Benefits
hi i want to move to cyprus,i have a wife and five kids and am living on benefits.im hoping to move in the next eight weeks but i dont know were to go when i get there i dont have any place to stay or how to apply for a house ,i dont want my family arriving in cyprus and living on the streets can anybody help me or give me advice
Whilst some UK benefits are transferable across the EU, most are not. As an earlier poster noted, unless you have paid into the social fund, here, you are not entitled to Cypriot State benefits. Child benefits here just about pay for a supply of pampers and doesn't cover the basics by any stretch of the imagination. It is a real struggle to raise children here outside the family network. Unless you or your partner have Cypriot heritage or connections and are familiar with the local customs, red tape and language, I would heed the advice you've received so far - you would need to be earning a small fortune to raise five children in Cyprus. The UK has many faults, but the Social Security system is not one of them. I can't think of a better place to raise a large family if you need extra state help. The Cypriot system pales by comparison, there is little social housing, very few old peoples' homes, hardly any capacity at all to deal with disabilities before we even move onto the host of other services that the UK boasts. But Cyprus only has a working population of a few hundred thousand, so it's hardly surprising that they struggle to raise the funds for the relatively poor system that is in place. In the UK ther is a population of 10s of millions capable of paying into the fund, and a government commitment to providing state care - that commitment simply does not exist here as the family unit is still incredibly strong here (and long may it continue to be so).
