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. :-)

@gwynj  We've still got boxes we haven't unpacked from when we moved here 9 years ago 🤦‍♀️🤣🤣 they'll be the first ones to the tip!

@gwynj may i ask if pets are allowed in rentals, we want to move permanently but need to sell our UK house to do so, would need to bring the cats out with us

Thanks

Krysy

@morriskrysy

Depends on the rental/landlord, but having cats will definitely make it harder for you.

@morriskrysy

Having animals definitely makes it more difficult, cats even more so.  You'll almost certainly be asked for a double (ie two months) deposit.  We, reluctantly, allow one dog each in our apartments, but cats are a no-no: the office chair I'm sitting on as I type this is evidence of just how much damage a cat can do when it decides to....anyone know a manufacturer of chain mail upholserty?

My guess is, it will depend on how well behaved your cats are, and whether they are mainly indoor / outdoor cats. I can't forsee a problem if your cats are well behaved & don't pluck furniture etc. If the property in question has many applicants, some of whom are pet free, this could be the stumbling block. In my experience though,  young children cause more damage than any furries 😆.

@Krysy Rather than paying rent, another option is to see if any of the pay-monthly property sellers have anything suitable for your household.

That won't work if you want an apartment or to live in the city or want a fully renovated place only, as they tend to sell village houses in need of some work, but you'd have no problem with pets that way. Finding a city apartment or house if you have more than one cat could be challenging.

@janemulberry

The other problem with cats in apartment blocks lies in the ablution arrangements. For the most part, apartment cats are inside cats; this does lead to a rather distinctive aroma.  Bulgaria also isn't the healthiest country for animals - the crazy driving is bad enough (note to mention that I've seen drivers deliberately swerving to try to hit animals), but poisoning animals is a popular pastime with all too many people, in towns and cities as well as villages.  We live in a wooded suburb of Sofia - and what is supposedly an exclusive area, to boot -  but unfortunately cat and dog poisoning is commonplace even here; one of our neighbours also has a penchant for shooting cats with an air rifle.  Some British friends of ours live in a very rural village, but they've still lost more than 6 cats to poison in the last year or so....

You won't be surprised to hear that ours are strictly indoor cats.

That is so sad, about the cat killing.  I hope that won't be an issue when we move, because I would like our cats to enjoy a bit of freedom. Our Bulgarian neighbours all have cats who roam freely so I can't see it's likely to happen in our village.

I am well familiar with that distinctive odour! I always said I'd never have indoor cats for that reason, and somehow we now have five of them. Where we are in the UK is definitely not safe for cats. Soooo, the next thing I need to do before bedtime is to clean the litter trays, or I won't sleep. I've discovered a litter that absorbs liquid deposits so well there's zero ammonia odour. Unfortunately it's not nearly as effective with solid deposits and someone just left one.

@janemulberry

Animal poisoning is a fact of life in the Balkans and Bulgaria is no exception. A population of dogs and cats - and especially the former - is an invitation to some "people" to start putting out poison. Those who choose to live in this part of the world just have to accept that it's a risk they're taking with their pets' lives if they let them out; seeing cats and dogs out and about in a village, town or city is absolutely no guarantee that it's safe for them. Many Bulgarians have rather simple and traditional ideas about pets, one of them being that it's "not natural" to neuter  their animals - even if they then let them wander freely. The resulting kittens/puppies are usually dumped or drowned. Animal poisoning is just another aspect of life here; it's not something that most people think or talk about regularly, unless there's a sudden spike in cases and even then it becomes Yesterday's News very quickly. Town and city folk tend to pay more attention to it - and freak out when they're personally affected, even though it's usually much too late by then.

There are a few volunteer groups of animal lovers with catch-spay-release programmes around but they're chronically underfunded, especially as they also treat massive numbers of injured and abused animals. I'm not looking for bragging rights or street cred but it's lucky that my wife avoids social media like the plague: she has no idea of the amount of money from my pension that I donate to a few of these groups. Even if I were Elon Musk, I'm not sure I'd have enough money to eradicate the suffering inflicted on these poor creatures: as it is, I'm not ashamed to admit that I cry like a baby while I agonise over who most needs whatever I can spare that month.

Mr Google will give you an idea of what the situation is like, but the regular "few here and there" poisonings don't warrant any space in the media - and, bad as poisoning is, many animals are unfortunate enough to receive "personal attention" from some people. Poisonings happen in our affluent suburb, in the city parks, in EVERY town and village - and even in the middle of the national parks, where endangered animals are the intended targets, but "collateral damage" is just shrugged off by the perpetrators.

In my view, no punishment ever devised is sufficient for such folk...but they are a fact of life here and hence my indoor cats have outlived many generations of my friends' "free range" pets.

