First British Serial Rights

(This book was written in 1991, the first copy sold in 1994, and updated in December 2001 to be offered free as an ebook)

Aim - to go abroad to make money and not come back broke.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Challenge

Chapter 2 - Fallacies

Chapter 3 - Where you can save - or lose out

Before you go

Chapter 4 - Planning short-term

Chapter 5 - The answers and how to assess them

Chapter 6 - Long-term planning

Chapter 7 - Cashing up at home

Getting there

Chapter 8 - Moving

Chapter 9 - The trip

First steps

Chapter 10 - First priorities in your new country

Looking around

Chapter 11 - Monitoring your UK investments

Chapter 12 - Family commitments

Chapter 13 - Boredom

Chapter 14 - Temptations - that holiday home in the sun

Where next?

Chapter 15 - Moving on

Chapter 16 - Really settling in

The last move

Chapter 17 - Home to the UK for good

Chapter 18 - Retiring abroad

Glossary

`£50,000 a year taxfree! Generous living allowances! Terminal bonus! Free accommodation! Unlimited sunshine!'

Who could resist? Not George grinding gears in the daily trafficjam under leaden skies to a job no longer stimulating. Or young Kevin, splashing up the hill to the same grim workplace.

George, John's boss, was a senior civil servant in his forties. He supported a hefty mortgage, an educated wife and teenage family. His dream? A country hotel. A sociable life as `mine host' and a comfortable income bolstered by investments.

Kevin, John's younger colleague had never dared risk a day-trip to Calais. In his early twenties, his only tie was a rented council flat. With no assets, the lure of big money proved magnet enough.

So off they flew - and dozens more like them. In fact, half John's colleagues upped and offed. For the money. So they said. And the result?

Fifteen years on, George lurches from one brief contract to another. His age makes each more difficult to secure. He has accumulated no savings because of his developed taste for whisky at £50 a bottle. Forget the hotel. His conversation now centres on booze and its illegal production. The climate too has exacted its toll. But George must sign on again somewhere scorching because he cannot hope to land a job in Britain. Retirement looms. Yet where is the generous pension to cushion it?

And Kevin? He staggered home with a nervous collapse after three months of hell.

Thousands more could confess the same financial failure. Skint returnees are widespread. Hollywood glamorises the brave wagontrains crossing the prairie. Did you know that one third of all immigrants skittled back to Europe? (Footnote - Longman's History of the United States of America by Hugh Brogan published by Guild Publishing page 413 `Perhaps a third of the entire number went back to Europe.' He is describing the boom period 1815-1914) And how many more would - if they could have scraped together the fare? Never mind the thousands who stayed put rather than return to persecution or starvation.

Not convinced? If you think those were a different sort of emigrant, just consider this. Between 30 and 80% of employees sent to work abroad nowadays by American firms return home early. At a financial loss to all concerned. The figure for European employers is 15% (Footnote - Source Nexus June 1990 p 20)

Your venture must not flop like that. And it need not. Good planning can turn it into, if all else fails, a financial success.

We changed countries twice. Once to work, once to retire. We have sampled the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern. An underdeveloped country (New Zealand - yes it is an underdeveloped country) and an advanced one (France). We have investigated a move to others, like Australia and Spain. In between, we tasted life in an expatriate (footnote Expatriates or expats are British people who live and normally work abroad) seaside colony. Before and during, we watched relatives, friends and work-colleagues span the globe. Their experiences proved vital.

Multiple shocks and disappointments rained down of course. With pleasures and surprises to compensate. Whatever else we lost, it was not money. We retired, as planned, at forty. We still live abroad, with six planned years to go before we draw a pension. We still love it after thirteen years. Such a life would be unaffordable if we had not taken the plunge to become expats.

Sheer luck? Not entirely. Not every couple combines the expertise of an economist, an ex-Inspector of Taxes and an investment adviser. Never mind a down-to-earth, tackle-and-repair-anything handyman who is technologically and scientifically literate! What we have learnt, we can now share with you.

Moving abroad is an exciting leap into the unknown. Once taken, you can never be the same again. But you should take it one hand firmly gripping your wallet. So many friends and colleagues suffered because they did not. For the reasons why - and to avoid their mistakes - turn to the next chapter.

How can anyone avowedly `in it for the money' still neglect his finances? Easy. Any one of the following six statements will suffice.

1. `I'm a computerman/engineer/oilman, not an accountant'. So you leave the dull `cash side' to your wife/girlfriend/secretary who probably knows even less. Or trust to salesmen and less-than-professional advisers who satisfy their interests, and commissions, before yours.

2. `Later. Don't bother me now. I'm snowed under with bureaucracy, immigration, visas, medical.' As chapter three will show, you must take vital, binding decisions at each stage. If you are serious about money, it must come first.

3. `The salary's vast. It will be ample.' Then you slowly watch it shrink. After reading chapter four you might well have revised your ideas about what you are actually being offered.

4. `My workmates'll know the ropes - they'll put me right.' About your job, about the country, sure. Their advice is vital. But how comfortably are they really sitting financially? Perhaps they jog along with a full wallet, but do they even have any long-term goals? If so, do they know how to achieve them? And monitor their progress meantime?

When you have finished this book and discovered all the services offered to expats, some helpful, some not, you will realise you have joined a very sought-after group. Insurance salesmen pursue expats around the globe, like sharks. So do tax advisers and property salesmen. Hundreds of home-based people hope for a share in your earnings too. Their businesses are based on it.

5. `The company'll look after me.' American companies in particular may adopt a paternal attitude. Nice as long as you do not allow it to stifle your initiative or commonsense. And it has limits. Perhaps you read about the company wife whose husband was sent to South America? He fell victim to a beautiful Hooker for God and vanished for all time into a commune. She announced confidently that the company which had got him into this mess, would get him out and return him to her intact with compensation. She is probably still waiting.

6. `Once I'm abroad, it's two fingers to the Inland Revenue.' Sorry. Life is not so simple. Not only may you have a new revenue service to contend with but the old one will keep looming up. You may receive tax bills for income arising in the UK, or your income - company dividends say - may have already suffered UK tax before you get it. If you return at the wrong time, or too often, all your foreign salary can fall victim. Throughout the book you will find references to the Inland Revenue and how to minimise their demands.

So much for the fallacies. In the next chapter, we shall explain just when and how that fabulous salary, never mind the capital you may have already built up throughout your career, can fritter through your fingers. And how to prevent it.

There are six crucial times for decision-making. Each determines how much you will achieve from your stay abroad.

1. Before you leave the UK

2. en route

3. as you settle in - the first month or two

4. as you get established

5. when you move on

6. when you come back to the UK to work or retire

Before you leave the UK

In chapter four, we outline the basic financial planning every leaver should do, however footloose and asset-free they may be. Facts will be thrown at you from all directions. Chapter five helps you assess them. The next chapter covers long-term planning for those who already enjoy assets and commitments in the UK. Chapter seven advises on cashing-up before you jet off.

See chapter eight to plan your move. Then nine for economies on the trip over.

Chapter ten highlights and resolves your urgent priorities on arrival.

Once you can draw breath and look around, you are free to pursue your main aim. You are in it for the money remember? Chapter eleven covers monitoring your UK investments and planning towards your long-term goal. Chapter twelve considers family commitments and how to stop them undermining both. The next section deals with a major expatriate handicap and money-stealer - boredom. And chapter fourteen another - the temptations for fun investments that result.

In chapter fifteen we cover getting yourself, money and chattels out intact for pastures new. Alternatively, we devote the following chapter to some of the decisions to be faced if you decide to put down roots permanently.

Chapter seventeen shows how best to return to the UK to maximize the benefits of working abroad. Finally, for those pleasure-lovers who, like us, prefer a sunnier climate, chapter eighteen helps expats who plan to retire abroad.

Equally important, we stress throughout the decisions to defer. And when the time is ripe for a review. You do not want to get locked into some long-term commitment, savings plan or whatever, snapped up in the scramble of leaving. Or before you could see the full picture. Or even taken out in holiday-mood euphoria.

We expats cover a broad spectrum. Into which slot or slots would you fit yourself?

1. the Adventurer - Are you footloose, invariably optimistic, single, in your twenties say, just qualified? Your only asset is your toothbrush.

2. the Snail - Are you older, with dependants, usually a wife and children, to consider? Your good career record has earned you a house, a cushioned lifestyle and a healthy bank balance. It has also taught you caution. You have existing pension arrangements to consider.

3. the Opportunist - You don't honestly fancy a foreign life. One quick trip then back home will enable you to launch out on what really interests you.

4. the Emigrant - the genuine grass-is-greener lock-stock-and-barrel variety. In your view, England is finished. You can only see a future for yourself and your children somewhere more dynamic.

5. the Bulldog - like the Geordie building lads in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, you are British-and-proud-of-it. But until your area picks up, you must leave the wife and kids in the UK. Meantime, you labour with your mates on a series of contracts abroad.

Not only are we a mixed bag but we Brits, Poms, expats spread everywhere. From `Greenland's Icy Mountain To Afric's Coral Strand.' How can one book hope to help the lot?

Firstly, everyone leaving Britain faces the same Inland Revenue, DSS etc. And broadly the same financial problems. Equally, the same investment opportunities and challenges. Once you have decided which type of expat you are, you know where you interests lie and can dip into the chapters you need.

How the book aims to help each

1. The Adventurer might snatch blindly at the first job offer, although he would do better to read chapter four first. He should certainly be interested in reaching his destination cheaply. as discussed in chapter eight. Once his salary starts to build up, he will want to find a profitable home for it. Especially if, on looking round objectively, he decides expat life is not what he qualified for. He may then aim to accumulate capital to set up a practice or business at home. The sort of planning recommended in chapter eleven is vital for this.

2. the Snail has initially, the most to lose. He will need to work steadily through the whole book to preserve what he has achieved so far. And to build on it.

3. the Opportunist has a clearcut goal. He must still take care not to sell himself short when choosing a job. Also, to plan things to take advantage of his brief respite from the Inland Revenue. He will monitor his investments both in the UK and abroad to ensure he is progressing towards his goal. For him too, virtually the whole book requires close attention.

4. the Emigrant must take great care at the planning stage. That means chapters four to eight inclusive. He will only leave Britain once. Just one attempt at a successful launch. And his means are probably limited.

5. the Bulldog on the series of contracts suffers the most disruption in his life. He needs all the help he can get, especially at the fraught `moving on' stage (chapter fourteen). Primarily, he needs his money to live on. Beyond that, he would like to build up some nestegg to justify his and his family's sacrifices.

Brits find a million and one reasons to work abroad. You plan to broaden your experience. Or acquire new skills or languages. Some intend to use skills no longer in demand where they live. Many hope to have a good time. And build up a nest-egg.

Others aim to help a developing country. Many aid agencies now admit they get better results from an older worker paid an adequate salary. His experience outweighs the misdirected energy and enthusiasm of an unpaid or cutprice youngster. It would insult an idealist to suggest he is abroad `for the money'. Nonetheless, he should know how to arrange his affairs to protect himself and his family from the many ways in which an expat can lose out.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, some expats volunteer to bite the bullet. Eyes open, they sacrifice a few years of their life in some hellhole to get together really big money.

The opportunities still abound. This book aims to help you to recognise and seize them. And dodge the pitfalls. The last thing we want is for you to crawl home broke. After all your hard work and frustration. With only cirrhosis and the odd tropical bug as legacies. And the nagging knowledge that you earned top money. Chapter four is designed as your first step on the road to durable riches.

What are you going abroad for? Of course, we all conjure up umpteen reasons to justify what we fancy doing. Seven were listed in the last chapter. Here are others, commonly heard.

- My mates are going. They came back flush last time. It sounds a profitable lark.

- I'm stifled. The missus, kids, neighbours are all getting me down.

- I'm bored.

- I'm stuck in a rut. Life is too easy. (That was our excuse.) I need some adventure and new challenges.

- I have no choice. It is go abroad or join the dole queue. My skills are obsolete round here. My industry has been wiped out.

- I have no choice. I am being sent by my company to assist one of their overseas branches.

Very few people really face no choice - if only refusal. You may point out, when you have done the calculations in this chapter, that what your company offers is not fair recompense. Let alone tempting. Even for a willing employee. Can they improve their terms? And, on mature reflection, and with an enhanced view of you, they may agree.

The luckiest among us will be spoilt for choice. Bemused even. British skills still rate among the best in the world. Most countries welcome our expertise. This is not boasting. It is sober fact. Working with, or under, a few foreign-trained `experts' will soon convince you. Their boundless confidence arises from the fact they do not know enough to know what they don't know. They never expect anything to go wrong - and they don't know how to react when it does. As employees, especially trouble-shooters and progress-chasers, our British pessimism stands us in good stead. We call it `realism'.

From the financial point of view, you have seven major factors to consider. Namely, wages, perks, the way of life, the quality of the employers, the length of stay expected, the time constraints, the new expenses it will entail for you. We will look at each in turn.

This brings us into the realm of foreign currencies* (footnote - Items marked * are included in the glossary), exchange rates* and exchange controls*.

We make no apologies for going back to basics. Not after the saga of the computer highflier who applied to join John's project. He was interviewed and appointed. Months on, immigration cleared, his preparations for leaving the UK were far advanced. Then out of the blue, he called the whole thing off. Why? He had misread the ad. The salary was quoted in New Zealand dollars. He thought that was the same thing as US dollars! When he, horrified, divided the figure by two, he was no longer interested.

foreign currency

Virtually every country issues its own notes and coins. That is its currency. It will be used inside the country. As a visitor or resident, you will need to buy and use it too. You can buy foreign currency in Britain in a bank, travel agent or in some building societies. Alternatively, in Britain or abroad, you use a Bureau de Change.

exchange rate

How many pounds you need to pay for your foreign currency depends on the exchange rate. So does the number you receive when you change back what you did not spend or what you want to send back to the UK to feed the wife and kids. There is a different rate for each currency in relation to each other. These rates vary many times every day. Why? Supply and demand.

The more British sunseekers want Spanish pesetas, the more they will have to pay for them. Just like at an auction. Equally, the more Spanish farmers want pounds to buy British Landrovers, the more pesetas they will have to part with for their pounds.

You will also find different exchange rates quoted between the same two currencies. You can only hope for Tourist Rates if you are changing bank notes or travellers cheques*. For large international transfers of money between banks, you should aim to get the Interbank Rate, which is usually more generous.

It is easy to get muddled with exchange rates. Here is a quick way to decide if the rate offered is good or bad for you.

Perhaps the bank will offer you 210 pesetas to the pound and the travel agent 200. Which is better for you? It depends whether you are buying or selling pesetas. Call the pesetas `cigarettes'.

Suppose you are buying. Which would you rather get, 210 `cigarettes' for your pound or 200? Easy. You want 210. So that is the better rate for you.

If you are selling your `cigarettes' would you rather part with 210 for a pound or 200? Easy. You want to part with as few as possible. So 200 is the better rate for you.

Now how does this relate to the salary in the ad? Consider the exchange rate. You can find out today's figures by phoning a travel agent or bank, looking at teletext, a satellite tv channel or consulting the internet. Or yesterday's figures and the changes in the day from a quality newspaper.

Some currencies are stable, that is their value stays relatively unchanged. Others are volatile. Their value bounces up and down like a yoyo. A salary that looks marvellous when you get 100 camels to the pound, looks sick when the rate nosedives to 75.

To find out the details, go to a library. The financial press will show you how much a currency has varied over the last year or two. Generally the more underdeveloped a country is, or dependant on agriculture or selling its raw materials, the more volatile its currency.

The leading, stable so-called `hard' currencies are the American dollar (not to be confused with the Hongkong, Singapore, Australian or any other dollar), the Swiss Franc (not to be confused with the French or Belgian Franc) the German Mark, the pound sterling (that is our currency and not to be confused with the Irish punt or any other pound) and debateably the Japanese Yen. Even these may change 1 or 2% a day! (Footnote From 1.1.2002, the German Mark should form the backbone of the Euro, the new currency for 12 members of the European Union. Whether it will be as stable as the Mark remains to be seen. Obviously the more weak currencies from other countries join the Eurozone, the less likely this is.)

If you are being offered a job in a country whose exchange rate fluctuates more and the salary is quoted in local currency, look at the monthly rates over the last year and calculate what it would mean to you in gross, never mind take-home pay.

When we lived in New Zealand, one week you might pay $NZ2.5 to buy £1 and the next $NZ3.25. If we had been sending the money back to the UK, we would have remitted £10,000 one week and a miserly £7,692 the next. That level of floundering, although unsupportable on a personal level, is moderate by international standards.

Many salaries are now quoted and paid in US dollars to get over the problem. Otherwise expat workers left in droves whenever the exchange rate changed. (Chinese waiters in British restaurants rushed back to Hong Kong for example.)

Some people think exchange rates only matter if you want to return your wages to the UK. Not so. If you live abroad and spend every last penny as you go, the exchange rate still affects your cost of living* because many of your essentials are imported.

Back to the job ad. Even converted into sterling, the offer still looks great. Next question - how will you be paid? Cash, cheque, or into a bank account? A bank local to that country or one abroad (bearing in mind that `abroad' now includes Britain)? Some employers pay partly in local currency (to give you spending money) and partly in foreign currency, direct to a bank of your choice anywhere in the world. This can offer real opportunities. Why?

Exchange rates change all the time between all the currencies. The peseta may increase in value against the dollar if hundreds of Americans decide to fly to Spain for the Olympic games and Columbus year. On the very same day, the peseta may decrease in value against the pound. British visitors may cancel in droves after a series of Basque separatist bomb attacks.

Helen had one client working in the Persian Gulf. He was paid partly in local currency into the next-door Arab bank, partly in US dollars to a bank account in the Bahamas and partly in pounds sterling into a deposit account in the UK. Every time the dollar increased in value against the pound, he could transfer money from dollars to pounds and vice versa and boost the value of his savings...

So your figure still sounds good. But will you receive it? You may find strings attached to a terminal bonus say. They stipulate such impossible conditions that no one could satisfy them. Many expats now offer to trade a possible terminal bonus again a definite increase in basic pay.

When will you get paid? Every delay is a loss to you. Not just in interest foregone, but also because the exchange rate may turn against you. More urgently, what do you live on in the meantime?

Can you send your money out of the country at will? This leads us on to

exchange controls*.

These are the rules each country makes about how much of its own and other currencies people - nationals and foreigners - can take out of the country or bring in. Normally a government is quite happy for people to import foreign currency but very wary about letting their own currency escape their control.

Exchange controls make it tougher for people to shunt their money around the world. Common reasons for such shunting are to hide the profits of crime, drugs money and bribes and evade tax. Controls hinder people trying to import foreign goods which may damage home industries and cause inflation. Naturally there are always loopholes. The most widespread at the personal level is the use of international credit cards abroad.

Perhaps you have a hankering to teach in Poland? Fine. But do not expect to support your family back in the UK. Still less bring home a nestegg. What you earn, you must either spend in the country or leave behind when you return.

Britain abolished exchange controls completely some years back so you will have no difficulty taking all your cash out. Some other countries may have abolished them on paper, but still make difficulties in practice. You may have to supply a good reason to change your money. Perhaps you need advanced surgery and would prefer to return to a British hospital rather than risk acting as guinea pig in the local one. A good reason to you, but not to them. (New Zealand performed its first heart transplant operation twenty years after Dr Christian Barnard. `What took them so long?' he huffed when asked to comment.)

One super salary versus two small ones?

If you are a couple who both work, you will appreciate that a mammoth salary for one is not so wonderful if it arises in a place where the other cannot work.

Amanda, for instance, accompanied her husband to a strict muslim country. Although she was a nurse, she could not work in a hospital. Not even with fluent arabic. The locals considered nurses to be prostitutes and it was not safe. She lived in a luxury hotel but dared not leave its grounds. Amanda could not even risk a taxi to a shop unless her husband went with her. Why? Any taxidriver regarded an unveiled woman as fair game. It was illegal for women to drive cars themselves.

Amanda made few friends and saw the same bored wives every day. Poolside life soon palled. There was little else to do when the temperature rarely fell below 40 all year round. Her husband earned big money but much of it vanished on illegal scotch at £30 a bottle.

The same problem would have arisen if Amanda had been a teacher of German in Germany, or of French in France. Or of English in either. Why? Such jobs are reserved for nationals, despite the EU. How? By impossible `competence' or `nationality' tests.

Who are the top payers? International bodies like the United Nations offer the best jobs. Their astronomical salaries are based on what Americans would earn. If that is not tempting enough, they are backed up by lavish expenses and the whole lot comes taxfree, worldwide. Naturally there is much competition for such jobs. Normally, they are awarded, not on merit, but on a quota basis to nationals of the countries who belong. The degree of experience required may well rule out applicants under thirty-five.

So you are still overjoyed with the salary. One final question. What do they expect for their money? Will you be paid by the hour? Are working hours specified at all? For some countries an eight hour day is considered part-time. What about paid overtime?

