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I have put my own business on hold since February when I first started to research my latest move and hope to be back working again at the end of July. There have been many ups and downs along the way. The most time consuming was obtaining a visa for `Citizens returning to the UK with Foreign wives, unless they were earning over eighteen and half thousand pounds a year no visa would be approved, on top of this the visa costs were an additional six thousand pounds.
I have however learnt under an European Economic Area treaty workers have free movement to work and live in any treaty country, so all I need to prove was that we had made Cyprus our family home. Armed with this information my family were duly issued with a free entry permit into the UK.
Now I thought arranging our travel would be a simple matter, but came across a strange difficulty concerning booking a hire car for when we arrive in Birmingham on 1st July. We tried booking a car via Monarch Airline, however when I read the small print it said that when I presented my voucher to Europcar, I would need to present my driving license plus two supporting documents confirming my address as shown on my license, plus a credit card. now I have a problem with this as my license address is not up to date and I do not possess a credit card. so I phone Cartrawler(the Agent for Monarch) and queried this requirement, they informed that was Europcar requirement, so I cancelled the hire. I then made a booking with Europcar direct via their website and discovered that all I needed was a valid license and debit card, which I also confirmed via an online help chat with an agent.
Perhaps the most difficult part is house hunting, I have been using Zoopla for my main research however the estate agents who advertise do not respond to enquiries which means I will have to wait until I am physically back in the UK and can go banging on doors.
Finding short term accommodation whilst we continue to search for a suitable school and place to live was a little easier although we did still run across people who did not respond to requests for information. Communications with your potential customers is essential if you wish to operate an online business, and I continue to be surprised that website owners often fail on this point.
The countdown to our move is in it's finally month, and its time to deal with taxation, so visited the Tax Office to inform them I was leaving the country. The office could not find my Tax return and payment details on their and said I would need to submit 2014 return again and compete 2015 tax return before I left. I Replied that that as I was leaving before 182 days I was not liable to pay tax this year and I would bring in a copy of my receipt for 2014. I then contacted the UK tax office and updated them on my change of country, so that they could calculate a new tax code from July.
There are many tasks that need to be considered when moving house and I believe that I am ahead of the game so far with not much more to accomplish until we find a place to live. Credit checks might be a problem as we have been absent getting on for 15 years and do not use credit. We have identified one potential home and will need to wait to see if it is still on the market in a months time. Also have applied for one job opportunity, which improve our finances and recoup cost of moving.
