More Death & Taxes and more...

Having not been completely satisfied with the previous meeting I had about our financial stuff, I decided to go for a "second opinion". On the expat website forum I've been reading I came across the name of Montfort International so we booked an appointment to see them. They offer Saturday appointments which we found really handy.

Having arrived we sat and chatted to Geraint Davies, the owner who explained the various options and history of emigrating to Australia and then quizzed us about our affairs until he had a good understanding of our affairs and what we wanted to achieve. 

It's not just our pensions we need to take into consideration, but just about anything financial that we have interests in. But, as well as being told the nasty stuff there are also a few nice tax breaks that might be possible depending on various statuses of our situation.

After the meeting (which wasn't far off of four hours!) we both felt that we had a reasonable understanding of what we might be in for and that Geraint had a good understanding of what we want. So, we asked him to prepare some advice for us and to recommend a course of action for us to transfer our finances to Australia. 

Dates and Video Calls

My wife has given her notice in and leaves her job on 23rd January 2009. So, that seems like a good date for me to finish my UK job and then have a week in the UK to tie up any loose ends before we leave for Australia.

Once we arrive, we've decided that it makes sense to have a week to settle in which means that I'll be starting in the Sydney office on 9th February.

We're planning to stay in a hotel or serviced apartment when we arrive and then start looking for somewhere to rent once we arrive. We've been keeping an eye on the Sydney rental market and we've been told that it is a bit of a nightmare trying to find rented accommodation at the moment as the demand is outstripping supply. I guess we'll probably see what our options are nearer the time and see what happens.

We'll be looking at booking our flights and finding some temporary accommodation in the next week or so. I'm still waiting for the formal transfer to be completed by my firm, but it's all starting to become a reality.

My parents, after years of being anti-computer have decided that they are now going to get themselves online and have bought themselves a laptop. The main reason for this is to be able to keep in touch by email and video call when we're "down under".

Given that neither of them have really ever used a computer at all, they're not doing too bad. My Dad is really keen to master it and we've been making practice video calls over the last couple of weeks. I think he's pretty much got it now and is now trying to work out how to use Google Maps...