And holidays? Do you get European or Islamic holidays? Don't expect the European average of four to six weeks annual holiday elsewhere. Canada and New Zealand are just two of the countries that make do with three weeks. Many workers in the United States are entitled to two. Worse, they dare not take it all for fear of showing lack of keenness.

How far in arrears is the salary paid? Often three months is considered normal. Have there been any salaries not paid recently? In what circumstances?

`I wouldn't dare ask questions like that,' gasps the hopeful job applicant.

`You'd better,' growls the old hand. `And check the answers off against your contract later.'

To attract you, the foreign employer may dangle perks. Like free accommodation, free luxury travel out and back and for holidays, generous cost-of-living allowances. On top, he provides free modern medical facilities or free insurance that flies you home in case of medical emergency. Maybe payment towards boarding school for the children. He may offer `accompanied status' where the perks, accommodation etc covers the family too.

Where an employer offers a tax-free salary it is usually not. The employer pays you more on paper and hands over the difference to the local or even the UK IR. Rare exceptions are the international agencies mentioned before. And oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia which need no income tax. Yet...

The standard of what you actually receive may vary wildly, even if you get it. Clearly, you can and should ask detailed questions at the interview(s). Even so, you are only entitled to what is written in your contract. Many interviewers can provide accommodation details and even photographs. There is still no substitute for talking to someone who has already worked for that employer.

If you are offered a living allowance, you need to ask the following, with tact. What exactly is it intended to cover? What currency will it be paid in? Does it continue during leave periods? Is it paid weekly or monthly? Again, once you have done your sums, you may want to negotiate for more.

Wherever you work, it is almost certain you will need transport. Will your employers be providing it? What about private use? Is it shared? Who pays for what, including insurance? If you have accompanied status, your wife and family may well need independent transport too. Who pays?

A deluge of questions. But you are still far from determining whether what you have been offered is a good deal.

Broadly the world splits into two. Countries where you can enjoy a full life, perhaps even in luxury as a pampered minority, have the rest of the world at the tips of your fingers with the internet, you can travel around freely and generally please yourself. And countries where you grit your teeth, wonder how you ever dared to criticise Britain, and concentrate on the next paycheque.

Why? Because the climate and/or the local customs keep you a virtual prisoner. Alone or living in a ghetto of other expats.

Many expats willingly work for decades in countries ravaged by war. The British Ambassador may have packed his bags years before. Or had them packed for him. Yet these Brits work on unmolested. They are protected by the local government because their task is so vital for the host country. Like maintaining the output of oil it depends on. The expats know the risks they run. They expect rewards to match.

Helen helped one client who carried a homeward-bound air ticket with him day and night. He lived prepared to be shot at and poised to run for cover. An undercover agent? No. Simply an insurance loss adjuster assessing sunk shipping in the midst of a Middle Eastern war.

These expats form one end of the spectrum. To avoid joining them unintentionally or at a low price, ask your UK insurance man if he could arrange a life insurance policy in that country! A dusty answer speaks volumes. Watch his face if you mention Chad, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Angola, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Libya, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guatemala, Haiti or Kampuchea. And there are others...

Women working abroad have a much narrower range of countries to choose from than men. Employers will not engage them. (It may be against their religion for men to take orders from a woman, never mind their customs.) Or, if they do, the job itself comes as an eye-opener.

How many dancers, cabaret artists, hostesses, receptionists, masseuses, female croupiers find they are employed as prostitutes and left destitute when they refuse? If you expect `British-style' treatment girls, do not look far beyond northern Europe, North America or Australia.

For such reasons, the vast majority of earning expats, heads of households or not, are male and we have written this book to reflect that. Obviously women alone do hold down truly international jobs. The sort where life is travel and work is a series of short-term contracts, even one-night-stands worldwide. Like singers, musicians, film-crews, actors, war correspondents, translators, diplomats even. Such people, male or female - we would call them cosmopolitans rather than expats - cannot sit still long enough to benefit from this, or any other book. And are usually fleeced rotten by their regiment of agents, promoters, advisers as a result.

To return to the lifestyle of the country you are considering, the employer may be advertising because none of the locals will touch the job for that low salary. Britons in some countries provide cheap labour as second-rate citizens. Just like Turks do in Germany or the Portuguese in France.

Helen once watched a fellow Inspector of Taxes sign a statement to certify that a man earned £5,000 last year. That represented twice the average British wage at the time. The authorities in the oil-rich country where he now worked could not believe any white man could really earn so little. They wanted official confirmation.

Lifestyle is a vague thing, difficult to quantify. Yet it may well decide whether you take the family with you or not. Countries leapfrog each other. One state may be Stone Age in one respect. Yet more advanced than you are used to in another. The only thing you can guarantee is that every single thing will be different. If we told you what a saga it was to order a bottle of milk in New Zealand... What a rigmarole to take out a library book...

One guideline to the value of your wage is the cost of living* in the country concerned. A fabulous sum will hardly keep a roof over your head in Switzerland. A low salary swells mysteriously in New Zealand when you find out what it will buy and the restricted goods on offer.

Newspapers often print comparative tables of the various countries. Or you can ask your local librarian to find out for you.

Equally important is the rate of inflation*. We all know that is the rate at which prices rise and that every country juggles its figures to make it appear as low as possible. If your chosen spot admits to yearly inflation into three - occasionally four figures - you dare not accept a salary paid in local currency. Or living expenses either. Again the librarian can find you tables produced by the financial press.

The climate also determines many major expenses like heating. Are there no-go areas, official and unofficial? What about the crime rate? In some locations, every expat finds petty larceny a pest second only to mosquitoes. What restrictions are there on non-locals? Many countries forbid foreign citizens to buy property, even houses, or run businesses. Certain parts of the country may be forbidden to them. In others by contrast, like New Zealand, you will even be allowed to vote.

Is there already a large established expatriate community? If so, and it is the ginswilling club brigade, or bolstered by free-spending Americans, it will cost you to keep up.

What is in the shops? The less the better from a savings point of view. The worse from the lifestyle side. How do you plan to live? Will you eat British-style food or native? If the former, everything you want from breakfast tea to bedtime cocoa has to be imported especially. So it will come expensive. You can watch that wonderful salary and generous living allowance disappear with each mealtime forkful. Or gurgling down your throat if you decide to defy the law in a country officially `dry'.

Many staples will be unobtainable. Forget breakfast bacon and pork chops in Muslim countries or Israel. Others will disappear from the shops due to regular hiccups in supply.

No matter how broadminded you claim to be, will you honestly be satisfied long term with local standards of medicine? Or hygiene, public transport or entertainment?

4. The quality of your employer.

How high does the company's reputation stand in your industry? What will working for it do for your future prospects and hence earning potential? An honest answer to this one usually reveals your motives for moving.

Do they offer training? On-the-job training? In-house? Outside? Some employers, if they change equipment, change their expats rather than retrain them.

A tax-free salary earned abroad remains subject to British tax. Unless you prove to the Inland Revenue that you were non-resident* when you earned it. Normal proof is that you stayed outside Britain for at least a complete tax year. That is for a period including the year from the 6th April to the following 5th April.

Things are rather more complicated than that. You should definitely seek an accountant's advice before you leave Britain. Do not try to muddle through the leaflets the Inland Revenue produces (these days you can download them via internet). People seize and rely on the one sentence that suits them. Such wishful thinking creates expensive errors.

It is equally futile to throw up everything, go abroad for a tax-free salary, hate it, come home early and have to pay tax on the lot. Yet it happens quite often.

Bruce ventured into West Africa. He arrived in March. He hated it but persevered. One day the following March, he suddenly decided he could stand it no longer and flew home. He paid English tax on every penny earned. If he had taken advice, he could have enjoyed a world cruise and rocked home on a luxury liner after the 5th April with the money he paid in taxes.

It is far better to settle your status (resident or non-resident) with the IR before you leave. And set off at the right time to get a refund. More on that in chapter six.

Obviously, if you are going abroad to build up some capital, it is vital to get your savings and investment properly planned. You want to make the most of the opportunity both while you are abroad and when you come back. More later.

So at worst, a short contract may maximise disruption without offering tax advantages or the chance for significant savings. Equally, it may give you a useful taster. Or get you a foot in the door.

6. What are the time constraints? How urgent is `urgent'?

Must you leave tonight? Or arrive when it suits you? The latter will prove much cheaper. Even if you have no assets but a razor, you will wish you had set things up first with your bank and other professionals. Face-to-face is far cheaper and more satisfactory then garbled phonecalls, letters, faxes and e-mails. More on this in chapters seven and eight.

This is the sting in the tail. You thought you were off to make money, not spend it. But you are leaving behind the good old welfare state, the health service, your pension. How much will it cost to arrange equally comprehensive medical insurance? Provide for your children's education? Set yourself up in a private pension scheme? How much, if anything, is your employer contributing towards each?

Depending where you head, you may find yourself forced to hire domestic servants and gardeners. Twaddle, do we hear you growl?

Virginia was an independent New Zealander. She had never even employed a daily cleaner in her life. When her husband was posted to Taiwan, she spurned the company flat and hired a house. After all, the family had always lived in a house. Then her problems began. Slowly, it dawned on her that servants double as interpreters. How else do you shop? Or phone a Chinese-speaking plumber and describe the flood? Domestics also provide a security system.

Virginia averaged a serious domestic crisis a month. Each bad enough to disrupt her husband's work. The last thing she wanted. Eventually, she had to concede defeat.

Suitably staffed, she then discovered that servant management is a skill. Without it, you can be fleeced and harried in your own home. Twenty-four hours a day. Her housekeeper invited in her friends and showed them over the house and the foreign devil's possessions - under her mistress' nose. Poor Virginia looking on helpless, thought the strangers were government inspectors!

Many poor countries look on expats as job-creators. Those who refuse to employ locals may find life difficult. They may also be reminded of their responsibilities - by their boss.

If you are moving lock, stock and barrel, you will find umpteen unexpected outgoings. Trivia but vital. Like a new plug for each appliance for instance. Do not assume that two countries which use the same voltage have similar plugs. Their entire wiring system may well be different too. In France, you may only find earthed outlet sockets in the kitchen and - shock horror! - the bathroom. This greatly curtails where you can use earthed appliances. Like an iron. Meanwhile much of the world gets by with poking two bare wires, from the fridge say, into a wall socket with matchsticks.

If you move to a country where each item is sold plug-on, you can find spare plugs difficult to track down at all. More on hidden expenses in chapter eight.

Daunted? Discouraged? We hope not. Rather, no longer star-struck by vast sums taken in isolation. In the next chapter we look at ways of finding out all the background details you need. And how to assess the answers you get.

You can turn to many different sources for information. We consider the seven most promising.

1. Your potential employer. - Bear in mind that the picture he paints is likely to be flattering. He wants you, he needs you. Often he has to produce heads hunted to justify his expensive recruiting drive.

Remember you can never hold anyone to a promise made at an interview. In many societies, it is considered rude to say `No'. People say `Yes' with no intention of complying. They trust to your good manners not to insist.

You are entitled to what is printed in black-and-white in your contract. No more, no less. Regular employers of expats can often supply a sample contract. You take it to study at leisure, and clarify, before you decide to go any further.

2. The embassy or consulate. - In our experience they produce information often dangerously out of date. Besides, they provide the official version. Never mind what happens in practice. Or regional variations. For instance each French county determines its own rules on what are the residence requirements.

3. The library. - A good librarian is a godsend. So is a recent book by someone who has lived in the country. As for the internet, the information is as reliable as its source, no more no less.

4. Fact sheets. - Specialist organisations sell these per country. They are expensive - you may fork out hundreds of pounds for one. They claim to be completely up-to-date and designed to cover everything potential expats need to know. Summarised versions appear in articles in magazines for expats, like Nexus.

5. Other expats. - Best of all, a recent returnee employed by your own company. Do not worry because he is a returnee that his experiences will merely deter you. If you've really caught the itch, nothing will. Just bear in mind where he lived and worked before. If he did a stretch in a real hell-hole, almost anywhere afterwards would appear paradise. That said, do believe what he tells you. He is not joking. We took some of the tales we were told with a pinch of salt. Not so. They were literal truth. Can you stand it?

Just a few financial gems we can vouch for from New Zealand:

- One day the central bank ran out of money. The government borrowed at the rate of 50%pa overnight to tide them over.

- In the banks, the tellers have difficulty adding up a heap of coins. They insist on hunting out the littlest first, but these lie hidden beneath the biggest.

- When we asked for Australian dollars for a holiday, the bank tried to fob us off with Fijian currency. That was the only foreign money in stock. No one wanted it because there had just been a coup.

- If you do not want to pay for a telephone call, even an international one, you just tell the operator to charge it to “your” home phone number (the operator does not know if it is someone else's number).

- When you present a cheque, all you write on the back is your telephone number. Shops and garages are satisfied with even a hotel room number.

- By pressing the wrong button, we went overdrawn. On a deposit account!

- Maybe at the end of the year, you work out it would have saved you tax to have opened deposit accounts in joint names. Or your wife's name. Not to worry. Phone the bank. Give them a rocket for getting it wrong. They will put it right retrospectively.

- One of the local self-made millionaires boasted in the press that New Zealand was so sophisticated, it would soon rival Switzerland as a financial centre.

- A wealthy businessman set up his own political party. He figured the current opposition would be better for him financially. As hoped, at the general election, his new party split the vote. That enabled the party he intended to take power. Its task accomplished, he disbanded his own party. He did not even need to hide his intentions.

6. Professional handholders. - This is a growth industry. They offer a range of services. From helping you to move your business to the new location, handling transport and accommodation to insurances. Equally, they show you around and may help with language training. Or guide your wife round the shops. They come expensive. Even the largest employers rarely have that sort of expertise in-house. So they prefer to buy it in to help relocating highfliers.

If you are thinking of engaging one for yourself, contact The Administrator, Association of Relocation Agents, 1 Castle St, Edinburgh, EH2 3AH for a directory of members. (Throughout the book you will find the names and addresses of organisations set up to help you. We do not claim first-hand experience of many. Usually because it was a service we did not need. Where we have, we will say so. Obviously, not every service appeals to everyone. But once you know of its existence, you do need a first contact address. The organisations we quote have been the subject of articles in reputable expat magazines.) Do not expect out-of-the-way locations to be catered for.

7. Unofficial handholders. - These also exist. When we moved to New Zealand, John's employer allocated an expat who had been in our position a year before to liaise with us. Bill posted the local newspaper and estate agent's details. He phoned from the other side of the world to answer any question that occurred. A year later, John did the same for Ian and family who followed on.

Fine, so you have investigated all these sources and are awash with figures. How do you assess the information?

Some of it is hard fact. Unarguable facts like the exchange rate and the climate. Some, like the lifestyle, is very soft indeed. And cost-of-living comparisons.

From the other side of the Channel, we raise wry smiles when we read what Frenchmen pay for a one kilo loaf of sliced bread. Four times the English price apparently. We assume some journalist nipped into the nearest supermarket from her central Paris luxury hotel. In fact, sliced bread is a rarity, reserved for making toast. We pay the same in our village shop for fresh bread as in the UK. Except ours is delicious.

To get at the truth behind what you have been told, you must also appreciate the British character. You can never manage this in Britain. You need to mix with other nations on their own ground first.

Take it from us that we Brits always understate our abilities and achievements. We perpetually moan about the UK. At the same time we are generally reliable, persevering and have a high degree of integrity. Our word is still our bond. We are also relatively unused to corruption. All these things came as a surprise to us cynical pair too.

So you must filter any comment made by a foreigner about his own country. Make great allowances for local pride, in the case of both newly-emerging and declining nations.

Expect innocent exaggeration when dealing with a small country. A Brit would not call himself a computer project manager unless he controlled 100 staff. A New Zealander would style himself one with a staff of 5. He could not imagine a project with 100 staff!

Scale all comments up or down according to the country's place in the international scale. Its place as reported in the financial press - not what the locals tell you its place is.

If you go to the `new world' you will be impressed, amazed, finally jaded by the prevailing optimism. Nothing can ever go wrong. And when it does - that was exceptional and will never happen again.

If you choose an English-speaking country, you will discover the pitfalls of a common language. You both misunderstand each other because both think you know what you are talking about.

`My garden overlooks a nude beach,' boasted an Australian colleague. John boggled. On enquiry, it turned out `nude' meant `occasionally topless'.

`John can't come to work today,' Helen blithely told his boss over the phone,` He's in bed, under the weather.'

`Hmmmp!'

How could she know `under the weather' means drunk in New Zealand?

`We have a highly-skilled workforce here,' one prominent Kiwi insisted sternly to Helen. `Virtually everyone can read and write.'

`Fancy coming halfway round the world and not bringing a reference!' growled the man at the employment agency as he showed Helen the door.

`But I've given you the name and address of my employers. You can phone them up. They'll happily post a written reference.'

It was a year before Helen discovered that to a New Zealander a `reference' is a testimonial. An open written report every employer must give each employee on leaving. The employee has the right to review his report. He can object to anything in it and get it changed. A Brit arriving without even that useless document must have really upset his boss!

Fine, so you have sifted every last fact and chosen your future. You are not seeking Shangri-la. Simply the best of the bunch.

Two final snippets everyone needs to know, before we close. First, your passport. Of couse you have one and it is in-date. But how long is left to run? Some countries, like Indonesia, refuse to allow you in, even in transit, with less than six clear months. A passport can be difficult to renew in your new country. You need to find a sponsor who has known you for at least a year and preferably a professionally qualified British national.

Second - your driving licence. Do you need an international one? If so, it is easy to obtain from the AA while you are here but devilish difficult (impossible?) from afar.

Good. The great decision is taken. You are off. In the next chapter, we look at how to preserve intact the assets and wealth you have already accumulated.

What are you going abroad for? When we posed the same question in chapter four, we looked at your reasons for going. This time, we mean what do you hope to get out of it financially? More money obviously, but you are not starting out at the bottom of the ladder.

- You already possess assets - will you keep or dispose of them? And how will you monitor them from abroad?

- You undertook long term financial commitments - your pension, insurance, the mortgage. Should you, and can you, continue with them? How will your new affluence affect them?

- You are no longer an individual - how will the move fit in with your wife's career? Your children's schooling?

- Your biggest asset is still likely to be your own skill. What effect will the move have on your career and future earning prospects? How will you keep up to date professionally?

Big questions all. With much data missing. In this chapter we will take an overview and come back to many areas in more detail later.

The first decision is:

Do you want to keep a foot in the door or make a complete break?

Very rarely is a complete break advisable. If only for safety's sake. You may need a bolthole sooner than you expected.

Life has changed even for the once-for-all emigrants. No one forces the choice on you any more. And particularly if you have any family ties remaining in the UK, we recommend you keep at least some money there. Objectively, Britain is a good safe, profitable place to invest. It remains one of the best and most sophisticated financial centres in the world. Solid fact again. And that brings us on to the British Inland Revenue.

We recommend everyone to visit an accountant before they go, even if they have never used one before. A proper qualified accountant, an ACA (Chartered Accountant) or ACCA (Certified Accountant). It is still one of the ‘professions’ where any one can set themselves up. Look askance at anyone who claims, `I'm a member really. My name's not on their list because I didn't bother with their subscription this year.' Such an old dodge.

If instead of a qualified accountant, you visit the Inland Revenue office, you need the Inspector's branch not the Collector's. The visit is free. You will come away laden with leaflets but no explanation. You will puzzle over the pamphlets, pick out the sentence that seems to suit you, and make very costly mistakes. The same applies to visiting their excellent website.

So what can the accountant do for your wealth? From your individual circumstances, he can explain your future residence* position, your ordinary residence position* and your domicile*. All are vital for how much tax you pay. Or avoid. The same applies to your wife, whether she comes or stays. She has her own positions and her own tax exemptions and allowances. He can liaise with the Inspector of Taxes to get this agreed on your behalf at the outset.

If applicable, he will get you any refund going. A refund can be due if your total income from the beginning of the tax year (6th April) to the date you leave, is less than the total of your personal allowances for the year. And/or too much tax has already been deducted. Most leavers whose salaries have been taxed under PAYE can claim some refund.

If you have a choice, your accountant can also tell you when is the best time for you to leave the UK to minimise tax. He will advise when and how often you can return without incurring tax bills. Then recommend whether you should consider exploiting your talents through a limited company. Or as a self-employed person. If necessary he may be able to renegotiate your contract with your `employer' with this in view.

Equally, he can advise what liabilities you incur on assets you keep in the UK. Like your house, if you let it out. Also whether you should place other assets offshore*. If you intend to sell assets, he can advise the timing to avoid capital gains tax. A lot to swallow? Let us clear the groundwork.

A UK resident must pay UK income tax on his or her income worldwide. Similarly, capital gains tax on any gains made on the sale of assets wherever in the world they may be. Then eventually inheritance tax (death duties). A non-resident can escape some of these.

A tax year runs from the 6th April to the following 5th April. The tax year 2001/2 starts on the 6th April 2001.

