There are answers to these questions somewhere, I'm sure

[mrypg9]

but I've spent an hour looking at threads for help and I thought I might put everything together here.
We're moving to the Estepona /Marbella area in December, staying in my son's house whilst we look for a suitable property for long-term rent. My son is planning to buy us a house in two-three years time.
We have sold all our property in the UK and don't want to buy in Spain. We just want to spend our capital on idle living. We are not looking for work, we have pension/investment income.
We are currently living in Prague, well, a ten minute drive from the city centre. We are paying 1450 euros a month rent for a large-ish house with a rather ancient pool and (to our horror) utility bills - electricity, pool maintenance, water, rubbish collection- come to a further 420 euros a month. The cost of food etc is quite high, considering the quality of most fresh produce and meat and dairy products is low.
Summers are OK here but winters can be harsh - three years ago we had snow from December to early April and temperatures went as low as -17C.
So it's off to sunny Spain.
Now my questions: we are hoping to rent away from the main towns for around 1000 - 1500 euros a month - is that feasible?
Roughly how much per month would we expect to pay for utilities? For a three bedroomed house with pool?
We are two adults, one very moderate smoker, one teetotaller. I don't drink much.
One of us is a fish-eating vegetarian. We have a large carnivorous dog, though.
Roughly how much can we expect to spend on groceries?
We are bringing our cars with us, both left-hand drive, purchased in Germany via a UK company, currently on UK plates and on yearly Europe-wide insurance from a UK insurer. We will register them in Spain as soon as we can. Is car insurance generally cheaper in Spain than in the UK? One of the vehicles is a fairly expensive Merc, the other a fairly old 4x4.
We will obviously need internet, mobile phone etc and I have heard that you need a Spanish bank account before you can take out contracts on these. We currently have offshore euro and sterling accounts - will these do?
I can't think of any other questions at the present time. I speak reasonably fluent Spanish and anyone who has lived in the Czech Republic will have learned to cope with bureaucracy, crazy drivers, corrupt police,cheating waiters etc etc. From my experience of Spain, limited though it is, I don't think we'll meet these problems there.
Any advice would be greatly valued.
People often assume that Central and Eastern Europe are 'cheaper' but believe me, if you want a good standard of living, that's not so.
As someone on a thread here remarked, sunshine is cheap......

[jojo]

well I cant answer all your questions, but I'll have a go at the ones i think I know the answer to

I think your budget for rent is fine, rental prices seem to be dropping at the moment, although Marbella/Estepona are the expensive end of Spain, so you maybe at the top end of your budget for what you want????????

Utilities: we've just had our electricity bill, we have a four bedroom villa with a pool and we run on only electric and our bill for 2 months was 180 euros (bare in mind things like air con use a fair bit in the summer), I dont know what the water bill is (my husband deals with that), but it isnt dear. Thats all we pay for on top of our rent. Gas (if you have it) is I think bought by the bottle, I'm not sure, but I think a small bottle costs around 14 euros.

My food bill: Thats for me, two children, three small dogs and a husband who's here half the time (he commutes) Its usually around 100 - 120 euros euros a week, cigarettes are very cheap 2euros a pack and alcohol is cheap too, I've seen it as low as 0.95 euros and its not bad. Food is going up with inflation, but its a gradual thing.

Petrol and diesel are all over the place but cheaper than the UK. The beginning of the summer it went up to 1.33 euros, but has now dropped to 1.13 euros. when i first moved here in Feb it was 1.04 euros

To get a contract on a mobile phone or to make any big purchases, sort car out etc you must have an NIE number, which you get from your local town hall when you move here. Its not expensive, but involves filling in forms and a bit of waiting around. We took a gestor with us when we got ours, who made the process a lot easier.

Thats about all I can tell you, but its a start!!

Jo

[Stravinsky]

Our water bill is between €40 - €80ish per quarter depending on time of year as we lose water from the pool in the summer.

