Retiring to sri lanka

Yes

Hi. I don't yet live there, but my wife is Sri Lankan and currently stuck in 'COVID-jail' awaiting her visa to the US. I have lived all over the world, and could probably shed some light on Sri Lanka. In order to help you, I would need to know your prior international experience if you are able to share a brief summary.

We rent a humble home (detached) in the region very near Gallagamuwa (sp differs....). It's low country, mostly poor, but really lovely in many respects. The house, like most in Sri Lanka, is block/brick with a tin roof, tiled floors, and a full bathroom/shower OUTSIDE the home. Understand that this is the norm.

While I can't speak to other pricing, our home, which came to us via friends, rents on an average of USD $60/month. Yes, sixty-dollars. It has a large bedroom, semi-finished garage (used to be a shop of some sort), a nice living room and nice kitchen. We have elephants in the backyard at night, and lovely birds and very naughty monkeys in the daytime.

LIke most other things in life, your housing will be impacted by your approach to finding it, i.e. come at it sideways, like an investigation during a vacation or two, and stay very low-key. Rents will be directly imnpacted by the connection landlords may make to your first-world finances.

Also-be aware that purchasing property as an expat in Sri Lanka comes with a 100% duty; you really can only get around this if one of you is a Sri Lankan national. I meet that criteria but I am really not interested in purchasing another home, so she and I rent, for now. We may buy land later.

I can't really answer your insurance question, sorry. I'm a disabled veteran and covered by our Veteran's Administration. I would assume that since you are (I assume) on the UKs National Health, there may be some sort of program but I don't have any facts. Sri Lanka is heavily UK-influenced as you know, so there may be an affinity there. Regardless, my (uninformed) opinion is the the cost would be fairly low.

My advice for you both is to NOT jump in with both feet; seems you are planning well in advance and you have time to plan things; a holiday or two to  Sri Lanka once the COVID restrictions are lifted is my best advice to you; you could make it a recce of sorts.........

Feel free to contact me anytime.

tom

***

What do you want?  What should happen to me?

Hello, we retired to Sri Lanka on the my dream home scheme 5 years ago, this gives you automatic health insurance, and certainly from the experience of some English friends of ours, one of whom sadly developed Cancer, the treatment they received was at least as good if not better than in the UK. Most of the doctors trained in the UK or Australia, so far his recovery has been excellent and his treatment quick and efficient . Though he did have to travel to Colombo for it. If you want to talk more to us we are in the UK at present so drop us an email at *** and we can chat further .
Best wishes, Sally and Jerry

Hi Tom

Thanks for your input and for being so prompt in answering my post.  Nice to hear that you have a comfortable place to live, must be great to see the elephants so close up.
Anyway, my name is Peter and my wife and I are both originally from India but have lived in the UK for over fifty years.

We were actually thinking of renting a flat or house for about 25 to 30,000 LKR.  Our budget will be roughly 303,000, do you think that will be enough to rent as well as live?  We won't be driving and our life style will be basic as we both have to watch what we eat.  No movies, drinking or eating out, just living a simple life in a lovely country.  As for insurance, i've found a site that some expats use in SL and it sounds quite reasonable.  Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Bye for now

Peter

Hi Mr Mahesh

t
Thanks for your reply, here is my phone number, XXX, we can chat on whatsapp.

Regards

Peter