If you convince the Inland Revenue that you are leaving the country permanently, they will accept you are not resident and not ordinarily resident from the day you go. Evidence would be that you have left your job and accepted a new post abroad. Better still if you have sold your house too. Or the whole family is going.

Otherwise, to be accepted as non-resident, you must stay outside the UK for three full tax years. For example, from 6th April 1995 to 5th April 1998. During that time you must not return for more than 182 days in any one year or 90 days a year on average. Formerly, if you kept your house in the UK and it was available for your use, any visit back to the UK could jeopardise your residence position. That rule has been relaxed.

You can be accepted as `not resident' but considered to remain `ordinarily resident'. Broadly, you are `ordinarily resident' if you spend 3 months or more a year, on average, in the UK over 4 years.

This is not the full picture on residence, just a few facts which are true at time of going to press. You can be sure any changes will be equally complex. Which is why you need an accountant.

With the right set-up, you can legally avoid UK income tax on all your `off-shore' income. Plus UK capital gains tax on all your gains worldwide. That includes gains made in the UK from the moment you leave. An expat considered `non-resident' but still `ordinarily resident' avoids income tax but remains liable to capital gains tax. (Again, this is true at the moment of writing but chancellors like to tinker..)

You can be held as `resident' by two countries at the same time. Or `ordinarily resident' in more than one. A husband may be considered non-resident and his wife resident. He may be `not ordinarily resident' while his wife is `ordinarily resident'. And so on and so on.

Now you understand why the harassed Tax Officer cannot give you a snap explanation - still less decision - over the counter? And domicile is worse.

Which country is your homeland? When you were born, you acquired a domicile of origin, usually that of your father. If his domicile was British so would yours be. It remains your domicile until you do something positive to change it. Perhaps you leave to work abroad. Even emigrate and take another nationality. For a wife, marriage may or may not have changed it for you. Or divorce. The new domicile is called one of choice. And it is up to you to prove it.

Domicile matters for inheritance tax (death duties). A person with British domicile pays inheritance tax on their assets worldwide. A person, even with a British passport, who has a foreign domicile, only pays British inheritance tax on their `on-shore'* assets in Britain. If he has any.

British domicile is very hard to shake off. Even after a new domicile has been established, 3 years must pass before your non-UK assets become non-liable. Inheritance tax affects people whose estate* exceeds £242,000 in value. But remember that includes everything - your home, your car, even your furniture.

`So what?' you may argue. `I'm off abroad to make money. Not to peg out.' Fine, but every expat needs to know the difference between

A business or limited company is `on-shore' if it is based anywhere in

- mainland England,

- Scotland,

- Wales,

- Northern Ireland or

- any of the British islands except the Isle of Man and the Channel Isles.

`On-shore' organisations, say an insurance company, are governed by strict British rules. Even non-resident individuals who invest in them are liable to British tax on the income arising.

`Off-shore' is the opposite to `on-shore'. An organisation is `off-shore' if it is based in a foreign country, say Eire, or the Isle of Man or the Channel Isles. Gibraltar, Malta and Hong Kong although either still colonies or ex-colonies are off-shore. That means an investor loses the protection of British rules. On the plus side, a non-resident who invests with concerns based off-shore, is not liable to UK tax on the income he earns.

Your accountant can spell out the full fiscal implications if you are thinking about moving assets `off-shore'. For instance, switching your bank account from Barclays in Liverpool to Barclays in the Isle of Man. Your choice is not limited to the UK and your new country of work. Tax havens and shelters may be useful. There is no question of you having to actually travel anywhere to make the arrangements. More on both in later chapters.

Next, accountants should know their way around the welfare state. They are accustomed to looking after clients' families - official and unofficial. Perhaps you support, or have supported, a divorced or separated wife and/or children. You accountant can ensure the spouse and/or children claim and receive their correct tax refunds on the maintenance you pay. Or you may acknowledge other dependants. He can claim for them all the entitlements the welfare state provides. Some reduce outgoings. Others provide ready cash.

An accountant should also be able to advise broadly about your pension(s).

While you worked in the UK, you were paying national insurance contributions. These entitled you, among other benefits, to a retirement pension. Now, for most workers abroad these payments will cease. Your past contributions are not lost. Providing you have spent a minimum of 6 qualifying years working and paying NIC you will be able to claim a pension one day. The size of it depends on the number of qualifying years. 44 years of contributions earns you a full pension. If you manage 11 years over your working life, you will receive 11/44ths of a full pension, or one quarter.

You can make voluntary contributions to the British DSS from abroad to build up a bigger British old age pension. These are called Class 3 contributions. The payments are so small, say £7 a week - and you can pay them late - that they represent an excellent investment. Especially as such pensions are inflation-linked. They can be paid to you abroad.

Another interesting alternative open to people working abroad is to pay Class 2 contributions. These payments also count towards your pension. The small amount extra you pay entitles you to claim Sickness Benefit and/or Maternity Allowance when you return to the UK.

Any DSS office can explain how to join either. Try their website. Or write to the Contributions Agency, Overseas Contributions, Department of Social Security, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE98 1YX

Perhaps you are being seconded abroad for a few years by your firm. If you work for them, you will probably be allowed to continue in your UK pension scheme. The same applies if you work for one of their overseas subsidiaries. (You will probably have to continue paying UK national insurance pension contributions for the first year abroad too.)

Perhaps your employment pension scheme is a contributory one. That means you pay into it. Your contributions will continue to get UK tax relief. Which is fine - if you have UK income to set it against. Otherwise the relief is wasted. That means your UK pension contributions effectively cost you more.

Normally the position is reviewed after you have been away 3 or 4 years. Almost certainly, you will be obliged to leave the pension scheme for good. We go into the various pension possibilities open to you, and all other expats, in chapter seven.

Capital gains tax

Capital gains tax can arise on the sale of assets. Assets like land and houses (your own home is usually exempt), shares, business assets like goodwill. A gain is calculated broadly as what you receive less what you paid. The latter is increased in line with inflation. Normally, you can make annual gains totalling £7,500 a year before you need pay tax. So can your wife. At a time of major rearrangement, either of you could well exceed that. More on capital gains tax later.

To help with planning, your accountant will want to know what assets you have. Also, if you have definitely decided yet, where you plan to keep them. This may be in the UK, in your new working country or elsewhere off-shore.

It is unreasonable to expect the adviser to know much about the tax rules of your new country. He should raise the bogey of possible exchange control restrictions if you want to shift capital out again. Obviously if you have a financial target in going, he should be able to advise or put you in touch with those who can. Again more later.

If your accountant does not bring up all these points - and more - change him. You do not want to pay for someone who merely acts as an costly post box between you and the Inland Revenue.

If your wife intends to work and the lifestyle permits - are her qualifications recognised? Again we Brits are fortunate. In Canada, one province will not even accept another's teaching qualifications. Yet all accept a British one. That said, many unofficial hurdles are erected worldwide to keep the jobs for locals.

We have touched on the extra expenses of boarding your children in a UK school. Or alternatively, paying for them to attend a British school abroad. Becoming an expat could cost you thousands more. While free higher (post-school) education in the UK is a thing of the past, you can expect to fork out, first for tuition fees, to the educational institution concerned, and next to provide your student son or daughter, or several of them, with cash for accommodation, food, books, clothing, travelling etc.

The level of fees depends on the college, the type of course and whether your offspring are considered `overseas' or `home' students.

Just to show how much difference this can make in practise, look at these figures for 1992.

TYPICAL ANNUAL FEES OVERSEAS STUDENT HOME STUDENT

classroom subject (geography) £5,550 £1,855

laboratory/workshop subject (engineering) £7,360 £2,770

clinical subject (medicine) £13,550 £4,985

Not peanuts is it?

To know the ground rules, contact the Department of Education and Science at Elizabeth House, York Road, London SE1 7PH or visit their website and download their pamphlets, especially those concerning students whose parents are UK citizens working abroad.

Traditionally it is not the DES but your local education authority who makes any award. It is up to you to show your situation falls within their guidelines. If in doubt as to which local authority to apply to - and there is nothing to stop you applying to a second if refused - choose the one covering the area in which the desired college is situated. All local authorities play `pass the parcel'. Your accountant should have longstanding experience in completing applications for educational awards for clients.

With regard to living expenses, you want your children to benefit from the low-interest loans the government promotes. Far better than you funding them direct, perhaps out of borrowed money. This is arranged by the Student Loans Company Limited, a government body. You can find out details from their website www.slc.co.uk

So much for a quick canter round the track. In the next chapter we consider cashing-up in the UK before you go. Plenty of opportunities and pitfalls there. We also introduce another vital ally - your bank manager.

How much are you really worth? How profitable are your investments? Now is the time you find out.

At cashing-up time, relatives and friends can swoop like vultures. They eye your possessions hungrily. "You won't need that," they pounce, "I'll take it off your hands."

Worse, at cashing-up time, you discover your insurance and pension salesmen were duping you. Much, occasionally, most of your contributions ended up as their commissions. At that fraught time, housebuyers blow infuriatingly hot and cold. You discover your desirable residence is not as desirable as the estate agent convinced you when you bought. Then your garage shrugs its shoulders when asked to buy back your four-wheeled pride and joy.

Or life can yield pleasant surprises, bonuses, windfalls when your earlier planning bears fruit.

The golden rule is -

Allow yourself plenty of time to sell.

Big losses usually arise from desperate sales. This is why the time constraints which we considered in chapter four when deciding which job to choose, can be so important.

Below, we look in turn at the assets you are most likely to turn into cash. Namely your house(s), pension policy(ies), car(s) and your investments.

Do you sell it? Keep it empty against your return? Let it? If so, furnished or unfurnished?

Leavers used to keep their houses simply because they were worried about affording another on their return. This is not currently a problem.

When we left, we sold ours for £72,750, a good price at the time. Two years later it would have topped £120,000. If we had returned then, buying a similar house would have swallowed up much of the benefit of going. But six years after, its value had plummeted to £75,000, perhaps £80,000. If you could find a buyer. Although house prices soar and plummet, the UK remains an overcrowded island of wishful homeowners.

Clearly, your decision whether to sell or not, depends on many factors. Not least, your proposed time abroad. Suppose you are only going for a short period but you decide to sell. Remember to include the costs of selling and buying again in your calculations. Solicitors, estate agents and surveyors do not come cheap. Plus putting your furniture in store.

If you keep the house, you are duplicating living expenses. Unless free accommodation is one of your perks. Nonetheless, mortgage payments continue. While tax relief on them is a thing of the past, you may effectively get it if you rent the property out. Check with your accountant.

If you decide to sell:

don't resign before the sale becomes irrevocable and

don't leave before the money is paid over and under your control.

We have watched other expats who did resign too soon. If you think houseselling is hell, imagine being caught up in a chain from the other side of the world. Forking out for prolonged hotel accommodation for all the family, even kennels for the dog. Never mind endless panicky intercontinental phone calls. Imagine being unable to buy without exorbitant borrowing and still having to keep up a UK mortgage without tax relief.

To crown everything, your buyer's surveyor discovers a structural weakness in your house! It will cost thousands to put right. It is not covered by the housebuilder's guarantee. Your much loved home becomes a hated, because untellable, millstone. Or is that just a ploy to make you cut your price?

What trauma. At the worst possible time. Compared to that, a few weeks staying with relations or friends, like we did, is no hardship. Or you can endure bed and breakfast accommodation. Or treat yourself to an hotel. Merely to tide you over between moving out and leaving. Your house proceeds should be on deposit to pay for it.

Simon, another colleague of John's, moved abroad while his house sale was being finalised. The money was paid to the Simon's solicitor. He had been given instructions to get it changed and transmitted to Simon's bank account in his new country. But noone told him when!

He sat on the money for six weeks during which time the exchange rate nose-dived. The couple lost thousands. They could have bought a house in their new country with the difference between what they would have received at the outset and what they did obtain! The interest the solicitor paid them for the six weeks was scant consolation. They had no redress.

If instead, Simon had instructed his solicitor to pay the proceeds into his UK bank account (which misguidedly they had closed) all would have been well. He could have put the money on the money markets* and obtained daily exchange rate quotes. Then converted the sum into the new currency when the rate was favourable.

This is another basic rule for expats

keep your money under your control as much as possible.

You decide when it should be converted. Not some distant disinterested solicitor.

If you decide to keep your house:

Will you keep it empty or let it? If the former, what security arrangements will you make to prevent squatters? Who will stop the garden reverting to jungle? What happens if the pipes burst on New Year's Eve? Obviously this will depend on where you live and what kind neighbours you have.

Hedley left his house empty with the neighbours keeping an eye on it and mowing the lawns. He abandoned it `Marie-Celeste' style as though the family had just popped out. They returned after eighteen months. Only the magazines on the coffee table had faded slightly. That was in deepest Devon.

Fine for eighteen months. But we can hardly recommend it as a longer-term solution. Your insurance company might have something to say too. Their agreement in advance is vital for your cover. And your peace of mind.

Many people let their houses to generate enough money to cover mortgage repayments. This rent is UK income. It remains liable to UK tax. In law, a tenant who pays rent to a non-resident landlord (one who lives abroad, not one who does not live in the house) must pay his rent net of UK tax. That is, he only pays say 75% of the rent. The tenant correctly holds back the percentage of rent equivalent to basic rate tax, say 25%. He states he has done this on his tax return. In practice, not many tenants even know about it.

We all know broadly how to calculate our income for tax purposes. We tot up all sorts of revenue - salary, bank interest, dividends - then deduct our personal allowances. Only the net amount is taxed. An expat is entitled to his personal allowances too.

Perhaps the rent you receive is your only UK income while you are away. There will be expenses associated with letting which you can justly deduct from the rent, like any mortgage or other loan interest you pay on the property. The net amount of income left may be smaller than your personal allowances. If so - no UK tax to pay.

But suppose you have other UK income - bank interest say. The rent has already eaten into your allowances. It can expose and make taxable, income which would otherwise escape. Not so good.

We must just mention the concession which transforms Britain into a tax haven for outsiders. In practice, if your only UK income is interest, the Inland Revenue is prepared to ignore it. Non-residents with other income, like rent, lose the protection of the concession.

This is the barest outline. You accountant will explain the tax consequences of keeping, letting, selling your home.

You may worry whether letting your house exposes you to capital gains tax when you sell. The broad answer is yes. Do not be deterred by this. The exemptions are truly generous. Obviously your accountant can reassure you in detail.

For most expats, tax is a side issue. They are preoccupied with the risks of allowing strangers into their home. How do you monitor what is going on? Or pay the outgoings? How can you check the tenants are not wrecking the place? Worse, get them out again for your return? The normal solution is to appoint a letting agent. Some estate agents offer this service.

They vet tenants and keep an eye on the property. It is their responsibility to pay the outgoings so the electricity does not get cut off. They liaise with your accountant to sort out your tax. Together, both ensure you claim everything claimable e.g. wear and tear. The agent sends you on the net proceeds. Naturally, their fees are another expense.

Instead you may prefer to rely on friends or relatives to act for you. You should still consult a solicitor to draw up a rental agreement. Or risk buying a form from a legal stationer. An agent probably uses a standard agreement.

Conventional wisdom dictates that a landlord is better protected from overstayers if the property is let furnished than unfurnished. There is nothing to stop you putting prized possessions in store. And what constitutes a `furnished' house? The rules are pretty scanty.

On your return, no jetlagged expat wants the horrors and expense of going to court for an Order for Possession. Either to get rid of a bad tenant or a careful one who just won't leave.

You probably read the outrageous case of the London family who let their house to foreign diplomats. When the expats returned, the diplomats refused to leave. Or pay rent. And they were protected from the law by their diplomatic immunity! Years of expensive struggle ensued. Eventually, a petition to the Queen enabled the owners to recover their home. An extreme case but a warning.

It is possible to get insurance cover for the returning expat who finds his own door locked. It pays for legal fees and even hotel accommodation. (Contact Thomas Winter Insurance Brokers)

We have already looked at your state old age pension in chapter six. Almost certainly you are also either

- a contributor to your employer's pension scheme. Or,

- he is making contributions on your behalf. Alternatively,

- he has no scheme (or you are self-employed) and you pay for an individual pension. Or several. These are known as retirement annuities.

Can you continue while abroad with your old employer's pension scheme?

We saw in chapter six that this may be possible. Firstly, if you are seconded abroad short-term. Secondly if you will be working for one of your former employer's foreign subsidiary companies. Normally, long term you lose the right to pay in. Then your pension must be either made paid up or transferred as a cash sum to another scheme.

In the former case, no further contributions are allowed by anyone. At the normal retiring age (normal for the scheme-members that is) you will receive a pension based on the contributions made in the past.

If you transfer into another scheme, you will get a pension based on the contributions you or your new employer, or both, make in future. Your contributions include, of course, the cash sum transferred from the previous pension scheme.

A word of warning for an expat who, exceptionally, is allowed longterm to stay a member of a UK company pension scheme. Such schemes are regulated by the Superannuations Funds Office. That is a branch of the Inland Revenue. It lays down the overall conditions. These include whether employees abroad on a long-term basis (say over ten years) can stay in the scheme at all. Also what contributions may be made on their behalf.

To get over the problems of exchange rates and the like, a company's contributions on your behalf are often based on a notional salary. This may bear little relation to your real one. Perhaps it was close when you first left the UK. As time passes, it will diverge greatly. It will probably lag far behind. So your pension will be lower too. Expats should clarify this in advance. It is an important area where they often lose out.

If you cannot continue and cannot transfer your pension to another scheme, is having it made paid up the only alternative?

Not necessarily. If you worked for your employer for less than two years, you can claim back your contributions. Be prepared for various deductions to account for tax etc. It may still be a handy sum worth having.

Alternatively, you may consider your present employer's scheme not particularly attractive. It is possible to arrange for the money to be transferred from it into a personal pension for you in the UK.

Perhaps you are leaving the civil service. Your civil service pension can be transferred to a UK approved occupational pension. Or even, in a few rare cases, to a similar foreign one. One example is the US government's own pension scheme, the Individual Retirement Account.

A civil service pension is the Rolls Royce of pensions. Do not transfer. Leave yours as it is. What private scheme can afford to offer the index-linking, or guaranteed income that civil servants enjoy? Besides, unlike the government scheme, your new employer's scheme will almost certainly be a `money purchase' one. That means how much pension you earn depends on:

what you and/or he put into it, plus

the skill of the investment managers and

the ups and downs of the stock exchange.

The government scheme protects you from all that.

In theory, it is possible to transfer funds from a UK IR-approved employer's or private pension scheme to one abroad. In practice, it rarely happens. How can the SFO vet foreign pensions schemes - it has its hands full with British ones? Or doesn’t the name Robert Maxwell mean anything to you?

So far, we have only looked at what arrangements you can make for the pension entitlement you have earned in the past. Payments out of your monster salary abroad will be considered in later chapters.

At this stage you really want to know how the contributions you have made to date reconcile with the value of your pension `pot' (the sum which is currently invested to get you a pension one day). The contributions you already know. Your insurance agent can tell you the `pot'. If you find over the years you have paid in £5,000 but the pot is worth only £3,000 you know what happened to the difference. It was mostly his commission! Especially if your scheme has only been running a few years, you may well find you have lost out. Even more when you consider that the £3,000 includes the income which has been earned by your contributions over the years. What can you do about this? Were you genuinely told about the commission at the time? Did you ask? At least, let it be a guide to who you deal with in future.

We have said enough about pensions for you to appreciate that they are complicated. Big sums justify seeking a pensionbroker's advice. A broker, not a salesman. Which all takes time.

Selling, at least, is straightforward. Only timing can prove tricky. You will need transport until the day you leave. Selling reveals your trusted garage from the other side.

If you plan to leave for a short time, you may decide not to sell. Why? To keep up with prices. We think this is a false argument. In our experience, garages offer discounts for cash as readily as for a trade-in.

A car locked in a garage may not suffer serious deterioration through being abandoned for a year or two. But the money that it represents could have been earning you interest. We prefer cash in the hand to rusting metal.

If your vehicle is a collector's item, its value may be appreciating. It is an asset in its own right. Better still, one beyond the clutches of capital gains tax. Specialist organisations will arrange storage for you. For instance Manor Car Storage PO Box 28, Clavering, Saffron Walden, Essex CB11 4RA

Alternatively, you may decide to buy new and have your car shipped over for delivery free of VAT. The Customs and Excise Department operate VAT. They approve an agent for each motor manufacturer who arranges VATfree sales for overseas customers. For instance Mazda Taxfree Car Sales, 77 Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4 8BS. Obviously the maker of the car you fancy can put you in touch.

Do not be deceived. Your new vehicle is only free of UK tax. If you send it to France for instance, you must reregister within 6 months of arrival. For that, you must prove either that VAT was paid in the UK or pay French VAT. The latter will be VAT on its current value as a second-hand not new vehicle. That allows scope for some saving. But the car is not VAT free. No doubt, as the one European market becomes a reality, even such inter-member savings will disappear.

