This brightened my day:
I voted for Brexit. Now I face a red tape nightmare to retire in SpainNearly 10 years ago, Neil Harrington voted for Brexit. But now, approaching retirement and hoping to spend the next stage of his life in Spain, he faces a bureaucratic nightmare that did not exist for British people before the UK left the European Union.
Harrington, 57, a financial adviser, and his wife, Lorraine, who are moving from Harlow in Essex to Albox in Andalusia, southern Spain, are applying for a non-lucrative visa (NLV), which costs €500 (£435) to apply.
Maybe we should be glad that Harrington is no longer working as a financial advisor.
They must show they have at least €28,800 (£25,100) per year in income, private health insurance, no criminal record, and that they are not suffering from any rare diseases listed by the World Health Organisation.
Alright, lets break this down:
- Proof of financial means: thats either proof of having enough of a pension, or enough cash in a bank account to live in Spain for one year.
- Private health insurance. Yeah, time to shop around. This might be expensive, depending on your state of health.
- No criminal record: you can get one at acro.police.uk. Costs £70. You need a new passport photo.
- Not suffering from any rare diseases: the relevant list contains all the nasties you can think of: yellow fever, cholera, plague, Marburg, West Nile virus, the works. Time to get some blood work done, and pay for it. Might cost a couple of hundred pounds.
Oh, and all the documents need to be translated to Spanish and apostilled. Which is expensive.
But there is no "bureaucratic nightmare" here. Its all stuff you should have prepared anyway, or thats straightforward to do. It costs extra money though.
