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Can i move to scotland with a criminal record?

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Skywalker204

I just my liscense for 10 years and im not willing to stay in canada with no license. I have not served more than 4 months in jail. Is it possible for me to get residancy and a drivers license in Scotland?

Cynic

Hi and welcome to the Forum.  I see you've asked similar questions in other parts of our Forum.

The short answer to your question is assuming you're a Canadian citizen with no skill's that appear on the UK Government shortage occupation list (link here), then no, you won't get a work visa for the UK, neither will you be issued with a driving licence if you're banned in another country.

I'm pretty certain the same would apply to New Zealand as well.

Hope this has helped.

Cynic
Expat Team

stumpy

Cynic is correct regarding NZ.
You will not get any sort of visa let alone a licence.

Skywalker204

Where in the world do you recomend i try?Thanks for the response i greatly appreciate it.

Skywalker204

I am a rope access (SPRAT/IRATA level 2), red seal ectrician, cwb welder, 4th class power engineer and high angle rescue technician. Could you recommend a country that could use my skills? I was debating on buying a sail boat and just sailing around the world picking up work where i can, maybe fly back to canada and work a few months out of the year just to make a living. Im unsure of what to do, all i know is i dont want to spend the majority of my time in canada anymore.
Thanks

stumpy

As impressive as your qualifications are, your record will negate anything else. All this will come to light when your visa application is being processed.

As for buying a yacht and travelling;
They are expensive to buy
Expensive to maintain
You need to be have more than a little  sailing experience, especially lone sailing, with navigation skills etc.
Leaving your yacht in a marina is expensive

I speak from experience having sailed 70,000 ocean miles,including a circumnavigation, with offshore skippers, ocean masters and master mariners tickets for sailing vessels.

Skywalker204

Thats awesome bud, id love to one day be as experienced as yourself. Im registered to take my ASA 101 and 103 next week in Vancouver and then ill be taking my 104 and ICC in Nova Scotia early spring late winter this year. I know that wont be enough for what i want to do but i have to start somewhere. Im been saving up for this for awhile and was thinking of getting a smaller 35' cruiser when the time is right. Do you think id be ok with $50000 including buying the boat?

Cynic

I don't know much about boating; I'll leave that to others more qualified/experienced to talk about.

With regards to working, your qualifications are very Canada specific.  My son is a UK qualified electrician; he just told me that you would be able to work as an electrician, but would not be able to sign off on any work that you did, so anything you did would need to be checked/signed off by a qualified tradesman; effectively doubling your costs.  So you would need to take the UK board exams in order to work anywhere in the UK as a stand-alone electrician and sign off your work; this would probably be the same all across the EU.

There is a scheme in the UK called the  "Electrotechnical Certification Scheme"; this link will take you to their website.  It won't take away the requirement to take the UK exams, but it would formalise your non-UK qualifications and enable you to find work here should you be able to get some employer in the UK to sponsor you.  I've just checked the shortage occupation list I gave you the link to previously; there are lots of electrician type trades in there, so perhaps it's worth pursuing.

The one thing that will screw you up is your lack of a driving licence.  I can't think of any country that will ignore your previous history.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

stumpy

Would definitely need a licence to be able to drive employers work vehicles.
The fact of a criminal record will also be against the OP which he alluded to on other posts on the forum.

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