For other countries, you will have to pay their local excise duties. Assuming they let the car in - even brand new, it may not meet their specifications. For instance, the States will not accept any UK car without some modifications. And an original Mini not at all.

Frank bought a Ford for delivery in West Africa. He saw the crane unload it on the docks. Week after week he returned to enquire why it had not been cleared. At last the truth dawned - the officials wanted their bribe. Without it, the car could rust on the quay for ever. Naturally, the word ‘bribe’ was never used. Such unofficial tolls can be exacted even by our EU partners. Never mind thieving anything moveable from the car itself.

We will look at what you take and what you leave in the next chapter. Almost certainly, you will find something you'd rather sell. Again, time is all-important. Time to study your market, put adverts in the paper and await a good response. Time to arrange a carboot sale. If you are disposing of something really valuable - your country cottage, a few acres of land, antiques, you may make enough profit to render yourself liable for capital gains tax. And that is a pity. It is also unnecessary. As soon as you become non-resident you get exemption from tax on virtually all capital gains. So raise the possibility with your accountant before you sell. The same applies if you are thinking of selling your investments or overseas property. Ask first.

Surprisingly, he may recommend you go ahead with the sale before you leave if a loss will result. Why? Tax losses, both income losses and, in this case, capital losses are valuable. They can be set again other income, or capital gains as the case may be, of years to come. That reduces future bills. If you sell when you are non-resident, you do not pay UK tax on a gain. Equally you cannot claim a loss if you make one.

With all these sales, you should have money slushing about. What should you do with it?

And that introduces your next great ally - your bank manager. He merits a proper visit. A sit-down one in his office, with an appointment. Not a chat with a pretty girl who pushes leaflets at you over the counter. After all, you are going to be an important customer. An expat. You should be putting a fair amount of money through his hands over the years.

But first, you want to establish whether he is the right man. Is his the right bank for you? And, if not, you need to find a better. When you are away, your bank is your financial lifeline.

Ideally, try to contact a branch with an international section on the premises. Avoid a manager whose expertise does not extend beyond his own town.

How firmly established internationally is the bank? (Among the biggest and most widespread are the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation since it merged with the Midland; and the Royal Bank of Scotland.) What branches or contacts does it maintain in your new country? Just where? The capital city may be a week's weary trek from where you will live.

The manager should be able to tell you what on- and off-shore services his banking group can provide. Perhaps your current account would be better transferred to their Jersey branch. Perhaps not. He should also know how well you, as an investor, are protected in the different off-shore centres. Plus the advantages of keeping your account with him on-shore. Normally, obviously, he wants your custom. But if he pushes his branch and poohpoohs all other possibilities - forget him.

What accounts do you run at the moment? What will you need? We recommend you open, or keep open a UK a/c which offers full cheque-book facilities and ideally pays interest as well. Into this, you will put an emergency float. This stays in the UK earning interest but with instant chequebook access for emergencies.

How much should you keep in it? When he has the full picture, the bank manager should be able to advise. But it should be ample for emergency repatriation for the whole family. Plus enough to maintain you all for a few weeks.

Some countries do not openly operate exchange controls. They still determine for what reasons you can change your money back into pounds. They can refuse a change for urgent medical treatment. Why? Adequate treatment is available locally! Without sterling funds, their local pride could cost your life...

You will also want a UK credit card. Even if it is not acceptable in your new country. Why? You can quote your number over the phone, by fax or secure line internet to buy things from the UK. It gives you quick access to UK mail order. Equally, you can pay for presents or flowers to be delivered directly within the UK. Or to pay a deposit on a hire car on your return. (Almost mandatory nowadays.) You can repay your credit card purchases out of your UK float. That saves the disproportionate fees you would otherwise pay to change small amounts of foreign currency.

Even if you cannot use your card in your country of destination, it could prove useful in others, en route, travelling on business or holiday. Our English credit card is accepted for motorways tolls in Spain, for example.

If you are changing your UK bank and/or have no credit card rating, it may take time for your credit card to arrive. Another reason not to delay visiting your bank manager until the eve of your departure. Banks keep a blacklist of countries to which they never post credit cards, whether new cards or replacements. Why? The cards get stolen en route. The bank then has to cough up when they are used fraudulently. That can cause you headaches when your card expires too.

In your new country also, there may be delays in getting a local credit rating or credit card. So you need an existing one to tide you over.

Back to your UK bank manager. He can arrange for the deposit of valuables. Items like deeds, wills and jewellery. It depends where you are headed. In some countries, pilfering, especially from the fabulously wealthy expats, is a way of life.

Trevor in Africa piled all valuables into his bedroom every night. He thought it neurotic but the old sweats insisted he must. Then one night, dog-tired, he did not bother. It meant goodbye radio, camera, video camera, watch... The company watchman, armed with a lethal bow and arrows, ran away.

Now for the money you have accumulated through sales to date. If it is large enough (say £20,000) instruct your banker to put it on the money markets. That means money banks lend among themselves day by day. You keep instant access. Obviously, the interest rate will vary from day to day. It will always exceed any rate ordinary deposit accounts offer.

Warn the manager about any large sums expected shortly (perhaps from the sale of your house). You may want money transmitted directly to your new country. He should be able to advise about the time needed for inter-bank transfers. This varies from country to country. We moved funds from the UK round the world to New Zealand in twelve hours. Money across the Channel to France had to lurch through five different banks. It took ten days. Ten days of nail-biting and lost interest. If our bank had not had international connections it would have taken far longer.

At best, the UK manager should be able to liaise with his opposite number where you will work. Ideally accounts can be opened and chequebooks, bankers cards await your arrive.

As you can see, your bank manager is a real ally. That said, use him only for safeguarding your money and valuables, for changing currencies and transferring funds.

Do not use him for tax planning. Why? He cannot offer specialist expertise, whatever he claims. Especially if you are self-employed or have businesses in different countries. In Helen's experience, banks employ only low-level former Inland Revenue staff. Fine, for run-of-the-mill work for the everyday employee only. Do not be impressed by anyone who claims to be an ex-Tax Officer. That is not a high rank. Tax work, and training, is allocated strictly by rank. Ex-Revenue high fliers look to accountants and specialists who can offer a career, not banks.

Equally, do not look to your bank manager for insurance and/or investment advice. Each clearing bank offers a wide range of such services. Naturally, he will push the in-house products (those run by organisations owned by his bank). You need truly independent advice.

That said, such one-stop shopping may be handy if you are really pushed for time. But be sure to review the situation when you are settled in your new country.

The bank is in business to make money. Expats are a wonderful source of income. Not just through the handling of our funds but on commissions from any other business they do for us and on fees every time we change currency.

Hence, another golden rule. Never change currencies unnecessarily. Change only to gain on the exchange rate and a large sum at a time. The fees charged, especially for small amounts, can be exorbitant. Most of the time, you should be able to arrange things to have enough in the right currency already to meet any urgent needs for money.

There are many different ways to transfer your money around. We will look at them in chapter 9, when we look at the trip itself. But first, and it is your last concern before you jet off, the next chapter is dedicated to the moving.

What should I take? What can I ditch? What might I sell? Clearly this varies with your destination and whether and when, you plan to return.

You can duck many painful decisions. Fragile, valuable or unsuitable articles can be put into storage. Most movers and some department stores offer this service. Good ones take great care. Even so, in our experience, the most damaging thing long-term is damp. It's effects are near-impossible to remove. From an upholstered chair say, or a piano. Yet damp manifests itself so slowly, once back in normal conditions, that it is rarely claimable damage.

Another decision-dodging trick is to spread stuff around friends and relations. The problem is - loans somehow develop into gifts. Once people give something houseroom, it mysteriously becomes theirs. Whatever you agreed at the outset, you will find it difficult to recoup your property without ill-will.

When you have gritted your teeth to part with possessions, you must separate out articles you will either sell or give away. We list four categories below.

Will your tv or video work abroad? Not if the transmission frequencies, or colour system is different where you are headed. The embassy and/or your employer can advise on this, together with the type of electrical supply in the country.

Electrical equipment falls into three categories. Look over each item. You will find printed or embossed on it, one of the following sets of symbols.

The first type is marked 110 - 240V AC/DC or 110 - 240V 50 / 60 Hz. This will be useable anywhere in the world. No adjustment is needed. For instance, some electric razors.

The second category is marked 110 / 120 / 220 / 240v 50Hz or 60Hz or 50 / 60 hz. You make an adjustment to them. You turn a switch or plug on the back or inside. Then they will work on any voltage supply but only on the frequencies marked. For example, hifi equipment.

The third category includes all appliances involving a heating element. Items are marked 240V 50Hz. They will function properly only in countries which use a 240V supply and 50Hz. You can use them, but with reduced power, on supplies of 220V and 50Hz. A microwave oven for instance, will lose between 15% and 20% of its power, hence speed. In practice the difference is really noticeable. And frustrating.

Modern digital medium wave radios will be useless in North America if they cannot be adjusted to go up in 10KHz frequency steps. Why? Britain and the rest of the world use 9KHz steps.

If your tv and video will work then, before you go, record as much of your favourite tv as possible. More on this in chapter thirteen.

What about phone calls? Firstly, your mobile phone. Is yours compatible with your new country? Is the area where you will work covered by a terrestrial network or will you need a satellite phone?

Your phone needs en route, especially if you are making a long holiday of it, and those when you arrive may be quite different.

En route, you may consider a pre paid phone card - some work in many countries. You can even buy them from the stewardess on the flight. They pay for a fixed value of calls and then you need to buy a new one.

Or there is a Phone Charge card - you dial a special phone number in each country, list supplied by the card issuer, enter your account no. then the number you want to contact. All is charged to your home account in your home currency. Normally this works out much cheaper than hotel phones. Example BT Chargecard which direct debits your ordinary credit card account and makes no charge for issuing.

Credit cards can often be used abroad to pay for phone calls but each network will charge a minimum for any thirty day period in which the card is used. That is fine for lots of calls but expensive for just one local call.

Once established abroad, if you can use your existing phone in the new country is it cost effective to continue charging calls to your original country (almost certainly not).

Almost everywhere, the day when you needed simply a supply of local coins and/or jetons, has gone.

Every country has a different selection. Like Bibles in Saudi Arabia. Or garden tools to New Zealand. Again the embassy can supply a list.

You do not want them in your container contaminating, polluting, ruining everything else. We left our petrol lawnmower for that reason.

- Fridges and freezers are not meant to withstand long trips. With experience, we would refute this. We still run a fridge-freezer in Europe that we brought back from New Zealand, against advice, fourteen years ago.

- Antiques and items with a delicate mechanism, like a piano, run a great danger of deterioration. Besides, if an item is damaged in transit, you may find it impossible to track down a skilled repairer. Do not imagine, like we did, that in a new country where antiques are scarce, that will enhance their value. Chances are the locals deride `antiques' as second-hand. You can only make a profit where there is already an established antiques market.

- Large, relatively valueless items, like ladders. Your mover should advise on this. He can give alternative quotes with and without certain items. That way, you know how much extra cost they involve.

That said, as a general rule - take everything. Especially the old-style emigrant. Right down to the loose nails and screws in your toolshed, the babies nappies. Why? Two reasons:

1. Your employer may pay for things to be moved, or at least, contribute. He will never pay you to replace anything.

2. You never know what will be unavailable, even unheard-of, in your new country. We gave away the free glasses we had earned years before with petrol coupons. We thought they had no value and were certain to be broken. In fact, not one chip appeared on any glass or china we took. Worse, we hunted high and low, in the capital city, for glasses to replace them. Those we finally found were shoddy and expensive. Obviously we had to pay for them ourselves. A trivial example. But how many things we nearly jettisoned. Only to find them irreplaceable!

Financially, it can only ever be sensible to transport animals when you are concerned with breeding stock. Very rarely even then will such animals pay for themselves. In Australia, quarantine may stretch to an incredible two years.

Colin and Annette paid £1,500 to move a stray cat and a pedigree dog half-way round the world. The dog died soon after. Colin and Annette returned to the UK four years later with their surviving pet. As well as the hundreds the transport cost, they had to fork out for six months in UK quarantine kennels.

Joyce's parents sent her pedigree Siamese cat out to her. It was wrongly delivered to an airport four hundred miles from her home. She had to fly up and back at her own expense, to collect it.

On the humane side, the treatment of animals in transit, even in the 'developed' world is shocking - ask the RSPCA.

You may find your decisions are modified by what insurance you can obtain. The company may well refuse to cover jewellery. So, do you stash it in a UK bank and give up the pleasure of wearing it? Slip it in your personal luggage and run the risk of uninsured theft? Take a chance and hide it among your furniture? Sell it? Personally, we owned an antique bureau with secret drawers. We cached our trinkets inside.

You have accumulated plenty of these - a lifetime's worth. You must keep them on hand. You will need to produce some - and who can say which? - immediately on arrival.

We found the perfect container - a large folder with covers of strong plastic yet neither heavy nor bulky. Inside are a hundred `pages'. Each one a plastic wallet large enough to hold several A4 sheets. Place your documents in these. You can thumb through them quickly, especially if you place them back-to-back. Yet the plastic protects them from wear and tear. Obviously, you can remove or insert documents at will.

The folder accompanied us everywhere en route in a shoulder bag. Wherever possible, we locked it in a hotel safe. The effort to replace it all would have been horrendous. Perhaps impossible. Just the thought leaves us weak-kneed. These settled days, we keep a list of what it contains on the computer, with contact addresses for replacement, and a backup floppy in the garage!

Should you buy anything to take? Fancy a digital camera? We have already looked at the possibility of buying cars VAT-free for export outside the EU. As pointed out, you may still pay VAT, or some other excise duty, at your destination. It may amount to less, more or the very same amount.

Getting your VAT refund may not be plain sailing. Many expat VAT-savers experience delays and difficulties. Mention Tottenham Court Road - London's Hifi centre - and they groan.

Obviously from abroad you have no leverage to get them to hurry. The longer the seller sits on your refund, the better from his point of view. Besides, some traders impose a minimum amount that you must spend first. Then levy a handling charge for processing a VATfree sale. The charge can rocket to half the VAT refund itself.

That said, if the article is unobtainable in your new country, it could be useful to buy it now. Is the model adapted for or suitable for local conditions?

Is it tropicalised? That is, specially modified to withstand the rigours of a tropical climate. Or take a simple radio. In the tropics, most radio, even local stations, goes out on shortwave. So forget buying any set without it. In Australia, stereo radio is available on medium wave. Without a suitable radio, you will only receive programmes in mono.

Any well-advised leaver asks for several quotes from international shippers before he decides. If your future employer is paying, he may, rightly, insist you do. You will find a huge diversity in prices. One may quote double another. The household name is not necessarily the dearest. Far from it.

So much depends on how truly international the mover is. Otherwise he has to subcontract out part of the journey. Both movers want their profit out of you.

Estimates of cubic metrage can vary widely. Be suspicious of anyone who appears to sum up a roomful of furniture at a glance. Even more so of a company that does its calculations on the basis of a form you complete.

We travelled once with Pickfords and back to Europe with Scotpac. Although our possessions were virtually unchanged, their estimates differed substantially. Both used the same size of container. Yet one calculated our worldly goods would fill the container. The other that it would take up two-thirds only. And both were right - for their packing methods.

Vitally important is the quality of packing materials used. Both our movers used brand new strong materials. Many articles were double-wrapped before being laid in sturdy new cardboard containers.

Isabel, by contrast, left Brussels in a hurry. Her Belgian mover wrapped with crumpled old newspapers. Not surprisingly, much arrived damaged. And where intact, it was still battered, scraped, aged. In fact, we hardly met an expat who did not raise a complaint about their movers. Some very serious.

Packing is a slow, skilled process. It takes three days to pack a full container. Besides, anything special (our piano and grandfather clock for instance) had to be measured precisely. Then special wooden crates manufactured. The last thing to be packed always, hence the first unloaded, is the teapot. Ready to brew up!

How did our possessions live a charmed life? you may wonder. What did we do differently?

First, we insisted on our own container. The extra this cost justified itself. Even though the container travelled part-empty. Why? A container is not opened en route. It is sealed in your drive and - customs satisfied - opened in your new drive.

Stan shared a container. Its contents had to be divided up at the dockside. Stan had bought hifi etc VAT-free. The manufacturer's smart boxes proved too tempting for the wharfies (= dockers). They liberated (=stole) the lot.

Back to Isabel again. She economised by having their car shipped in the same container as their furniture. The two had to be separated on the docks. The wharfies drove their forklift truck's prongs right through the car! Then clumped over it, back and forth, to and fro, to haul out furniture. Imagine the repairs needed to bonnet, roof and bootlid!

Before the packers arrive, draw up a detailed list of your possessions. And we do mean detailed. Ours included each hallmark on each piece of silver. Only you can do it. Do not rely on your mover's official customs list. It is just not good enough. Typically it will read `Case number 28 various kitchen pots and pans'.

Your list will help when you unpack. Then again with any insurance claim. Next with taking out household contents insurance. Keep your list to hand and update it ready for any future move.

The limits on this will surprise and dismay you. Regardless of which mover you choose. Suppose a ship's captain judges his vessel in danger. He can legally tip your container overboard. Fair enough. But forget any insurance claim.

The ship may divert hundreds of miles away and unload. You will be forced to pay again to get your possessions to you. Fortunately, neither happened to anyone we know.

Now is the time to arrange all sorts of other insurance too. As stated before, expats, intrepid but realistic, offer a bonanza to insurers. We list below some policies we think vital. And others optional.

Indispensables are travel insurance, especially if you plan a holiday en route, and medical insurance. You must all be covered when you arrive - unless your new country or your employer provides this.

Optionals depend on family commitments, the size of your pocket and how jittery you feel. All are much easier to arrange in the UK before you leave. They include:

- life insurance

- credit card insurance

- early termination insurance

- permanent health insurance and

- dread disease insurance.

See why we describe expats as a bonanza group for the insurance industry?

For life insurance, we recommend a straight, simple cheap term policy. Not some fancy hybrid which is an investment with a life insurance element. Now is not the time to consider new investments. You are too busy. Too many unknown expenses - and opportunities - lie ahead.

It is possible to protect yourself against the fraudulent use of all UK issued cards, EXCEPT transactions where a Personal Identity Number was also used. You must notify the company by phone within 24 hours of discovering your loss. The phone is manned around the clock all year. (One such policy is offered by CardWise, Signet House, Christopher Martin Road, Basildon SS14 9AA They claim to give unlimited insurance protection against fraudulent use of cards worldwide.)

Early termination insurance covers financial liabilities which arise because you have to return to the UK before your contract is up. For instance, you may lose your nonresident status. Then find a monstrous tax bill to face.

Permanent health insurance pays someone who, following accident or illness, can no longer work. The victim receives a regular salary for his working life. As an expat, you will unearth few insurance companies keen to offer you cover. (One such is Sun Alliance.) Even if you are youthful, enjoy robust health and lead an exemplary life. Never mind that you work in an office in a safe country. Insurers have been stung before now by fraudulent claims supported by `compliant' local doctors.

As a result, their conditions for pay-out can be extremely strict too. For instance, they may change their definition of disability to work at any time, including after you have already been receiving benefit for years. They may accept that you cannot do the job, with its high salary, you did before. In addition, they now insist you prove that you cannot manage any job remotely related to it. Or any work at all.

They may also exclude disability caused by pre-existing conditions, whether they have been diagnosed or not when you start payments. Or disability caused by mental illness, criminal acts, civil strife, chemical contamination, pregnancy, hazardous sports, too much alcohol, drug abuse... Still interested?

Dread disease insurance is sometimes called critical illness insurance. It helps those struck down by a heart attack, stroke, cancer or similar killer (but not AIDS). Naturally, sufferers find their capacity for work, hence earnings, shrivel or vanish. Yet their life expectancy usually exceeds five years. How will they and their families manage?

On diagnosis, patients receive a lump sum. With this, they can rearrange their life, perhaps paying off outstanding commitments. Such insurance may have all the restrictions of permanent health insurance. Besides, it is new, horrendously expensive and only covers the healthier parts of the globe anyway. One company offering it is Sun Life. Such gloomy subjects bring us onto

Your employer probably insisted on a medical. Chances are it was a form-filling exercise. The Medico was not your GP. He was being paid handsomely and knew everyone wanted him to find nothing amiss.

Even when you have passed with flying colours, it is not a bad idea to get a private once-over from your own physician. A friend of ours was all cleared for Fiji when a last check-up revealed cancer...

Less drastically, we found a big difference between our doctor and our dentist. The doctor persuaded us to stay on his list. So he continues to be paid for us. If we had deregistered, our records would have been destroyed. Being NHS property, they can never be forwarded to your new quack. At least, while they exist, he can ask for the information.

We were told our records survived for one year. It now appears to be three. In that time, your new physician can ask for a synopsis or photocopies. Your old one, if he agrees, can charge whatever fee he likes for the service! (Source. The Weekly Telegraph Issue 57 page 22.)

