Chicken or egg, which comes first?!

It's hard to know how best to juggle things.

I would say you're unlikely to miss out on a property by not having a company ready to go, as most agents would understand non-EU citizens need one and it seems very unlikely that places are selling so fast that a day or two delay to get the company set up would be an issue. I believe if you pay a deposit to secure the property, there would be plenty enough time to manage the admin side before the actual notary transfer.

If you pay someone to help you with the huge amount of paperwork, company set up is a fast process. I arrived at my estate agent's office around noon one day, had the call letting me know the company was official and registered by 4 pm the next day. So it can wait. OTOH, if you know for sure you want to buy in Bg, there's no harm setting the company up first so it's one less thing to think about. The whole buying/moving process can induce that "my brain is full" feeling and one less thing to think about has a definite value!

Managing a move if you have to sell your current property to afford to buy is more complicated. The ideal would be to buy somewhere livable in Bg at a price that doesn't require you to sell your French house first, so you can move and put the French house on the market later.

Depends how you define "really cheap", but really cheap unrenovated houses in Bulgaria aren't likely to be all that livable -- maybe okay in summer if it doesn't rain too much, but only for the very hardy types in winter -- and then reselling it could be a challenge. Plus they are generally full of the previous residents' old furniture and that would need to be cleared out first even to use the dry rooms for storage.

Maybe trying this group and the expat FB forums to see if anyone has an empty but renovated place you can rent cheaply would work if selling before moving is necessary?

@ButterMyPaws19

Chicken! No, egg! Wait, chicken! Nah, never mind... :-)

Yes, I agree that moving to another country is a bit complicated and stressful.

But the Bulgarian requirement for a company (for non-EU citizens purchasing property with land) is not typically an issue. It doesn't take long for an attorney to set up the company, and I very much doubt that are many sales which fall through because of this. Sure, it adds a couple of weeks, but if you're buying with cash it's still going to be pretty quick.

I think the French property sale depends on how much cash you have without it, and what's available for that kind of budget. If you can get something nice for your spare savings, that's ideal.

I'm not wild about spending money on a house I won't live in, but I can see it might serve a function in terms of giving you somewhere to move all your belongings to when you sell the French house. It might be better to pack all your French stuff and put it in storage there for a month or two.

I think the key question is whether you like Bulgaria, and whether you can see properties that you like for your two budgets (savings only, savings + French house). We didn't sell our UK house until we'd answered those questions.

The residence permit is another area of uncertainty. You can probably get them, so it's probably not an issue. But it's nice to get it sorted. We wanted to be legal residents before we purchased (to avoid any headaches of buying and then having problems). You can do a cheap rental of a small apartment to get your permits sorted, and then you don't have to worry.

We got our attorney to get our permits, and he included a rental contract for immigration purposes. We didn't have to rent or buy anything until we had those in our hands, and we therefore knew there was no problem moving here.

Good luck!

Ahhhh thank you, we'd never even considered renting. Makes so much sense, especially as we 'think' we have some very specific requirements for the property we want to live in (probably not unusual ones but important to us) and I'm not under any illusions that there will have to be compromises), so spending time looking to make sure we get it right is important. We really want to live in Bulgaria and for us it is not a financial investment but an investment in our future, a lifestyle enhancement, building on what we tried to do here in France. Doing it that way we can get some of the other things sorted while we are looking. 😁

@janemulberry

Some really useful points, especially the renting bit, thank you ❤️

@ButterMyPaws19

We did move our stuff from the UK, but mostly because my Missus insisted. It was quite expensive, and I didn't think it was worth it. I would have happily sold our stuff on Ebay and bought what we need in Bulgaria. It also means the headache of coordinating the sale and purchase and moving of contents goes away... and it's a big headache. :-)

As a result, we did rush into a house purchase, so that the removals van had a destination... and there was a garage and garden to hide the stuff in. In some ways, being forced to choose quickly (we didn't even go see it) was a good thing, as we could easily have spent a year looking at different regions and properties. Fortunately, it worked out well, as it's a lovely house in a great village in a super location.

As well as the removals van, we stuffed the car full of stuff, and I towed a trailer (EBay purchase) full of stuff.

Most of the stuff in the van is still packed up in boxes at the house, 5 years later. I've used the TV and microwave and that's about it. :-)