New requirements for Britons wanting to move to Spain – or stay for extended periods – are so restrictive that the British expat population could decline or even disappear within 10 to 20 years.
This was the message from Costa Blanca town councillors this week, who said Britons may choose to retire to less demanding countries such as Portugal.
Full report in Friday’s Costa Blanca News – available from supermarkets, tobacconists/newspaper shops and online at www.costa-news.com
Thank you for covering this topic. Brexit has caused a lot of problems for UK people living in Spain (both full-year residents and part-year residents).
We are hoping to persuade Spain to introduce a 6 month simple visa-waiver for UK passport holders, to match the one that Spanish people now get in the UK. If agreed, this would alleviate the problems that UK second home owners (=part-year residents) are facing in Spain trying to use their homes, while still leaving the Schengen allowance untouched for use in other Schengen zone countries. This would work much better than a special visa for home owners (which Spanish people do not need in the UK).
At the same time, we are asking for those people who HAVE registered as residents to be exempted from the requirement to spend MORE than 6 months in Spain each year; most second home owners also have lives in the UK (or elsewhere) and so it’s not possible to stay for the whole year.