On the other hand, in some countries, you have no GP as such. Just pop into whatever surgery takes your fancy. The doctor diagnoses and prescribes without making any records. If you are allergic to what he prescribes, it is up to you to get the message across! Preferably before you have been processed by his friends at the chemists', the radiographers' and the laboratory. Even then, try to decipher the contents of the capsules before you swallow them. And the instructions - they may be suppositories!

Helen was prescribed medicine in Spain and given instructions when to swallow it. The accompanying literature insisted `for external use only'. The active ingredient was mercury!

Our dentist by contrast must keep all records for ten years, We have found him very obliging at fitting us in on later trips to the UK. His services come very cheap by world-wide standards and are of a high quality.

When you are going abroad either on holiday or to work, the NHS supplies all recommended injections free. Don't leave it to the last minute to visit your GP. Anti-malaria treatment, for instance, must start at least a week before you leave. Deaths in the UK from returnees who contracted malaria are rising dramatically. A night's stop-over in a malaria area can be enough. Back in 1986, when we first left, mosquitoes had developed such resistance that two different sets of pills were recommended.

Without being a hypochondriac, lay in a stock of medicines for en route. Essentials like anti-diarrhoea pills, painkillers, strong insect repellent, water purifying tablets, tropical sun block cream.

When in doubt stock up for the future in Boots. British medicines are good quality and cheap. Even cheaper if you buy generic ones. That is, Boot’s own aspirins rather than Aspro, Boot’s own antihistamine cream rather than a branded product. Branded or generic, they are both genuine medicines.

In France, pharmacists offer and charge a fortune for placebos. Their pleasant taste (no nonsense here about the fouler the taste, the more good it does you) hardly compensates for a laughable list of ingredients. Besides, even a simple aspirin will cost ten times its price in Boots. (Admittedly, it tastes great.)

If you have time, and you are moving to somewhere remote, you may as well take advantage of national health subsidies to dentists and opticians. Who wants to arrive with toothache? Or cracked glasses? Helen also found a pair of prescription sunglasses a godsend.

Wearers of soft contact lenses - be warned. The cleaning solutions are not available worldwide. Disposable soft lenses exist to overcome that problem. At a price. You wear them for one day only. Hence no cleaning.

Last and easy to overlook in the excitement -contraception. Is it even legal where you are going? If not, and you get a stock past Customs, how will you lay in future supplies? The last thing you want just now is an unexpectedly pregnant wife. Even more so as many international healthcare policies rule out any claim remotely attributable to pregnancy. We know two couples who slipped up on the flight over!

So, if you plan a second honeymoon on the way, turn to the next chapter and learn how to arrange it as cheaply as possible.

Some expats itch to get started - and earning - as soon as possible. Others yearn to enjoy the subsidised holiday of a lifetime. They aim to arrive fresh and enthusiastic for their new job after the mad rush of their departure. Besides, they know that the vast majority of the cost of an overseas holiday is the flight. In many areas, you can find luxury accommodation incredibly cheaply.

Unless your travelling arrangements are paid for and specified by your employer, you will find yourself negotiating with travel agents. Some are far more switched on than others. Even so, one way tickets tend to confuse most.

The young, armed with toothbrush and credit card, may relish an overland trek. Or the rare possibility of a worked passage. Most of us stick to jet-hopping.

The alternatives, depending on your destination, are various and growing all the time. No professional is aware of all of them. Travel agents naturally push you towards the alternatives that earn them most. Nowadays, of course, you can also book on-line. Companies like anyway.com do the searching for you and come up with the cheapest fare for your circumstances.

Competition is so strong that most airlines offer stop-overs where you can break your trip for a while at no extra cost. Going out-of-season helps too. The peak in the Southern hemisphere, hence in the Far East where many of them spend their holidays, covers Christmas and the month of January.

British bucket shops used to offer incredible bargains if you scoured the columns of adverts in the quality press. Today, you are more likely to research by internet. Often it can be worth your while to fly to the continent and link up with another national carrier. (Like KLM in Amsterdam.) The national airline in your new country may offer special immigrant concessions on price and baggage limits. Before now, we have taken advantage of excellent offers from an airline's own in-flight magazine. The only difficulty was persuading travel agents of their existence.

As to airlines themselves, in our experience what counts most for your comfort is the quality of your fellow-passengers. Some nationalities are boorish, undisciplined, over-burdened and occupy your seat as well as their own. Others are polite, restrained and thoroughly `British' in their manners. Also, how full your flight happens to be. Several seats to yourself is better than the most luxurious of first class travel. Helen was on one flight where first class was packed but the few plebs in tourist class luxuriated in a row of seats each. Unfortunately, that is a matter of luck. So unplannable. Flying at unpopular times, actual public holidays for instance, does increase your chances though.

Normally, you would buy holiday health insurance at the same time as your flight tickets. This can extend up to a year. For any non-working members of the family, this is probably the cheapest existing medical cover. Before you buy travel insurance, check whether your existing credit or cash card offers this free. It may well. On condition you use the card to pay for flight and accommodation.

If you are passing through one of the world's great bargain centres - Hong Kong say, or Singapore - this may be tempting. Fine, if you know what life will be like where you going. Also what duty you may have to pay on arrival. Such purchases do add considerably to your existing, probably cumbersome luggage. They lose their attraction if you are tipped over the limit into excess baggage.

If you have time during your check-in, refuse to pay excess baggage. Take the offending item(s) to a Freight Handler. You should find several tucked away in the airport. They charge far less. With luck, the article(s) will travel on the same plane with you.

A travelling electric kettle soon pays for itself. So does one that runs off a cigar-lighter if you travel by car. A hot drink turns a hotel-room picnic into a real meal.

A travelling iron too, can justify its cost. Even a small heater if you travel in a cold climate with penny-pinching hotels.

You are no doubt aware just what rip offs hotel drinks dispensers and fridgefuls of booze are. If you use them regardless - and you are paying - you will need to change your habits to get much out of this book. We have come across unscrupulous people who drink freely from their hotelroom fridge and replace the contents with bottles from the local supermarket!

Unfortunately, it has grown more difficult to save laundry costs by washing clothes in your bathroom. Modern air-conditioning prevents anything from drying. Even over a week. And what is worse than wet, smelly underwear in your cases?

At the outset, you are unlikely to be shunting large sums abroad. Here we consider how to take enough to tide you over. In chapter fifteen, we consider one-off transfers of capital. For house-purchase say.

Even for pocket-money, we make no apology for going back to basics. There is such a diversity of methods. They increase all the time. No doubt your bank manager will have discussed some with you. Nonetheless, there is scope for saving - and squandering.

Carry some foreign cash for immediate use, like a taxi or snack at the airport. But take the bulk of your money in a safer form. Like travellers cheques*. Eurocheques* credit cards* charge cards*.

You buy travellers cheques before you leave Britain. Each cheque is for a fixed amount. You sign it in advance. Then you sign it again when you exchange it for local currency in the foreign bank, bureau de change or your hotel. Changing at your hotel always works out more expensive than a bank. You pay for the convenience.

Suppose you lose your travellers cheques or they are stolen. You can claim your money back from the organisation (like Thomas Cooks or American Express) that issued them. So travellers cheques are safer than cash. The book normally contains a page for you to note their numbers and tear out. You keep it separate from the cheques themselves. Perhaps you will put the cheques in your wallet and the list in your luggage. Or split cheques and numbers between husband and wife.

Some travellers cheques are valued in sterling (British pounds and pence). Each one will state on it the value e.g. £10, or £1,000. That means you do not know how much local currency you will get for each until the day you decide to change it.

If you prefer, you can choose cheques valued in the currency of your destination. Your cheques might specify 2,000 pesetas or 200,000 pesetas. You changed currencies on the day you bought your cheques. The exchange rate will change repeatedly between that day and the day you use them. You may fare better or worse than if you bought pound travellers cheques. At least there can be no unpleasant surprises.

One advantage of local currency travellers' cheques is that shops and restaurants will accept them. Not just banks and hotels.

You are not restricted to cheques in either pounds, the currencies of your holiday or of your final destination. You could buy American dollar cheques. Or even cheques in Swiss francs. Here you change twice. Once from pounds to dollars when you buy the cheques. Then from dollars to pesetas when you cash them. If the pound is strong against the dollar when you buy, you receive generous dollars for your pound. If the dollar is strong against the peseta when you exchange, you receive generous pesetas for your dollar. So it is a gamble.

Wise adventurers follow how the currencies are changing for a few weeks before they decide. Always assuming the amount is large enough to matter. Details are printed in the papers and posted up in banks.

Never buy your travellers cheques before you need to. Forget what the travel agent says. That is `dead money' as far as you are concerned. We have never experienced any problems getting cheques in a hurry. Travel companies make a tidy pile out of tourists who pay for cheques months before they intend to use them. The average `dead time' is six weeks. Six weeks of interest thrown away...

Normally, you pay 1% commission to the organisation which sells you your travellers cheques. Some organisations supply them without commission. Like a building society selling to its members. So it can be worth your while to ask around.

Surplus travellers' cheques can be sent back to your UK bank if you prefer. Pound traveller's cheques can be paid into your current account. As you are not changing currencies, there should be no charges.

Eurocheques* provide a useful alternative to travellers' cheques within Europe. Your British bank supplies a special cheque-book and a card with EC on it. You write a cheque on the Continent just as you would at home. Simply write the sum in pesetas (or Euros if the country is in the eurozone) not pounds. Your bank converts that back into pounds. It reduces the balance in your bank account just like it would for an ordinary cheque. You pay a small amount for each cheque you write. There is an upper limit on how much each cheque can be for.

Many travellers have abandoned travellers' cheques. They prefer credit cards like Barclaycard Visa or Access/Mastercard. Most banks issue and accept these cards. The advantages are clear. You do not need to tie up excess cash in advance to protect yourselves against running out of money.

With luck you can even use your card(s) in `holes in the wall' around the world. Computers often `speak' English. Careful though. Suppose you forget your number. If the machine swallows or mutilates your card and that was your only source of money, you are stranded.

A credit card thief needs your security number as well before he can flourish it at your expense. Despite that protection, frauds are still widespread. Users sometimes have to produce two cards to prove identity, not just one. We looked at credit card insurance in the last chapter. Your best protection remains - whether you choose card or cash - don't flash it around!

Credit card currency changes are calculated at the inter-bank rate. So are Eurocheque and charge card ones. This is a rate private to the banks. It is usually more favourable than you will be offered elsewhere. The transfers can take a while to appear on your statement. A few years' back, there might be a 6 months delay which was effectively a 6 months interest-free loan to you. Now organisations normally react within days. Except in really backward spots.

The rate of exchange used is that of the day the transaction was recorded on your account. Not the one that prevailed on the day you got your cash. It might prove better or worse for you. There is no way to tell.

Incidentally, no UK bank ever objected to us keeping our UK credit cards while living abroad. Even though they knew we had no income in the UK or intention of returning. Banks are eager to spread the use of such cards. It is highly profitable for them. Consider their interest rates on an annual basis. 1.5% a month is over 19% a year. Would you accept a loan on that basis? For every £5 you borrow, you pay back £6.

With credit cards, no-one insists you repay all on a set date. The limit is the limit of your borrowing. By agreement, this limit can be increased for future use. An elevated salary can entitle you to the dubious status symbol of a special "gold" card.

A charge cards like Amex (American Express) or Diners Club International is a short-term loan. You must repay within a month of receiving your account. With charge cards you pay a fixed sum for the privilege of having one. This applies increasingly with credit cards too.

Do not confuse a credit or charge card with a bankers' card. The latter merely guarantees that your cheques, up to a certain figure, will not bounce in the UK. Or a cash card which you use to get money from a hole-in-the-wall. Or an account card. That works like a highly restricted credit card. It only entitles you to borrow to buy from one shop. Normally a chain of shops, like Boots. That said, many cards these days are hybrids.

Suppose you plan to jetset to the States. You must use either dollars, credit cards or charge cards. Or all three. American banks are local. And blinkered. They will sometimes refuse to change even travellers cheques issued in America by another branch of the same bank! Similarly, Barclays New York branch has refused to change Barclays own sterling travellers cheques before now. A trip almost anywhere aboard will make you appreciate your British bank. Never mind how much you complained about it in the past.

You may spend your holiday trip over in hopping country-to-country. Clearly the fewer currency transfers you make the cheaper. You do not want to change your leftover money from country A into the currency of country B. Then change leftovers from B into currency C and so on. That way you pay disproportionate charges on small sums. Worse, you will only be offered `tourist' rates of exchange.

At least your flights, hotels and airport-hotel transfers were paid in advance. We felt like gods sprinkling the fistful of vouchers travel agents supply, all round the globe.

And now that's it. No use worrying over what you missed. Have a good trip.

At least six topics demand your immediate attention - unless they have been settled for you. Bureaucracy assails you first. You are handed forms to complete before you step off the plane. Next, you need a bed. Then transport, some form of communications and some money. Are you properly insured? Let's look at each in turn.

We have said very little about bureaucracy as this is a book about money. Normally employers are helpful over residence permits, visas and such. Just one trivial point - ensure from day one you are on the pay roll. We know of a Pom who didn't. He took it for granted that he must be. Then worked several weeks for nothing. His employer, a government department, refused to change things retrospectively!

Employers usually provide some sort of family accommodation at the outset. This lasts for a few weeks to help you find your feet. Or until your container arrives.

If you intend a long stay, you must then decide whether to buy or rent. So the first few weeks must be spent getting the gen on the housing market. No doubt you thumbed through reams of bumph in the UK. Now you must relate that to bricks and mortar. Or, as the case may be, planks and galvanised iron. Even mud and palm thatch.

The first questions include:

- Are foreigners allowed to buy real estate? Even if they are, there may be a separate market for non-nationals.

- Are house prices way beyond your reach?

- Do houses appreciate? Coming from Britain, we take it for granted that a house is a long-term investment. This is not true in many countries. Take France. The low building costs, low inflation and ready availability of land means people prefer to buy new. In the States, a wooden house can be a fashion item with a twenty year life.

- If you will need to borrow, who are the lenders, what are the interest rates and is there any relief? As a newcomer, you may find you cannot borrow at all, from anyone - until you get a credit rating. For this, you may have to buy some small thing on h.p. and repay as soon as possible. Credit ratings, unlike bankers' references, do not cross international boundaries yet.

Some countries, like Canada, opt for fixed-interest loans which you renegotiate every decade. The loans are based on the potential of the purchaser not the property.

In all, there is a vast amount to learn. You dare take absolutely nothing for granted. Certainly not the fact that the house was legally built in the first place. Nor can you believe every word of pushy estate agents. We look at this in more detail in chapters fourteen and sixteen.

Depending on your destination you may have the choice of a house or a flat. Especially to start with, in a strange locality where you have language and cultural problems, flats are far easier. They also reduce your outgoings. Not just heating or electricity bills. Costs like the number of servants you need to take on.

Suppose, like most short-stayers and the undecided, you opt to rent. Another possibility popular down-under is house-sharing. The owner allows you the full run of his house for your money, while continuing to live in it. When it sprawls over 5,000 sq ft, compared to the 900 sq ft of the average British 3 bed semi, you need hardly run across each other. We have seen houses that duplicate every item for each floor. Even to the extent of separate vacuum cleaners.

Maybe you are destined for a company compound in the bush or desert. Or a city crammed with taxis and well-served with public transport. Otherwise you, and your family, will both expect some sort of transport. What about driving licences? Will you need to take a test? What are the time limits for using a UK one? What about insurance? Here, as elsewhere, you may find what the embassy told you was out-of-date or wishful thinking. We sold a fast car in the UK because the High Commission warned of a 50mph blanket upper speed limit. We arrived to find that ancient history.

Your colleagues will regale you with the unwritten rules. Like whether you stop to help when there has been an accident. In some countries, the last person around when someone dies, even an innocent passer-by, is automatically responsible. They must pay blood money or else... In other countries (like France) the law obliges you to help - whether you know first aid or not.

With regard to insurance, safeguard all previous documents. We obtained a generous no claims bonus in France using a UK insurance statement in English. It stated we both had a clean record. It was dated four years before. The insurers accepted it. Yet they knew we had lived and driven in different countries in the years between.

If you plan to hire, you will find many hirers demand payment either by credit or charge card.

Do check what documents you must carry in your car. Here in France, that includes the registration and insurance documents - for which thieves are very grateful. If, with that in mind, you decide to ignore the rules, you could live to regret it. A policeman can stop your car and demand to see your registration and insurance documents and your driving licence then and there. If you cannot produce them, he impounds your car. It is returned when you have produced them - and paid your fine.

How are you at the local lingo? Does it matter? Work-wise, probably not. Unless you are overseeing locals. We have known expats manage successfully with only broad Scots in the Middle East and Continental Europe. That said, the more you understand the better. The less wool can be pulled over your eyes and the more the locals warm towards you. Who will translate on the work front? On the home front? How much do you trust them? You are putting yourselves in their power.

On another level of communication, you will want access to the local and international phone networks at least. Not to forget the post office. And ideally, uncensored internet. (Internet, even in France, in the public libraries, is ludicrously and infuriatingly censored. In practise that means the machine refuses to put you through to the most innocent site because it contains a word like ‘hate‘ or ‘arms‘.)

In passing, we would mention that in some countries the post office as a bank, is used more than in the UK. If you have an overseas postgiro or CCP account you can use it to pay for items you order from the UK - assuming the seller has a UK giro account. The order form normally gives this information.

How will folk back home keep in touch with you? A vast proportion of the occupied world does not enjoy door-to-door mail deliveries. The alternative, a PO Box number, is regarded with suspicion back in the UK. It enables you to vanish without trace. Or, at best, reply only when it suits you. (As a result, the UK Inland Revenue hesitate to allow banks and building societies to pay interest gross to expats who supply a PO Box address.)

We Brits at home enjoy instant access to international news, newspapers, radio, even satellites. We find it hard to imagine the isolation of many other parts of the globe. Mental isolation as well as physical. And it may be self-imposed.

When first we lived in New Zealand, the local radio relayed the BBC world service international news. Broadcasters abandoned it on the grounds of national pride. Fair enough. Except the chief item of world interest became `Wellington Council sewage sub-committee is meeting today to discuss the problem of bird-strikes at Moa Point.' Day after day. (The capital city poured untreated sewage into the sea at the end of the one runway of its international airport. The results included typhoid, delighted ornithologists and endangered aircraft.)

Worse, the television early evening news invariably began `The Prime Minister said -'. Sometimes the mid-evening news started `The Prime Minister has phoned us up to deny that he said -'.

Most expats want to maintain broader horizons. Financially, it is vital too. We look at ways of keeping up with world events in the next chapter. Then further in chapter thirteen.

You may arrive to find banking facilities all arranged. Be duly grateful. Perhaps the account was opened by a future colleague, perhaps on a commission. The selected bank need not be the best for your purpose. Do not hesitate, once you are settled and planning more serious transactions, to change to another.

The bank manager should be helpful. He may not. Chances are you will boggle at his way of doing business. In New Zealand, we sorted out our account details in the staff canteen. The staff surrounded us chomping on sandwiches. One lolled against the safe in the corner.

Bank charges can be eye-openers too. He may charge simply to open the account. Then again for each direct debit.

The same applies if you choose an off-shore bank, not one in your new country. Banks which offer generous interest rates commonly charge through the nose for services. £25 minimum for a currency transfer of any size, for instance. Such charges make the account far less appealing.

The French, at least Credit Agricole, have devised a wonderful system for deposit accounts. Wonderful for bankers that is. They ignore when you actually pay in or draw out your money. All payments are treated as having been made on the next 1st or 16th of the month and all withdrawals on the last 1st or 16th. So, if you pay in F10,000 on the 2nd and withdraw it on the 14th, you might expect some interest. After all they have had your money for 12 days. Not so. You officially withdrew on the 1st and did not pay in until the 16th! You might have gone overdrawn - a criminal offence.

If you know you will be regularly handling several currencies (pounds for school fees and your let house, dollars for daily living expenses) consider a multi-currency account. This is one where you decide which currency your money is held in, while it earns you interest. You can pay in and withdraw at will. Or switch cost-free to another currency when the exchange rate is favourable. Or hold funds in both, as we do, and draw on either in case of need. More on this in chapter eleven.

We have already mentioned some of the policies you will need. Plus others people will try and sell you. The pressure does not ease up because you are abroad. As well as the local reps you may meet British salesmen propping up the nearest bar.

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Grasping all this, arranging your affairs and getting your feet under the desk, will introduce you to a throng of people. We found it handy to keep a tiny notebook always to hand. We entered names, telephone numbers and what subject we met them in connection with. We also jotted down words new to us, even in English, and what they meant.

Once you are satisfied that your six urgent priorities have been met, your next step may be to find your container. If you splurged on a protracted holiday and it arrived ahead of you, you may already be liable for storage. If it landed up elsewhere, you may need to arrange and pay to collect it.

Colleagues can advise you how to approach Customs and Excise. Again, please believe them. They know whether the copy of Playboy or the bottle of illegal whisky in your case will enrage or satisfy officials.

