If you are in the early stages of planning a big move abroad, it is vital that you sit down and work out a solid financial budget that you can expect to pay. This will take some considerable research and there will no doubt be plenty of factors that you are bound to forget along the way.
Firstly, you need to bear in mind what the taxes and fees will be for the sale of your property in the UK, plus the purchase of the property overseas. The UK part should be fairly straight forward and your estate agent and solicitor can outline these in full to you. However, you need to make sure you hire a legal professional for the purchase of the property abroad; and remember to budget in a full survey of the house or apartment you are looking to buy.
Next, you must ascertain applicable costs for the international removals to France, Spain or wherever you are planning to move to. You need to make sure that you hire a company with a tried and tested reputation in this field and one that can provide you with every assurance when it comes to protecting all of your items in transit.
Set a substantial budget to one side for your property searching fund. This should allow you at least two or three visits to the country in which you intend to find property. Never expect the very first trip abroad to be successful: it can take several trips to the same country in order to find your perfect property.
No matter what budget you think you will have left over from your property sale in the UK, you can always guarantee that many thousands of pounds will need to be taken from this amount in order to adhere to even the most simple of financial preparations for your move abroad.