By Alex Watkins
BRITISH residents who spend extended periods in Spain may have to beware of new restrictions announced in the UK government Treasury’s spending review and autumn statement.
Chancellor for the Exchequer, George Osborne, said they are going to “stop paying housing benefit and pension credit payments to people who’ve left the country for more than a month”.
This is liable to impact on a number of expats who regularly spend a proportion of the year in Spain, who the British Embassy affectionately refers to as ‘swallows’.
The cost-cutting measure comes not long after the government abolished the winter fuel allowance for pensioners living in certain countries, including Spain, where the average temperature was calculated to be warmer than the hottest part of the UK.