Our "council tax" is €400 a year, but of course that will vary area to area and on property size

Your car will need to be matriculated to Spanish plates as soon as you move here with the intention to reside .... I think you have 30 days, and whilst on UK plates here it MUST be legal in the country of registration, i.e. MOT

You'll need NIE's and residence certificates

.......... and at the moment some wellies and raincoat as its thunder, lightening, driving rain and wind here at the moment

[jojo]

Originally Posted by Stravinsky

Our "council tax" is €400 a year, but of course that will vary area to area and on property size

Our "property tax" is incorporated in our rent, so we dont pay it ourselves, our landlord does. However, compared to the UK it is so cheap - and we get our bins emplied every day, with no restrictions or hassle!!!

Jo

[SunnySpain]

Hi there and welcome to the forum,

I think you should get a decent sized house with a pool for your budget

We spend 100 Euros a week on food shopping (on average) and our utility bills are very reasonable E.g. Electricity, Gas and Water = 150 Euros each two months, but we don't have a pool or Air con

Community tax is 400 per year, but as Stravinsky has correctly pointed out, this varies depending on where you live.

You do need to change your plates to Spanish ones.

Regards, Dave
PS. Estepona is quite nice, we liked went their in June and liked it.

[mrypg9]

Thaks, Jo. You've been very helpful. We could spend more on rent but we've seen quite a few properties with pool for less than 1000 euros a month, but admittedly that was more towards the Malaga area.
It seems from your post that two adults plus dog could live comfortably on 1500 euros a month, including utilities, petrol but excluding rent. We won't be making lots of car journeys. We do need to be fairly near to an airport as until the end of July 2009 I shall be flying roughly twice a month to London - it has to be Heathrow so I can't use budget airlines. Gibraltar seems the best bet for regular BA flights at convenient times. We live about ten minutes from Prague airport so we've been used to easy access when flying anywhere. When we first came here, we didn't notice any aircraft noise but in the last few months it's become very intrusive.
We are fairly open-minded about exact location but want to be within half to an hour's drive from Cancelada, which is roughly halfway between Marbella and Estepona. We don't want to be on the coast, about 30km inland would be fine. We don't want to be in an urbanication, however small. A house on the edge of a town or village is what we'd really like.
It seems that most longterm rental contracts are for eleven months - is there usually an option to renew? We don't want to be perpetually carting our considerable amount of household possessions and furniture from house to house for the next couple of years!
If you know of anyone with a property to rent long term to very considerate and respectable tenants, please let us know.
Thanks again for your advice.

[littleredrooster]

If you wish to stay warm through the Winter,dont go too far inland.
30km could be too far in most inland areas, which are on much higher ground.

[mrypg9]

Originally Posted by littleredrooster

If you wish to stay warm through the Winter,dont go too far inland.
30km could be too far in most inland areas, which are on much higher ground.

Thanks, that's helpful.
And thanks to everyone for advice. Any more helpful tips would be very welcome.

[mrypg9]

Another question? What's the crime rate like around the Marbella/Malaga area? Here in Prague pickpocketing and 'mobbing'- four or five people crowding round you - on public transport is rife but not usually violent. Burglary seems rare.
We've managed to fend off five attempts in three years - fortunately only curses and threats wre needed...

[jojo]

Originally Posted by mrypg9

Another question? What's the crime rate like around the Marbella/Malaga area? Here in Prague pickpocketing and 'mobbing'- four or five people crowding round you - on public transport is rife but not usually violent. Burglary seems rare.
We've managed to fend off five attempts in three years - fortunately only curses and threats wre needed...

I'm in the Malaga region and I'm sure crime goes on, it does everywhere, I've not experienced any and I dont know anyone that has. I dont know any facts or figures, but i feel safe enough.

That said, I read the local newspapers here and pick pocketing is occasionally mentioned and the odd burglary. I dont think its wildly out of control!?!

Jo