Customs can be venal - they can also be grossly destructive. They ruined an entire family's shoes for an expat we met. That was thirty pairs, super-polished as befitted a naval officer. Customs soaked the lot overnight in neat disinfectant. Why? Because the officer lived on a farm in Britain. Bureaucrats were terrified the shoes might carry animal diseases. To heighten the loss, no quality shoes existed in the new country. No half-sizes. Not even a pair with both feet the same size. Now imagine the inconvenience.

Your shippers don't do everything for you. They can't. We had personally to visit Customs and Excise for a grilling. One country insisted we translate documents and inventories. Luckily, our translations were accepted. Otherwise we would have had to pay official translators.

Unpack as soon as possible to facilitate any insurance claim. We shipped ninety-eight packages. They ranged from a three-seater settee to a kitchen's worth of saucepans. We unpacked the lot the day we move in but were amazed to watch other families unwrap at the rate of one package a day.

The shippers do not remove wrapping, unless they unpack for you, which is rarely advisable. Why? They pack with extreme care. That said, the labelling is never precise enough to warn newcomers what is fragile. Unpackers know they cannot be held responsible for what someone else packed. We would rather risk invalidating the insurance and do it ourselves. The alternative is to hover, neurotic, all day long while, scattering fag ash, they rip and tear away. The deliverers are not going to welsh if you let them skive off early.

You will end up with a mountain of packing materials. It is easy to bury small articles inside it. When you have established that items really are missing or damaged, obviously you claim. Companies vary greatly in their attitude and response time. We had prompt settlement and no dispute. We sincerely believe our detailed inventory had a bearing on this.

Other expats found their insurers haggled. Or their claim was agreed in full but no money arrived. One couple needed relatives in the UK to stage a sit-in in the companies' offices a year after the claim was agreed!

If your damaged articles are antiques, you may find difficulty in tracking down an experienced repairer. New World optimists will tackle anything. They congratulate themselves on a fine job when you could have done better yourself - if you too had settled for nails or UHU.

And now, we leave you to a hectic few weeks. They will make you glad you opted for a holiday. When things begin to settle, it is time to monitor your investments. We discuss this in the next chapter.

At first every aspect of daily life presents a challenge. After a few high pressure weeks, this recedes. Only when the few challenges remaining turn into trials, should you think about your investments. Before then, you have had too much on your mind. Not least psychologically with culture shock. Now, a few pay packets have swollen your bank accounts. You know you can stay the course. Future expenses are broadly predictable.

This is the stage when you take a look over your shoulder. You need to review your present investments (if any). How do they fit in with your present high earnings? With your level of outgoings? Your future aspirations? They may not. Yet, at the time, they were sound investments.

Perhaps you opted for income rather than capital growth. But now your commitments have shrunk and your income greatly swollen. Now it is capital growth you need.

Maybe you had to abandon your pensions. How adequate is your present provision? Do you even have any? If you do not intend to start a new scheme, you should consider some other long-term investment to bridge the gap. Hence your present, vital review.

This is not a book on how to invest. Helen has already written one. (Money Matters For Women - Helen Baker, published by Penguin £4-99.) If you are serious about your money - and especially if you have never handled much before - you start with a little homework.

You need background knowledge of the various kinds of investments available. You must grasp how they work, their uses, timescale, relative safety, advantages and disadvantages. That means a book on the subject first. You cannot pick this information up from the wonderful blurb created to sell most schemes. Nor the intimidating columns of the financial press. Without it, you will be `sewn up' by the first plausible salesman who discovers you.

Once the broad categories are mastered, you must find out what is available in each. Then keep abreast of new opportunities as they arise. Opportunities, that is, in the UK, other off-shore centres and, if you are lucky, in your present country.

Lastly, you need reliable people to set the wheels in motion for you. But first, a word about international taxation. Why? It may tip the scales in your choice of investments.

The relations between the different countries' Revenue departments are governed by Double Taxation agreements. A separate, complicated one exists for each country with which the UK can manage to agree. The aim is that a taxpayer does not suffer high tax in more than one country on the same income. Imagine being taxable in two countries, each grabbing 55% of the same earnings!

The generally agreed principle is that the country where the income arose gets first bite at the cherry.

Imagine you live in Sweden but let your house in Cheltenham. The British Inland Revenue taxes the rent you receive. Whether you have to pay any more in Sweden on the British rent depends on the local tax laws and the Double Taxation Agreement. Usually, even if you do (because the local rate of tax on rents is higher than the British one say) you are given credit for what you have already paid in Britain. The likely result is you fork out tax at the higher rate of the two countries. But your payments are split between both.

Put into imaginary figures, your net taxable rent is £1,000. In the UK you might pay 30% tax or £300. If the local tax rate where you live is 40%, you have to pay an extra £100 equivalent. Not £400 because you are given credit for the UK tax you paid. Obviously, proof of payment is demanded.

Just because your salary may be tax-free in your new country, it does not follow that any other income is. If you are living in a high-earning and high-taxing country, you will have to take into account your liabilities in the country of origin and your country of residence for any investments you make. Obviously, your accountant can help on this.

You turn first to the Press. British newspapers may or may not be available. Depending where you are, their cost and the delay can render them useless.

Junk mail has a habit of pursuing you around the world. It gets through when vital messages go astray. Send off for information about just one expat-type investment. You can be sure other mailing lists will pick you up as a desirable contact. Sifting through the dross can be rewarding now and then.

Hundreds of organisations offer you a regular newsletter which is basically a share tipsheet. We would recommend you be very wary. Even if the sum you must subscribe for the tipsheet is hefty. Dubious promotors create newsletters to steer punters towards worthless shares owned by themselves in another form. Subscribers can also be pestered, even across continents, by very pushy telephone selling.

The BBC radio World Service is wonderful as everyone knows. You need a quality short-wave set. Do not rely on the service for more than a general economic commentary. Take currency movements, for instance. We have noted many errors in the read-out figures.

There are special publications designed for expats. Here are a few we have come across. And our comments.

Resident Abroad is a monthly magazine published by the Financial Times. It is glossy and persistently optimistic. It devotes too much space to where to find your dream villa. Besides, it focuses on the super-wealthy. That said, it is worth subscribing. Even if only for one year at a reduced rate. Do not worry that you cannot understand one word in ten. You should more than save the cost of your subscription. How? By discovering:

- cheaper medical insurance,

- bargain car hire back in the UK,

- the best safe places to invest your money in Britain,

- little things like sending flowers, a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine to relatives on birthdays. (Resident Abroad Subscriptions Dept, Central House, 27 Park St, Croydon CR0 1YD)

The International is also published monthly by the Financial Times. It is down to earth. It prints articles about people who have lost money too. It investigates fraudsters who operate on a global scale. A major advantage is that it is free for the first year. (The International, Marketing Dept., Greystoke Place, Fetter Lane, London EC4 1ND)

Nexus is a monthly publishing venture run by former expat recruiters. It offers details of jobs available worldwide. Plus all manner of practical guidance for working expats. We detect an engineering bias. It appears to aim at the bottom to middle ranks. While not specifically financial, it is very practical, basing its advice on feedback from subscribers. Nexus also offers its own range of negotiated discounts and reports on various overseas locations. ( Nexus, Expat Network Ltd, International House, 500 Purley Way, Croydon CR0 4NZ fax 81 760 0469)

The Weekly Telegraph offers facts and figures on the markets. It is also a distillation of the week's British news, down to the utter trivia. You might either end up homesick or glad you got away. (The Weekly Telegraph PO box 14, Harold Hill, Romford, Essex RM3 8EQ UK)

We recommend, rather than joining straight away, you write to the publications that interest you asking for an inspection copy. That is a free recent back-number to give you the flavour. Chances are you will receive an attractive discount offer on your subscription too.

Lastly, do not overlook your professional journal. If it is doing its job, especially if yours is an specialty with many expats, you should find useful information inside.

Perhaps you know the name of the organisation you want to contact but not its address. You can always ring the International Directory Enquiries of your local telephone service. Unfortunately they never use the Yellow Pages. You cannot ask them to turn to Stockbrokers and read out the first name and address. If they are not helpful or the language is a barrier, get a friend in the UK to phone UK Directory Enquiries for you. Or UK International Directory Enquiries if the elusive organisation is in a third country.

If you have teletext, you can find non-stop exchange rate figures etc from SKY, CNN and other free satellite channels. Of course, the internet can be a mine of information too. To avoid frustration and much useless junk, we recommend dmoz.org as your search tool and British sites rather than American. But the fundamental rule is, do not rely on the information of or consider doing business with any organisation which does not have an existing, sound, reputation, set up in pre-computer days. (We exclude Amazon from that, a specifically computer-based organisation for buying books etc.) Then there is at least someone to chase if things go wrong. Otherwise, you do not even know which country you have been dealing with.

It used to be difficult to verify what rate of interest your actual investments were earning for you. Banks and building societies change them at the drop of a hat with you none the wiser. Written requests elicited glossy brochures rather than hard figures. Phone calls left you no proof in case of later dispute. The internet has changed that, provided, of course, you look on the official, up-dated website, not an abandoned one giving old figures.

Naturally, potential returnees will also be interested in UK trends in house prices, inflation figures, cost-of-living details and tax changes. You will encounter the same problems you had trying to find out about your present country before you came. Some information is `soft', subjective to the point of useless. Even those abroad for good should be interested in how interest rates are moving and what investments are on offer.

Internationally speaking, it is safe. Institutions are long-established and prudent. You do not expect revolutions or sweeping nationalisations. Nobody has lost a penny in the last century investing in a UK on-shore Building Society.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that deposits with your new country's banks or even government are as safe. Reflect on the 2,000 plus banks in the United States which have been made bankrupt in recent years. Remember the millions of individuals whose government bonds/stocks/whathaveyou were wiped out or perpetually frozen by a stroke of some dictator's pen.

Helen had a client with over 1,000,000 government bonds. Unfortunately it remained stuck in an inaccessible African bank account. What efforts he made to get at it! The government committed itself to pay a measily 2% a year interest. That stayed equally untouchable. In vain, the client hazarded his life on trips to the country. His hotel corridors were patrolled by machine-gun toting soldiery. In desperation he even tried to corrupt an archbishop...

On the other hand, your last penny may still be safely on-shore. Perhaps all your arrangements were made in a rush by your UK bank. Purely for convenience. Now is the time to review. Compare with other British (and overseas) products available.

That is, deposit your savings with Barclays, Isle of Man instead of Barclays in Cheltenham Spa? Open an account with the Woolwich, Guernsey instead of the Woolwich in Woolwich? Take out a policy with Norwich Union, Gibraltar instead of the Norwich Union in Norwich?

Such organisations are normally subsidiaries of the long-established British market leaders. But, their parent companies are not legally responsible for them. They were set up under the local law. Not British law. Such laws may be as strict, or they may not... The protection available to investors if things go amiss will vary from locality to locality too. Parent companies have been known to refuse to bail out failed subsidiaries.

Obviously, the situation is different where the organisation you invest with is just a branch office of the British company situated abroad for convenience. You keep the protection of British law. Your investment normally remains on-shore, subject to British tax. Just as though you had invested with the branch in your former local high street. Or signed up in Germany say, with their visiting British rep.

Careful though - your British adviser abroad may himself be a FIMBRA member (explained below) but still advise you to invest in organisations not based in the UK and therefore not under UK rules and compensation schemes.

Banks, building societies etc. push their off-shore deposit accounts hard. One selling point is that you can receive the income without deduction of UK tax. This is true but misleading. You can deposit money in the UK and receive the income gross too.

Many organisations offer special accounts. They aim to attract non-residents - foreigners as well as British expats. You simply sign a form stating that you are non-resident for UK tax purposes. Tell the organisation that at the outset, complete the form and all is plain sailing.

The disadvantage of keeping your savings on-shore appears if you have other UK income. Perhaps rent or share dividends. Your personal tax allowances are set against your deposit income. If insufficient remain to cover your other income, it will be taxable.

Deposit interest off-shore is excluded from your UK income while you are non-resident. That frees your full personal allowances to set against your other UK income. Obviously your accountant can work out the figures and advise in your case.

Personally, we are not too happy about off-shore accounts. Admittedly many centres have set up investor protection schemes - after particularly juicy scandals. Many such schemes are new and untried.

Take the Isle of Man. If there is not enough money in the kitty to reimburse cheated investors, will the British government authorise a top-up? Will British taxpayers happily compensate foreigners and expats who enjoyed special privileges in the Isle of Man?

On the other hand, there is a vast difference between one off-shore centre and another. Some (the Channel Isles say) have a long, successful history based on discreet policing. Others are well described as `sunny places for shady people'. As an expat, you need somewhere offering modern facilities, fast communication access from anywhere in the world and peace of mind. Ideally, aim for an investment which offers the protection of a top name, a competitive rate of return, minimal running charges and even the facility to swop currencies at will.

Even if your move is permanent, we would hesitate. Is the financial sector really as sophisticated as the one you left behind? You can judge this by:

- the number of investment outlets,

- the type of schemes on offer,

- the range of services your bank can provide,

- the volatility of the local stock exchange,

- the government's world credit rating,

- the level of return that local people regard as non-risky.

`My pension pool only increases by 25% a year,' complained Keith, a New Zealand colleague, a mature man and an economist.` That is because it is invested in dull, safe government stock - unfortunately.' Rubbish of course. He found out the hard way, too late. It was invested in high-risk shares.

If you live in a tax haven, you may be on to a winner. Or you may simply inhabit a sunny place surrounded by crooks. Tax havens arises through historical hiccups, like the Channel Isles. A local body retains the right to collect its own taxes at the level of its choice.

Alternatively, a haven may be deliberately created by a government. It offers a home for your money, or an official base for your limited company. In return, it minds its own business. It asks no questions at all.

Examples of both sorts include Andorra, the Netherlands Antilles, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Channel Islands, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Isle of Man and Switzerland. There are a lot of countries in that list that we would not relish as a safe home for our lifesavings.

Whatever you decide, now is the time to review your goal. Perhaps your sights have changed a little. Or it needs refining. Next, you start scheduling your progress towards it.

You know your present worth - who better after the wrench you have been through? - and your likely earnings. You start from a realistic idea of how much you need to achieve your ambition. (If you are serious, you had it before you left.) Set up a projection of how your earnings, savings, income will accumulate to provide it. That is month by month, year by year.

If you need help, you can buy user-friendly computer software. Otherwise, any program with a spread-sheet will do. Update at least quarterly. Remember to amend to allow for the latest currency figures and also inflation figures for each country concerned.

When life grows tough, the easy way out is to blue your cash. To resist this, to keep going, you need all the encouragement, reinforcement, you can get. Regular close monitoring provides this. We can endure so much more if we know precisely when it will finish. A straightforward, self-motivating projection enables you to succeed. Forget that wishful regular flutter on the pools.

A sensible, reliable relative back in Blighty is worth his or her weight in gold. Honesty is vital but alone, it is not enough. Forget any helper who is aged, housebound, easily confused or sees no reason to hurry. Yet even they can be useful. Ask them to forward handy things like a supply of British stamps. The alternative (an International Reply Coupon bought from a post office) can cost four times as much. Often when you send off for information, a stamped addressed envelope is required. A normal stamp is easier for everyone. Or if they can record from the tv and post you videos, that is a real bonus.

To carry out your wishes - and ring alarm-bells - you should find staunch allies in your accountant and bank manager. As for advising on investments, well -. An army of investment advisers, many disguised salesmen, is poised, eager to help you. Some do the rounds of expat colonies. Here is a typical 6month's itinerary:

April Brussels

May Washington

June Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore,

July Nairobi

September Geneva

October Brussels, Saudi Arabia.

FIMBRA (Hertsmere House, Marsh Wall, London E14 9RW tel 071 538 8860) is the government watchdog body. It can send you a list of UK approved advisers. The Securities and Investment Board at 2-14 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8RA provides useful pamphlets on how to spot cowboys.

For helping out generally, a number of agencies exist to bridge the gap. Expect to pay handsomely. One such is Contact London, 5 Mallison Rd, London SW11 1 BL They claim to cover purchasing, supply, property management, travel and accommodation arrangements, office, secretarial and administrative duties. As if that were not enough, they extend into representation and promotional activities. If you are running a small business abroad, insufficient to justify UK-based staff, that could be useful. Finally, they provide the all-important personal services. Like posting you from the UK the one thing you suddenly, unreasonably crave. Objectively, you know it is unimportant. Yet somehow it becomes a security symbol. Life proves impossible without it.

This is an option for a well-established expat. He must be clearly nonresident and possess liquid funds. He is only interested in buying when current UK house prices are stagnant or falling. Forget a home to return or retire to. He seeks property to let out and earn a healthy income. Then sell, free of capital gains tax, while he is still non-resident.

Again, you will find plenty of property search companies eager to help you. They will search out the right house for you, thus avoiding any need to return to the UK. Providing you give someone in the UK power of attorney to sign documents on your behalf, the company can liaise with your solicitor throughout completion. If required, the company can even arrange for the newly-acquired place to be redecorated and furnished. They find you suitable tenants. Then act like any other rental agency.

Naturally, such services do not come cheap. Besides, they rarely guarantee the level of your rental income beforehand. There is horrendous scope for collusion with estate agents, builders etc at your expense. You rely exclusively on the reputation of your search company.

Suppose you decide to bypass helpers, `go it alone' and then cannot find tenants? Even if your tax status is not in jeopardy, you used to run another risk unless you bought outright. Whether you received rent or not, mortgage payments had to be met and there may be no mortgage relief. Why? Because you have never lived in the property. This has recently been changed, fortunately.

Do forewarn your accountant of any major change you propose in your investments. Tell him before you do it. Don't mention it casually afterwards. You action might have upset months of careful negotiations with the Inland Revenue on your behalf. Worse, his explanation of the tax implications, given in time, might have made you think again.

Whatever changes you now plan, never change currencies unnecessarily. You risk hefty fees, especially for small amounts. Of course, that includes using UK or non-local credit or charge cards abroad. Multicurrency chequebook accounts and the like are offered by many major banks. Or you can hold money in different accounts with the same bank in different currencies.

In general, change only to gain on the exchange rate (or at least not lose) and in a large sum. Suppose you know you will be needing to change currencies soon. The exchange rate is unfavourable. One possibility is to buy forward. If your local bank does not understand what buying forward is all about, for goodness sake never invest in their economy! We look at this in more detail in chapter fifteen.

You may also have discovered, to your cost, the hiccups and timelags in paying for your credit-card purchases from overseas, due to interbank and/or postal delays. Now is the time to regulate this. Possibly by arranging to pay your UK credit card by direct debit from your UK bank.

So there we have you, firmly established. All your cash is working as hard as you towards realising your goals. We turn now to the first hurdle that can prevent you achieving them - family commitments.

You waved farewell to Blighty once and for all. Or so you thought. We are willing to bet you will be back again before you expected. And that, against your will.

The major reasons are:

- the illness or death of a close relative,

- you or your wife or child falls sick,

- black depression descends, sometimes as a cover for its sister malady homesickness.

In the old days, the emigrants waved a tearful farewell from the deck. They knew their decision demanded making a final break. Now, almost wherever you are, family are only a phonecall away. A planetrip away.

The sole thing that forces you apart is money. And everyone knows it. Worse, the people back home imagine you are rolling in the stuff - it was why you went after all. If parents or dependants were reluctant for you to leave in the first place, the emotional blackmail for you to return can be horrendous.

A life-threatening illness or family calamity brings matters to a head. You have to drop everything and dash to their side. The urgency forces you to make arrangements in a rush. Forget cheap fares, discounted car hire, shopping around for bargain accommodation. Abandon all thoughts of buying forward or waiting for a favourable exchange rate. You pay through the nose.

Once at the bedside, things are not straightforward. A few years back, you said your last goodbyes, attended the funeral, helped the widow or widower through the formalities. Then flew off again with a clear conscience, your duty done.

Now, intensive care techniques may keep the patient officially alive for the normal six months until a place can be found in a hospice. Only then is nature allowed to take its course. Which places you and/or your wife, in an expensive and frustrating limbo.

Pessimistic? Very. Probable? Very. And that ignores psychosomatic illnesses. The sort which vanish as soon as the loved-one's plane touches down at Gatwick. It is hard enough to be firm but most people accept that a job takes priority. (We met a case in France where the temporary returnee had to abandon his established life abroad because his mother's psychosomatic illness brought the family farm to a standstill.) The wife or retired expat has no excuse to fly off again.

What can be done? At least ensure you always keep sufficient funds in reserve, in the right currency. Sufficient that is, to get you home and support you there for a few weeks. Obviously that money lives on deposit, earning you interest yet with instant access. Set aside the sum you think you need - then double it.

Also, don't forget to take your UK credit or charge card back with you. You will find hiring a car difficult without one.

