some sort of chicken dish for dinners.
Click to expand...

Now that my monthly spend has normalized (so many hidden once off expenses as you arrive!) I'm looking around for a butcher but I did also find that some farm shops sell beef from it's farm. Not sure what to settle on, but it's quite fun shopping around and seeing what the options are.
 
prod said:
True, rent is very expensive and demand is very high. I've hopefully managed to get a property now and moving in this week, but it's honestly above what I wanted to pay.
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat. My rent is WAY above what I wanted to pay. I'm still good money wise for the next year but it does not feel nice spending this much on rent.

Can you get a mortgage with a low credit rating? I'd rather be paying for my own house (instead of someone else's) sooner rather than later.
 
Talking of rent; from what I can see, we'll end up paying around 2k for a property of decent size that we want. Something that is 3 bed and allows pets.

Not sure when we should start the search for an actual property - looking to move around end of April - so maybe start looking seriously in Jan or Feb?
 
We lucked out and got a really good rental below what we budgeted for but it was really difficult to get any agent to give us the time of day initially. Impossible before we arrived. We are now looking to get a bigger place and it is really difficult to find a 4 bedroom in our town with a garage and off street parking. Only about 2 come up a month and we don’t even get to a viewing before they are gone.
 
Paul Kemp said:
We lucked out and got a really good rental below what we budgeted for but it was really difficult to get any agent to give us the time of day initially. Impossible before we arrived. We are now looking to get a bigger place and it is really difficult to find a 4 bedroom in our town with a garage and off street parking. Only about 2 come up a month and we don’t even get to a viewing before they are gone.
Click to expand...

Why was it difficult to get an agent to give you the time of day before you moved?
 
Priapus said:
Why was it difficult to get an agent to give you the time of day before you moved?
Click to expand...
Without a rental history, or history here at all, they don’t want to make the effort to do all the checks. Much easier to deal with someone with history ‘cause then it’s just normal process. Had to drive down into town and visit every agent before we found a nice friendly group that we’re willing to help and even then it took 6 months rent up front to get the landlord to agree.
 
Paul Kemp said:
Without a rental history, or history here at all, they don’t want to make the effort to do all the checks. Much easier to deal with someone with history ‘cause then it’s just normal process. Had to drive down into town and visit every agent before we found a nice friendly group that we’re willing to help and even then it took 6 months rent up front to get the landlord to agree.
Click to expand...

Ahh okay, interesting.

My wife has rental history from a few years ago - as she's only been in SA for around 8 years. Maybe that will help.
 
Priapus said:
Ahh okay, interesting.

My wife has rental history from a few years ago - as she's only been in SA for around 8 years. Maybe that will help.
Click to expand...
Do yourself a favour when you are here on your visit and go to agents in the area you want to rent in. It was quite stressful paying short term rental fees @£1200 a week. Before we had an address we couldn’t even get our kids enrolled in school.
 
Paul Kemp said:
Do yourself a favour when you are here on your visit and go to agents in the area you want to rent in. It was quite stressful paying short term rental fees @£1200 a week. Before we had an address we couldn’t even get our kids enrolled in school.
Click to expand...

That's a good plan. We will do that next week and pop into some agents and ask. Wife just told me she hasn't got history, as it was always in someone else's name. So, that not great.
 
Anyone sold their house whilst in the UK? Mine has just been done but I need to close my city of JHB account.
The website is super unhelpful and just says I need to go into the council.

Anyone else found an electronic way to do this?
 
Paul Kemp said:
£1200 a week
Click to expand...

fkn hell, that made my eyes water for a moment. I'm only paying £210 a week for my temp accomodation although I am just one person so not comparable.

edit: and the lady I'm 'renting' from has taken pity on me lol
 
Last edited:
syntax said:
Maybe buying alcohol at home is not so bad (I dont really buy at home) but if you go to a pub, it is expensive. Go into london and you will feel it.
Click to expand...

It’s been said for years, there’s London (and environs) and then there’s the rest of Britain.

Go into most other cities and its no where near the London prices.
 
So a bit of an interesting problem I'm facing. My accountant in SA is doing my tax return for back there and SARS is asking for a UK equivalent of a tax assessment as proof that I've paid appropriate taxes here in the UK. I was under the 100k threshold for doing a tax self assessment for that year, so the automatic process did its thing for me. I'm not sure what this UK equivalent would be or where I'd find it. Any idea?
 
Messugga said:
So a bit of an interesting problem I'm facing. My accountant in SA is doing my tax return for back there and SARS is asking for a UK equivalent of a tax assessment as proof that I've paid appropriate taxes here in the UK. I was under the 100k threshold for doing a tax self assessment for that year, so the automatic process did its thing for me. I'm not sure what this UK equivalent would be or where I'd find it. Any idea?
Click to expand...
HMRC send an annual tax assessment which states your income for the previous tax year, tax paid and states whether you owe them or if they owe you.

I received mine for 2022/2023 a few weeks ago.
 
Messugga said:
So a bit of an interesting problem I'm facing. My accountant in SA is doing my tax return for back there and SARS is asking for a UK equivalent of a tax assessment as proof that I've paid appropriate taxes here in the UK. I was under the 100k threshold for doing a tax self assessment for that year, so the automatic process did its thing for me. I'm not sure what this UK equivalent would be or where I'd find it. Any idea?
Click to expand...
You can create an account with HMRC to access all your tax info if you haven’t received it via mail.
 
syntax said:
Anyone sold their house whilst in the UK? Mine has just been done but I need to close my city of JHB account.
The website is super unhelpful and just says I need to go into the council.

Anyone else found an electronic way to do this?
Click to expand...
I signed a POA with my conveyancer prior to leaving. They got my COJ deposit back on my behalf. Too like 6 months, but I did eventually get it
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X