@janemulberry

We use oak* wood pellets (for pellet boilers) as cat litter; it's cheap** enough to change as often as you like, and everything in the tray is biodegradable.

*Oak pellets are better than those composed entirely/partially of pine, which can contain tars and chemicals which aren't healthy for felines.

**A 15kg sack costs c11 leva, and the empty sacks are handy around the house and garden.

Our cat adopted us as a tiny kitten, and she's now almost 12. She enjoys a combination of indoor / outdoor life in our village. Her biggest predator is the local tom cat who is a massive bully & has a big swagger 😅.  I continue to see & recognise many of the cats that have taken up residence in our area, and have never come across any instances of poisonings, I'm happy to say. I'm not naive enough to think it doesn't happen, but it doesn't seem to be an issue where we live.

@Jules999

The weird thing is that we all "know" that it only happens somewhere else, never where WE live. Then it happens to us or someone we know, and suddenly everyone's swapping stories about how it HAS been happening all along but no-one talks about it. It's not just here - it happens in the UK and elsewhere too.

Houses where we live go for €500k++ so it's not exactly a rough area, but nonetheless two of my cats were shot, fortunately not fatally. Inside cats are known to live longer and be healthier (and eat furniture 😎) and I'm not prepared to risk their lives for nothing - and poisoning is NOT a quick or pleasant way for a dog or cat to go. Not to mention that I already know what I'd do if I ever discovered just who does these things, and I'd be the one being punished for my perfectly justified actions...

@JimJ

Wealth doesn't really come into it, if somebody doesn't like cats & wants to eradicate them, then what has the cost of the properties in the area got to do with it? It certainly isn't a demonstration that you are a good person because you can afford to live in an affluent area.

I was trying in instil a sense of balance to the discussion, in that I've not come across any incidences of it, and my cat is almost 12. I recognise all the local cats, and even the local bully has been around for many years. So yes, it obviously does happen as we have all heard the stories, but it certainly doesn't happen "everywhere".

@Jules999

My point was that it's the type of behaviour one tends to associate with the "селски хора" mindset rather than city-dwellers, but it still happens everywhere.  You're clearly very lucky in your choice of domicile: there's no shortage of media reports of animal cruelty all around the Yambol area, but your village is apparently populated only by animal-lovers. I sincerely hope that you never find out that all that glisters is not gold...

It's a difficult and painful issue. Animal cruelty can happen almost anywhere, for sure. I don't doubt there is animal cruelty happening in our village somewhere, whether accidental, through not understanding the animal needs or treating them as farm animals, or nasty and deliberate cruelty. I also don't doubt it happens here in our "nice" UK market town, too.

But like Jules, I know all the local cats, and know which houses they come from.  There have been a few cats I didn't know who came to our house for food, seen for a few visits but then not again. From their condition, I judged them to be feral. It's possible those cats were killed by humans, possibly other predators. But from their appearance I suspected that they were in end stage FIV, so it seems likely they may have died from that.

We seem to be magnets for ferals in this state, we've had a few come to us here, as well, who sadly didn't last long. We did all we could for them to make their last days, weeks, or months comfortable.

It's possible our cats could become targets just because we have so many (six, and I have no doubt more will come to us). We may need to give our existing cats a fenced and protected outdoor area rather than letting them roam. Then we can help the ferals and the kittens I'm sure will be dumped on us better, too, with TNR for cats I can verify have no humans and then better nutrition to keep them healthier.

@janemulberry

If you can get away with it, I'd even consider TNR for cats who do have humans - "obeying nature" is all well and good, but the folks who advocate it invariably want nothing to do with the new life that's created or the suffering that's caused....

I would certainly talk with my neighbours about having their cats neutered (we'd pay, of course) especially as the mum cat gets older. I know my immediate neighbours do care about the kittens, though they're treated as working animals once they're big enough, rather than pets. I think the ones they don't find homes for end up being semi-feral barn cats on their farm block elsewhere in the village, but they do all get fed, and I saw how upset he was when last year's very young kittens all went missing and couldn't be found.

Turned out they were hidden away in my shed, where mum cat must have moved them during the night. My overgrown back garden gives better hunting, I suspect. When she took them back home, there was great joy.

But if they'll agree to us doing TNR on the farm cats once they're old enough and mum cat once she's a bit older, that would be a good thing. And any apparently unhomed cats who come to our food bowl will surely be candidates for TNR.

Actually, the cruellest "it's interfering with nature" I ever heard was from a British expat, who refused to have the pitiful and obviously ill little stray who came to his house and miscarried kitten after kitten spayed because he believed she "enjoyed the sex".  If I could have caught her and taken her to the vet, I surely would.