Some arrangements can be made almost instantly. For example, you can phone organisations like UKHPR. That is the UK Hotels Priority Reservations. You tell them where you want to stay, when and your budget. They chase round the suitable hotels, get you a discount and make all arrangements. They claim, with the current depressed hotel market, discounts can rise to 50%. The service is free. (Telephone 071 623 7814 fax 071 626 8437 They claim to cater for everything from an overnight airport stay to a grand wedding reception.) Use the publications quoted in the last chapter for numbers to phone for cheap car hire. We know you will be amazed at the incredible savings available even with household name companies. (80% saving is not uncommon.)

Perhaps you pride yourself you are free of relative problems. You may still be forced back to the UK involuntarily. Thousands discovered that in Kuwait when Iraq invaded.

The UK Inland Revenue looks dispassionately at the number of days spent in the UK when deciding whether you are resident for tax purposes or not. The reason you returned is irrelevant. So, normally, is the fact that you had no choice. The well-publicised exceptions arise when enormous numbers of expats can raise a collective howl. If your mercy-dash renders you liable to UK tax on your earnings, it has been an even more expensive trip than you bargained for. It is possible to insure against some additional costs of a premature return to the UK. Fortunately, we have no experience of such policies. We do wonder what range of circumstances they accept. And more important, do not accept. You know you were honour-bound to return. It does not follow that your insurers agree you were forced to, whether for a temporary dash or a permanent retreat.

Your accountant should have provided details of exactly how long you could spend in the UK without problems. He must update this after every new visit. For forced returnees, a holiday abroad may be a solution.

Your own illness, or that of a family-member resident with you, raises another problem. Are you satisfied that you can get adequate medical attention in your present country? If not, does your employer's scheme cover emergency repatriation? Or the scheme into which you pay privately? Find out before you join. Not as you sink under the homebrewed anaesthetic in some bush hospital.

Sometimes it is not necessary for you to be flown by ambulance-plane half-way round the world. Totally up-to-date facilities may be on hand in a neighbouring country. Your insurers will whisk you there more quickly and cheaply.

Perhaps none of these apply and you are thrown back on your own resources. Yet again, do ensure you have funds available in the right currency to get you out. You are in no state to start, let alone win, a squabble over exchange control limitations.

If you are forced back to the UK temporarily you will find between the moments of agonising stress, days of frustrating inactivity. One distraction can be to make the most of the opportunity:

- to buy things you know are not available where you live,

- to clue up on the expat investments and services available,

- maybe even to investigate the possibilty of buying a car VATfree and driving it in the UK for re-export. (We looked at some of the pros and cons in chapter seven.) Apply to Customs and Excise to establish your position before you discuss anything with a manufacturer or manufacturer's authorised agent.

- to see what has changed in your industry, the job-market and society generally.

- to forge links with people who may be useful contacts

- to receive subsidised dental and medical treatment or at least checkups.

You probably think we have exhausted, even over-stated, all the family problems. Not yet. Relatives who travel out to visit you may equally drain your hard-earned resources.

Again this is a recent problem. Not only are in-laws a plane-flight away from you. You are also a mere plane-flight away from them! As anyone who has ever moved to the seaside knows, you can suddenly find yourself highly popular.

The world has never seen so many bored affluent pensioners. They buy open tickets and plonk themselves on your doorstep indefinitely.

Bruce and Sandie lived in New Zealand for four years. Within a few months of their arrival, Sandie's parents appeared out of the blue. They were undeterred by the sight of a tiny new house, half-gutted and half-renovated. They stayed six months, sleeping in the lounge. Within the year, they were back again. A succession of brothers and sisters replaced them. All blithely disregarded the domestic chaos and Sandie's chronic ill-health.

Ex-airline employees and others with access to free or rock-bottom fares form another category of pensioner visitor.

Such visits may be welcome in themselves. The trouble is, guests expect to be entertained. And that proves expensive. Especially if you are already maintaining an artificial Western style household. The newcomers burn to go everywhere and see everything. After all, their time is limited. Point out that the famed site they pine to visit is a thousand miles away and they laugh. This is the trip of a lifetime - until next year.

Such visits may be good for your morale. Or they may induce homesickness. Either way, their cost will undo your efforts. Relatives are very hard to refuse. At least try to restrict the time they come. And the timing to dates that fit in with your own holiday plans.

Chances are you enjoy less holiday than in the UK anyway. A few weeks as chauffeur/guide/caterer/entertainments manager cannot offer you the real break you need.

Relatives and old friends are not the only disturbers of your peace. Or fritterers of your savings. If you go to the New World, even passing through, you will find the most casual acquaintances request your address. Then they take it as a right that they can call in. You must furnish free extended accommodation, out of the blue, at a time that suits them. Be very careful who you give your address to.

Elsie, at a party in the States, gave her address to a couple she met that night. Within six months they arrived unheralded at her home in New Zealand. They did write - the letter arrived twelve hectic hours before them. They expected to be shown the whole country and accommodated for three weeks gratis. No doubt they would have responded in kind. Elsie, like most Brits, would never fly that far, purely to cadge.

Family and friends offer an obvious drain on your hard-won resources. The next is more insidious. It is boredom.

One morning you may wake up to find yourself in the position of many expats. Workwise, everything is under control. The family seems settled. The savings are coming along nicely. You can handle the job. In fact, now you know the set-up, you realise their standards are not high. Indeed, you may occupy a lower grade job than you expected. (That British understatement and reluctance to brag let you down on your C.V and at the interview.) In fact, the whole scene is becoming a yawn. And off-duty is worse. And the kids are muttering too. What can you find to occupy yourselves?

In Britain, we all wonder at New-worlders who trek hundreds of miles - just for a dance. The quality of the dance is irrelevant. They would have trekked just as far for a back-scratching contest. Now you know why. In-between, there is nothing at all to do.

You may have tried the local social activities. Like Jane who gamely bounced for twelve bone-jarring hours over rocks and scrub in a landrover. The promised thrill turned out to be a picnic. The only dish - barbequed goat - was served up half-raw, trailing bloody entrails.

Instead, you may turn your attention to the expat community. And that means overeating and overdrinking. Sessions readily degenerate into complaints and mockery of all things local. If many expats are American or used to paying American prices, forget saving if you socialise. Steve did a stint in Curacao in the 70s. He regularly shelled out £200 a night for an evening meal he did not even enjoy. Little wonder when Helen met him as a returnee, he had not accumulated a penny.

So how do you fill in the time? We have already provided one diversion - monitoring your wealth and investments. Experts agree that you are more likely to persevere and succeed at whatever task if you know just how well you are doing now. Scouring the press and internet for investment possibilities and updating your savings projections is a constant and time-consuming business. And vital for success.

What hobbies did you enjoy in the UK? They often have geographic limitations. Little scope for skiing in the desert. Alternatively, a chance to practise your hobby or sport in your new country may have been an attraction that did not materialise. Even though it exists. Why? Because of the poor facilities on offer. Anyone used to skiing in Europe would find little to interest them on New Zealand's skifields. Who would expect a resort without a skilift? Or to ski down at speed dodging uncleared rocks on a slope that ends in mud? And forget the conviviality of après-ski.

You may not be allowed to practise your sport in your new country. First, you must take a test and get a license. Boating is completely unregulated in the UK. Paradoxically, a Royal Yacht Association's certificate (a British qualification) is a common requirement abroad for boat hire. (You can study for it by correspondence.)

Or again, you might find a sport, strictly regimented in Blighty, probably for perfectly good safety reasons. Anyone can tackle it in the new country - at their own risk and invalidating their life insurance and healthcare policies.

The range of home entertainment on offer expands all the time. We have already mentioned British newspapers. Most magazines can be obtained too, at a price. You can find a list and addresses of virtually all the newspapers and magazines in the UK and Commonwealth, together with everything a budding writer needs to know in the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook published by A & C Black Ltd, 35 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4JH.

Writing is a hobby you can try anywhere. Who knows? You could reel off your own experiences, get them out of your system and even make a few pounds. Or discover a new talent. You do not even need to interest a publisher but can produce your own e-book to sell on-line.

There are umpteen book clubs you can join. (Just one example is The Good Book Guide, PO Box 400, Havelock Terrace, London, SW8 4AU) Then, there are book finding services to track down specific books at your request. (The British Overseas Book Club, in addition to the usual services and CDs and cassettes, offers to look for copies of rare and out-of-print books. The address is Alan Avery (Bookseller) Blackthorn House, Middleton Road, Pickering, N Yorkshire YO18 8AL. Fax 0751 76863.)

Again, the internet offers literally thousands of downloadable books in English. You can read them off-screen, print them out to read, or read them anywhere off your electronic notebook (palm). Just one site we have happily used is project gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg).

For radio, you have the BBC world service. It covers an incredible range of interests. But, Singapore apart, you do need a short wave radio. You can write to BBC World Service, PO Box 76, Bush House, Strand, London WC2B 4PH to subscribe to their monthly colour magazine BBC Worldwide. If you live in a developing country, you can order the programme guide section of the magazine free.

Unlike the other wavebands, shortwave reception varies with the time of day and season of the year. So, if you are buying a set, we recommend a digital radio with at least ten shortwave presets. Set them to the alternative frequencies on which the BBC worldservice broadcasts. That way, when reception fades just at the crucial moment, you can tune through immediately. You home in on a better frequency automatically by pushing a button. No more infuriating twiddling.

There are many companies who will sell you videos, including secondhand ones, by post. (One such is Vido Plus Direct which we have used. The address is PO Box 190, Peterborough, PE2 6UW Their list runs into thousands and they claim to be able to get a copy of any UK video existent.)

The BBC offers a mail order service including video and audio cassettes of former programmes plus books and shortwave radios. (BBC World Service Mail Order, Bush House Strand, London WC2B 4PH. tel 071 257 2575 fax 071 497 0498)

If you hope to enjoy UK videos, you will need to ensure that any video and TV you buy in your new country is compatible with both that countries' standard (we assume you will try the local programmes as well) and the UK PAL standard. For example, in France you need PAL/SECAM equipment and for many Middle Eastern countries PAL/MESECAM equipment.

There is an ever-expanding number of satellite tv networks you can pay to join. Like BBC Prime TV (Write to BBC World Service Television, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 0TT.) Satellites often carry radio signals as well. Here in Europe, several British radio stations are available - some in stereo.

In the last decade there has been a mushrooming of free satellite stations. We English-speakers are spoilt. In the past we have enjoyed watching films, either English/American in the original or from other countries with subtitles or dubbing, from the most amazing countries. Like Dubai, Jordan, Slovenia, Poland, Italy, Croatia... They change all the times. Sometimes a new station opens up and the first six weeks is free before it goes encrypted. Sometimes an existing station puts out American films subtitled, knowing the proportion of locals who speak English is very limited. It takes a while for Americans lawyers to threaten to sue if the films are not dubbed or encrypted.

Now is the time when you are really thankful you recorded your favourite TV programmes before you left. We find we most miss British comedy and British culture. For instance folk music is unknown while pop music is universally available.

For deprived shoppers, Freemans and Kays offer international catalogues and/or catalogues on line. Unfortunately, their usefulness is limited. Constraints of weight and size rule out many articles. Others are not allowed entry as they would compete with local products. If nothing else, the catalogues do enable you, a little, to keep up with fashion. (The feeling of increasing dowdiness can contribute greatly to female depression.) You can also send presents direct within the UK. They will include your card and message on request. What a significant saving on postage for Christmas and birthday presents! No longer are you restricted to gifts that are light, tiny, unbreakable...

Even if the organisation concerned does not sell abroad, like Mothercare, it can prove useful. You need the catalogue plus a helpful relative in the UK. Perhaps granny. She orders what you choose and posts it on to you.

Similarly, a recent copy of Exchange and Mart can be a goldmine of useful addresses. You can order things and pay by credit card. Alternatively Loot (Lynwood House, 24/32 Kilburn High St, London NW6 5UJ) enables you to advertise worldwide for free. There are ebay auction sites that sell everything under the sun. We have no experience of these but quote from someone who does. ‘Never consider buying anything if the seller lives so far away that you cannot get in the car and physically inspect the goods before deciding.’

Even with internet, all these services depend on the post. That demands from you a fair degree of patience. Delays are inevitable. On top, you must allow in advance for the heavy costs of postage. Plus possible duties imposed. Nor is the post necessarily honest. Never mind parcels, foreign letters, even registered ones, are stolen in transit in Russia on the off-chance they might contain dollars.

Frustrated UK voters can devote their energies to getting a proxy vote. You obtain an application form from the British Consulate, Embassy or High Commission. You are eligible if you have been on a UK electoral register within twenty years. Or if you would have been - but you were under eighteen at the time. Here again, you need a faithful, sensible contact in the UK to vote on your behalf. Registering to vote does not make you liable to pay UK tax. Dedicated democrats can try to establish their agreed rights under the EU!

There is another hobby to try - bargain hunting. Obviously we can forget the worldwide swizz of `duty-free' shopping. We are hunting for the real bargains. The rarities which your long stay in the country enables you to find out about. Depending on the country you live in, is it worth shipping stuff home? As personal, you hope appreciating, souvenirs? As presents? To sell?

You have to remember that experts scour the world in search of novelties. Can you assess the quality of what you are buying? Is there a market for it in Britain? There may be duties imposed. Plus the risk of deterioration in transit. Whether you can turn such shipments into a business depends on your own flair at buying, what selling contacts you develop in the UK and the competition. But expats have succeeded before now.

Or you could be getting in deep. Perhaps like John's relative, you answer the door after dark in Africa to a suspicious-looking character. He unrolls a dirty rag to offer you what he claims is gold-dust.. Going very cheap...

There are safer ways to turn boredom to good use. Invest in yourself. Distance learning is a thriving field of education. It is made yearly simpler by ever more sophisticated communications, computers etc.

One obvious area is languages. The Centre for Information on Language Teaching (Regents College, Inner Circle, Regents Park, London NW1 4NS) will supply details on all the taped courses available.

The range of courses widens all the time. Everyone is catered for, and virtually every subject. For the recreational, through the returning-to-learning course right up to external degrees. Not to mention post-degree management qualifications. It is now possible for expats to enrol with the Open University. At least in continental Europe where they have set up a network of tutors etc. (The Open University, 12 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1PF) Many professional bodies, like accountants, run examination centres in Africa and the Middle East. That avoids a return to the UK for expat students. (The Council for the Accreditation of Correspondence Colleges can supply a list of approved institutions. Their address is 27 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5JS.)

Your young children are not forgotten. The Worldwise Education Service (WES, 10 Barley Mow Passage, Chiswick, London W4 4PH) is one organisation which provides material, guidance etc. The aim is for expat parents to help their preschool and primary school age children. All courses conform to the National Curriculum. That smooths any future return to a British school.

Your lad or lass may thrive at a local school yet lag in one subject. The WES can provide an individual course to back up the school's work. Harassed parents may find the courses equally valuable in entertaining their offspring. Other long-established organisations exist. They teach the child direct rather than through the parents.

Lastly, with time heavy on your hands, you should ask yourself a question. How can this country serve me? It provides a good living - fine. But you can probably find other fringe advantages to be exploited if you dig hard enough. Like foreign qualifications.

A second lifetime driving licence may be very easy to obtain. It remains a valuable commodity. Or even a first licence. Prudence could never have coped with British traffic. In the third world country her husband worked in, she obtained her licence without problem. Other expats explained the only method. A bottle of whisky rolled around the backseat as she took her test. Before she tore up her L-plates, it had vanished.

When Prudence ventured out alone, she rarely encountered another vehicle on the road. The lack of traffic boosted her confidence and gave vital practice. Better still, she could drive for a year on the strength of her license back in the UK. Plenty of time to prepare for a proper test.

Similarly a h.g.v. licence. In some surprising countries, you can study for and earn it in an afternoon. Even a pilot or diver's licence may be within your reach. Perhaps the local one is internationally recognised (undeservedly). Or it may give you credits and a way in to a mainstream one.

What about citizenship? If you take it, you may qualify for jobs which your British passport prohibits. Like UNESCO. Or it may confer the right to emigrate to another country. An unqualified Brit finds it difficult to get into Australia. Any New Zealander can move to Oz whenever he chooses. A Brit can easily become a New Zealand citizen (while retaining British nationality) after three years residence in New Zealand. We have friends, now Australians, who moved from the UK to New Zealand with that sole aim.

Digging through regulations and swopping discoveries can become an absorbing hobby in its own right.

We are not recommending you try for the sort of work qualifications which you buy. Any decent employer sniffs out downright frauds. Such claims devalue the qualifications you do possess. Aim rather for those which are bona fide but on a low level. (Chances are the Newworlder who landed the job senior to yours, did so on the strength of such a qualification. Except he did not know it.)

Aim for a subject complementary to your existing qualifications. One can never possess a wide enough range of skills in today's competitive atmosphere. Who will know that you followed the course simply to keep your brain from fusing?

When these diversions pall, you may consider a holiday. Perhaps you feel duty-bound to satisfy - or forestall - relatives by returning to the UK. Do be careful not to imperil your residence status by your return. In our experience, such a trip is never relaxation. You have too many commitments. Chances are you parcel out your precious days to avoid offending anyone. So you squander hours in wearisome travel. Worse, you are expected to emerge full of vitality. And enthuse at the prospect of a put-you-up in the lounge. And yet another `Sunday roast' to force down. In our experience, relatives believe you have subsisted on foreign rubbish. They compensate by force-feeding.

A foreign holiday does not affect your UK residence hence tax, position. With luck, somewhere pleasant nearby caters for jaded expats. A solitary male may find the prospect of a lonely holiday uninviting. Now is the time to contact that old flame in the UK and offer to meet up. Perhaps in a half-way country. We bet she'll accept. Especially if you pay. Just do not expect to keep it secret.

John's former colleague moved to Kuwait to work. His former girlfriend, flying out to meet him in Cyprus, was spotted among the tens of thousands at Heathrow and her destination noted. The grapevine soon carried the tidings back to his wife and kids in the UK!

A family group should steer clear of any resort ever used for Rest and Recreation by American troops. Or you may be in for the shock of a lifetime.

`Daddy, why can't we watch those naked ladies wrestling in the mud?'

`Mummy, what is that little girl doing with her granddad?'

You will find yourself propositioned, touched up, by children no older than your own, goggle-eyed beside you. In a town of brothels and VD clinics, you even hesitate to risk the hotel swimming-pool.

It is while you are enjoying your foreign holiday that you let your defences droop. Touts wait to tempt you to part with some of that accumulating lolly. By investing in a time-share or buying an apartment or villa outright. Are these investments or indulgences? We look at the pros and cons in the next chapter.

Judging from the space devoted to it in expat magazines, isolated Brits spend every spare minute dreaming about a villa. Their only dilemma is which sun or ski spot to favour with their custom. Add in the potential rental income and capital growth and you cannot lose. Or can you?

The pressure does not stop with magazines. In some resorts, real estate agents accost you on the beach. They pursue you down the street. They pester so much that tourists complain of ruined holiday. Indeed, the tourist police regularly warn them off.

We were plagued in Surfers Paradise in Australia. A friend had lived there for twenty years. She watched the skyscrapers grow up around her. Her phone never stopped ringing with agents eager to handle the sale of her property which she had no intention of leaving.

Such persistence underlines what you no doubt know - there are vast profits in real estate.

The cheapest possibility of buying a holiday `home' is a time share. Perhaps in Continental Europe, for when you return. Perhaps farther afield. A few thousand pounds buys you a fixed week for ten years, a longer period or even for ever.

Many organisations arrange swaps. You can trade your week in the Algarve for a week in Florida etc to provide variety in future years.

Is it worth your while to buy a timeshare? That depends on how much you spend on your holidays. Bear in mind that the cost goes up every year. Equally the management charges can. And do. This is where promoters make a killing. You have no control over their charges.

Do your homework. Find out the cost of renting a similar property in the same area at the same time of year. Do not be surprised if it costs the same price as, or less than, your annual management fee. Rental prices nosedive out of season.

If you can afford it, buying a villa or flat outright offers a much better investment.

Some estate agents offer you `free' inspection flights from the UK. The flights are not free. The agents just tack the cost onto the cost of the property you buy. Other agents arrange cheap out-of-season flights from the UK only. Other nationalities - the ubiquitous Belgians, Swiss, Germans - get in their cars and drive. You enjoy a few days visiting the area and looking at properties. It is not meant as relaxation. You are not allowed much free time.

Some agents rely on the sunshine, cheap booze and holiday atmosphere to lull you into a ridiculous purchase. The worst criticism usually is that they do not offer you much choice. They rarely show any property that is not brand-new. The apartment they sold someone else last year may be on their books too. And much cheaper than the newly-completed one next door. You will only visit the new one.

Think very hard before you buy a property that is not completed. If the builders go bankrupt, take their time finishing, or the end result does not match the artist's impression, you are stuck. Foreigner insurers have even been known to renege on completion insurance policies.

How would you use your holiday property? Most people are attracted by three possibilities:

- free holidays for yourself,

- free holidays for family and friends,

- to rent out.

Even accommodating your friends in your absence, never mind tenants, raises problems. All the problems we considered when deciding whether to let out your British property. Add on the complications of an unknown country, the language and a succession of short-stay tenants followed by months empty.

Who will take care of the villa in your absence? Who stops the garden reverting to jungle and provides your tenants with clean bedding etc? Who tells you what the local rules are? And how to comply? In Spain, for instance, non-resident property owners must employ an accountant, even if they never rent out their property. They also pay for using it themselves.

Many local letting agencies will offer to relieve you of these worries. They advertise and attract the customers, take their bookings and see them installed. They pay the rates and electricity bills. They arrange the cleaning and replace furnishings stolen or damaged. They sort out problems - like plumbing leaks. Suppose your apartment lies on the tenth floor. Imagine how many other flats your escaping water could ruin before you arrive three months later to turn the tap off. Imagine the bills you would face. Not least for valuable water.

Agencies usually charge holidaymakers direct. They keep back their own fees (say 10%) and the expenses they have paid out. Then they hand over the rest to you, the owner. The good ones supply full details of how much they have spent and on what, plus the original receipts. Bad ones swear they needed to replace the shower fitting five times in the season. You get only their word for it.

Agencies may offer you a choice. Either a fixed return for the season or a share of the actual rents received. The first will be the lower. It also ensures your property will get more wear and tear. Agents, keen to maximise their own return, allocate holidaymakers to your property rather than an identical one with a share in the actual rents received. Only in a particularly bad season will you receive more by choosing the guaranteed return.

Letting agencies only operate in prime holiday sites where rows of apartment blocks hug the coastline. They will shrug their shoulders if you buy that isolated farmhouse in the hills. You are on your own. Unless you can find some friendly neighbour - who can understand you - to care for everything. You may also have difficulty selling your charming estancia, finca, fermette, mas, casa colonica or whatever. Position is paramount. You measure the value of properties by how many yards they stand from the sea.

Remember too, the olive grove between you and the beach will sprout a 10 storey block in a few years' time. You will suffer all the noise, dust and disturbance of a building-site. Yet end up with a devalued property, no view and maybe even loss of sunlight. Unlike Britain, there is no warning. You are powerless to prevent it.

Prime sites (first line by the sea) are so valuable that even grand villas vanish into rubble overnight to be replaced by tower blocks. Around most of the Mediterranean, developers play full-size Monopoly.

When deciding where to buy, think of the length of the season. If you can let all year round, you should earn more than if everywhere shuts down in September, like the Costa Brava used to.

Generally, but not always, the further south you go in the Northern hemisphere, the longer the season. Islands, like Majorca in the Balearics, do not enjoy such warm winters, or profitable winter lettings, as mainland Costa Blanca on the same level. Yet Costa Blanca season lasts longer than the Costa del Sol, much further south.

At the same time, how expensive is it to reach your paradise villa? How long does it take from where you work? How long from the UK, if you plan to return there? Spending a day speeding to a channel port then hammering across Europe eats into your limited time and delivers you exhausted. The ideal property is situated near - but not too near - an international airport, with cheap flights from your present country and from Britain all year round.

Otherwise, the bargain holidays you dreamed about, will turn out expensive after all. Accommodation forms a tiny part of the price. With a package holiday, the lion's share goes on transporting you there.

Spain and no doubt its rivals, offers another choice. A third alternative exists to buying a flat/villa then using a letting agent, and buying a timeshare. You can opt for an apartment in an aparthotel.

As far as the general public is aware, this operates like any luxury hotel. It offers round-the-clock reception, restaurant, pools and gardens and all amenities. Each hotel room is an apartment. You can buy it outright. It will come furnished in line with the rest of the hotel. Provided you give advance notice, your apartment will always be ready for your occupation. There is usually somewhere to store your own personal things.

Your friends however, must pay for their visits. Not necessarily a disadvantage. Friends who choose to occupy your flat for three weeks during peak season wipe out a quarter of your annual rental!

The hotel management arranges all the bookings, pays the bills, sees to everything. You share in the hotel profits. Not on the basis of how many weeks your flat was used but on the basis of the floor area of your property compared to the whole building. That, and the number of weeks in the year it stayed available for hotel guests. So even if it sits empty - saving you wear and tear - you still earn.

Choose carefully which country you plan to buy in. Not far from Athens in Greece, a guide once showed us a hillside of beautiful villas.

`Every one illegal,' he shrugged. `Built without planning permission. They had to bribe the engineer to lay on electricity. And water. And the road. And the telephone. And to collect the rubbish. Then the building inspector to turn a blind eye when he came round. The owners spout money like water. They think everything is fixed. Like hell! Next year, every official holds out his hand for more. They bleed the owners white. Besides, how do you sell something that legally does not exist?'

If you want to buy that blue-tiled villa, with its vineyards and pinewoods, you must consider exchange controls:

- of the country where you keep your savings,

- of the country you are buying in,

- even, if you are paying by instalments out of income, of the country where you earn.

As we said, Britain now allows you to take all your money out whenever you like. Others refuse. The country of purchase may not restrict what you bring in. It may still insist that you prove and register what you brought in and when. We look at ways of shifting large chunks of capital in the next chapter.

The problem usually arises when you want to get your money back to Britain. Perhaps it is the rent you have earned. Or you have sold the property. Now you want to transfer the sale proceeds (less, of course, the local taxes which your solicitor may have been obliged to deduct from what he pays you!). Some countries will only let you take out what you can prove you brought in.

Some, like Spain used to, insist you open 2 bank accounts. A convertible account into which you put money that you are allowed to take out of the country and a non-convertible account for the money that has to stay put.

Of course, once it is cash in your pocket, no-one knows which sort of money it is. This is why people shuffle across frontiers with suitcases stuffed with banknotes. If these smugglers are caught and, if they cannot prove their suitcase contains cash they are entitled to take out, they face a prison stretch. In a primitive foreign gaol. In practice very rare unless the amounts are enormous. The few nights you spend in custody can be harrowing enough.

If you plan to lavish your rent locally, as holiday spending money or buying local goods to bring home, you have no worries.

In an area where Brits buy and sell all the time, like a popular holiday or retirement spot, it may be possible to avoid this rigmarole. Suppose you buy from, or in future sell to, a British person at a price fixed in sterling. The buyer writes a UK cheque. The seller pays it into his UK bank account. Not a penny leaves British shores. Neat if you can arrange it but usually only possible on a second-hand property. Nor have you, legally, avoided foreign sales tax.

The foreign contract will still be fixed in the currency of that country. Suppose you are the buyer and the country enforces exchange controls. You can produce no evidence that the money ever entered the country. So you may not be able to remove it if you need to in future. Unless, when the time comes, you can arrange a similar sale to another Brit.

This limits the people you can sell to. Worse, if the property is sold on death, a local solicitor will offer it, on behalf of the estate, to whoever will buy. Your heirs will find their inheritance stuck abroad. Worse again, your heirs may not be at all the people you intended. We look at this in chapter sixteen.

There is so much to find out about if you are considering a villa or apartment primarily as an investment. A relaxed holiday atmosphere is not the best time to reach a balanced decision.

Do not expect a high return. The Mediterranean continues to develop as the world's biggest building site. But these days Brits buy in Florida, Mexico, even India. You cannot hope for an instant fortune either in rents or property sales. Too many other people from too many other countries sit next to you on the bandwagon.

That applies to ski resorts too. Not to mention berths for your yacht at glamorous marinas. And isolated places whose only claim to your notice is that they are tax havens.

Equally, beware of schemes where you buy your villa or flat with a loan repaid out of rental income. The loan repayments are certain - what if the rents never materialise?

The proportion of dishonest citizens may be much the same in any country. You will still grind your teeth at the time people abroad - especially where the climate provides an excuse - take to do anything. That includes handing over your rent.

Even before the current downturn in the world economy, frantic construction in every country with sun or snow had forced down rentals. When it comes to selling, real estate is very slow moving. Your capital is really tied up.

You, as a holidaying expat who considers buying a villa or apartment as a mixed pleasure-cum-investment, must decide. Is it worth venturing some of that the capital you are working to accumulate, in the interests of staying sane?

Yet, however boring the interim, the golden day will come. Moving on. Which we look at in the next chapter.

The contract nears termination. Maybe you have another lined up in another country. Or you are returning to the UK to work. Or the kitty has grown enough to enable you to start that pub/hotel/business you hankered for. Or you simply plan to play everything by ear.

The first priority for everyone is to get yourself, goods, chattels and money out. Intact. Have you left it until now to investigate exchange controls? Discovered whether, if your cash is blocked there is any commodity you can buy, export and turn into cash that way? That is a council of desperation. You may end up as a Chairman of British Leyland once did, with a shipful of rotting onions to off-load during an onion glut.

Luckily, the moving side of things will be far easier this time. You have been through it once. You know what to expect. The information in earlier chapters should be useful again. You are no longer a deep-rooting garden plant to be removed with care at the right time, but container-grown.

If most of your savings have been invested elsewhere, then there may be little more to do than close your bank account. Alternatively, you may have a house to sell or a sizeable chunk of capital to transfer. You want a good exchange rate.

You may not be able to change the date you leave but, with foresight you can ensure at least an acceptable rate. For this you buy forward. Ask your bank - and phone round its competitors - for the present and future rates for sterling. We take sterling as an example. Obviously, if you plan to work in the States or deposit your funds in a Swiss account, you are interested in the appropriate currency.

You need to know how many pounds the banks will give you for the amount of local currency you stipulate today (the present rate) or in three months' time (the future rate) or even in six months. The difference between their offers reflects what they expect to happen to the pound/local currency exchange rate in the near future. Different banks hold different views, or are willing to take more or less risks.

Clearly you do not leave this operation to the last minute. Besides, the figures will change daily. There is no need to possess the money today in order to sign the contract. If you are selling a house and the sale is firmly lined up, or you have a local investment due to mature soon, the bank should accept either as proof that you are serious.

Depending on the figures, and when you need the money, you can sign the futures contract today, over the counter. Or wait a few days and try for better offers. Then, in six month's time or whatever it stipulates, the bank will change your money, at the rate agreed today. So you know in advance what you are getting. You can plan accordingly.

Clearly, if the `spot' rate - that is today's rate - is better for you than the `future' rate and you have the money available, there is nothing to stop you changing into sterling today. You can put the money on immediate access short-term deposit with the local bank until you leave. Assuming they are sophisticated enough to run foreign-currency deposit accounts.

Alternatively, you can have the sterling transmitted to a UK or other bank of your choosing. Once you are assured of a decent exchange rate, the object is to have your money churning round the system - and not earning you interest - for the shortest time possible. Hours rather than days. But you rely on the international banking system. We transferred funds from New Zealand to the UK in twelve hours. England to France took a week. Nothing went wrong. The cumbersome system involved five different banks.

We knew people whose money was `lost' for three weeks just sending it from England to Spain. That is a lot of interest to wave goodbye to, never mind the worry. Of course, it was never really `lost' at all. Someone was using it to make more.

Did your contract offer a terminal bonus? Will you be getting it? It may be hedged around with conditions. Even if your employer agrees you satisfied the conditions, when will you see the cash? If you are returning to the UK, try and ensure it is obtained before you get back. It is possible to escape UK tax on your foreign earnings but be caught over a terminal bonus received after your permanent return to the UK.

Again, keep your UK accountant in the picture so that he can advise. He may recommend you to have the bonus paid into an off-shore account rather than a UK one. A trivial thing like that sometimes makes all the difference.

In chapter seventeen, we look at the tax position of people returning to the UK permanently, whether to work or retire. We spell out what they should do before they put one foot down on the tarmac at Heathrow.

For those of you just back until you can fix up another contract or to see the family, we add a short word on your domicile. That is the vague notion of your homeland which we looked at in chapter six. It is important because it determines whether you are liable to Inheritance Tax and, if so, on what assets. Even if you shook off your British domicile when you went abroad, a change of country now, never mind a permanent return to the UK, saddles you with British domicile again. So can a change of State within a federal country like the USA! That means UK inheritance tax liability on your assets world-wide. Domicile of origin is very difficult to shake off.

A word next about work. If you were grafting in an obscure, backwoods corner of the world, have you fallen out of touch? Do you need training to update your skills and keep you marketable?

If so, it will almost certainly be at your own expense. And you will have to do it in the UK, Western Europe or the US. This was one of those additional unexpected expenses we anticipated in chapter four. Remember how we looked at the factors that matter when deciding between jobs? A post in a country, or with an international giant, which is a front-runner in your field might have enhanced your job skills instead.

We have certainly not reached the end of the professionals who work to aid expats and, incidentally, take a share of your loot. Now, again, is the turn of the employment agencies. And the career counsellors.

Do distinguish between them. The latter make no claim to find you a job. Their goal instead is to help you see the most promising career path. Ideally they point you in the most useful directions and you land the job.

For this, expect to pay 12 to 15% of your last salary. Many counsellors are only interested in the high-fliers. Say those earning over £25,000 in 1990. On the plus side, they claim an average of four months between the start of the search and an acceptable job offer. This results in a significant reduction in wasted time and lost salary. On the other hand, many clients are encouraged into self-employment. Perhaps it is the correct career move. It also distorts their success figures.

Incidentally, a Department of Employment scheme offers a £5,000 interest-free loan to pay for career guidance. They provide an approved list of counsellers.

It may be that a brief canter around the UK job scene, and your likelihood of doing better in another unknown country make you opt to renew your original contract. With the important change that this time you and your family will not be transitory visitors. This time, you know what is in store. You intend to settle. That is what the next chapter is about.

Adventure over, you may think. Happy ever after. You traded Britain for a country - and a climate - of your choice. Now you are just another Ozzie, Kiwi, Canadian whatever. No longer a `world-is-my-oyster' expat.

Well not quite. You still stand out from the locals and probably always will. You have family commitments abroad. No decision of yours has changed that. How many Brits we met who had decided never to return (usually for financial reasons)! Yet the wife worked full-time simply to afford annual trips back...

Again, unlike the locals, you have investments overseas. Nothing prevents you continuing to deposit and keep savings in the UK. Provided the rates offered are competitive and you can change when the exchange rate suits you. Your knowledge of the British scene, coupled with whatever your adopted country offers, opens to you a galaxy of opportunities. Your network is already set up to arrange everything and keep up to date.

Perhaps in the past, you tolerated makeshift arrangements. Once the decision to stay has been taken, you will want to change them. To improve. To consolidate. This brings us on to

Naturally, we have considered this before. Firstly, in outline, in chapter ten as a way of providing an immediate roof over your head. Secondly, in chapter fourteen, as an investment-cum-fun purchase. A family home is totally different. A separate book could be written for each country.

If you buy a foreign property, the price is usually quoted in the currency of that country. Your savings may well be in sterling, or dollars, or even Swiss francs. Between the date you agree to buy and the date you have to hand over the money the exchange rates will yoyo.

Perhaps your dream house costs 10 million camels. Suppose you hold your capital in pounds and the current rate is 200 camels to the pound. You calculate that is £50,000 and you can afford it. Perhaps in the few months between agreeing to purchase and having to hand over the money as you buy, the rate changes to 180 camels to the pound. Your home now costs you £55,556. (10 million divided by 180.) If you cannot produce an extra £5,556 you will find yourself in difficulties. Or scrabbling around to borrow.

For protection, buy forward. Contact your British or off-shore bank. Ask for a quotation for a futures contract. We discussed this in the last chapter. If on the day you sign the property contract and pay up, the exchange rate drops below 200 to the pound, you are only too pleased you signed the futures contract. If the exchange rate rises above 200, you are still glad you signed the futures contract. It saved you 3 months of worry and enabled you to buy your dream house at a price you knew you could afford.

We bought forward four times. We came out well ahead twice, broke even once and lost once. Except we did not lose anything - simply ensured we knew what we were committing ourselves to.

Chapter nine discussed ways of taking money abroad. We were concerned at that stage with providing ample to keep you afloat, rather than moving all your capital. What follows applies equally to the overseas purchase of your dream holiday apartment and your family home in your adopted country.

You have purchased, with or without a futures contract, sufficient camels to buy your new family home. But they sit in your UK/Zurich/Guernsey bank account. How will you get them to your new country?

You can carry a suitcase full of notes. This is legal at the British end - no exchange controls. It may raise some eyebrows at the other end. Besides, what a crazy risk! A jittery traveller who never lets a big suitcase out of their sight alerts every thief in the area.

If what you are doing is illegal, the thieves know it too. How do you call in the police to trace a hoard of illicit cash? Perhaps you remember the famous German show jumper who won first prize, £10,000 or so, in the UK? At the time, exchange controls were in force. He hoped to dodge them by a suitcase full of notes. The cash provided a handy windfall for Heathrow baggage handlers. Fair game to them. Imagine his feelings when he discovered that, as a foreign resident, he could have transferred his win legally!

He could have arranged a transfer through the international banking system, one of the options open to you. This may turn out slow, cumbersome and leave you kicking your heels. Forget signing any contract for your new home for a week or two, until your money reappears. Never mind moving in. Still, it did avoid a return trip to Britain.

If delays are your problem, one solution can be to carry a banker's draft. This is a document you buy from your bank. In it, the bank promises to pay the 10 million camels on a set date. Their draft, unlike your cheque, does not need to be cleared. So you do not have to wait. You hand it straight over. Because it is made out specifically to your overseas lawyer, the document is useless to a thief. But you must normally collect it personally.

If your country is one of those which forbids you to bring in its own currency, you will have to import your purchase money as sterling or whatever foreign currency you kept it in. Once inside, you convert it. The rate offered will probably be poor.

If you cannot afford to pay cash, mortgage possibilities abound. Your new country's bank or building society (if such things exist) for a start. Do not be surprised if the loan is;

- short-term (ten, even five years as opposed to the twenty-five you are used to),

- based on your earning capacity and/or credit rating rather than the value of the house, or

- fixed-interest.

Like the housing itself, the local methods of borrowing are something you have to swot up from scratch. Never taking a thing for granted. And do not expect the paternal concern - limits to stop you over-committing yourself, sympathetic consideration in hard times - of British building societies.

Your British bank or building society may run a local branch in your new country. Not so long ago they demanded the security of a British house to lend you money to buy abroad. Now you find some prepared to lend using the deeds of your foreign property as security. The loan conditions should be familiar to you from British borrowing.

If you borrow in the local currency, the same currency in which you earn your wages, you do not have to worry about exchange rate changes. Also, you should qualify for any tax relief going. With more sophisticated borrowing, you must check that you do still qualify.

You are not restricted to borrowing from a local source or even a British one. Moneylenders spread their nets worldwide. Foreign currency mortgages are on offer in Britain for British property too. Perhaps you already have experience of them. They may offer you a loan in deutschmarks at 5% instead of pounds at 15% or camels at 25%. At first sight, very tempting.

That said, we view them with suspicion. We watched expats and innocent locals sink grossly and permanently into debt.

Firstly, the 5% is not fixed any more than the 15% or 25% is fixed. In a year or two's time the boot could be on the other foot. Other interest rates could fall below German ones.

Secondly, countries normally enjoy low interest rates when their currencies are strong and likely to get stronger over the years. Examples of strong currencies are the Swiss Franc, the German deutschmark, and a few years back, the Japanese Yen. Examples of currencies getting weaker are - unfortunately - the pound sterling and the French franc. The American dollar teeters in-between. Anyway, it does not happen evenly. All pass through strong periods and weak periods. Fortunes are won and lost as a result. (We bought a beer once at Athens airport. The barman accepted our poundnotes. He refused the American dollars tendered by the Yank beside us. Poor man, his world collapsed. He gibbered. It was a moment to savour.)

A foreign currency mortgage is a wild gamble. You gamble on the interest rate. Next but at the same time, on the rate of exchange at which you pay that interest. Far worse, you are gambling on the exchange rate at which you repay the capital you borrowed.

Take Brian. For ease, we give his example in sterling. He borrowed £50,000 for 10 years in deutschmarks when the interest rate was a mere 5% in Germany compared to 10% at home. The exchange rate was 3 dm to £1 so he borrowed 150,000 dm and had to find 7,500 dm interest a year. At 3 dm to £1, that cost him £2,500. (In Britain, he would be paying interest of £5,000, that is 10% of £50,000, so he is ahead.)

It only needs the exchange rate to change to 2.5dm to the pound for the interest to cost him £3,000. If the German interest rate rises to 8% as well, he finds himself paying £4,800. (150,000 dm x 8% divided by 2.5 to convert it to pounds.) He is still paying less than he would with an ordinary British mortgage at this stage. Now look ahead.

Suppose when he comes to repay the capital of 150,000 dm, the rate is still 2.5 dm to £1. Then, instead of repaying the £50,000 he borrowed, he has to pay £60,000! (150,000 divided by 2.5).

Of course, things might go the other way and he might make a profit. But the underlying trend, as we have said is for the deutschmark to get stronger. That is, you get less dm for your pound. That was why the interest rate was low in the first place. In September 1992 the pound plummeted worse against the dm than the example shown above.

How can Brian possibly budget? He is like a juggler with too many balls up in the air. Probably, he pays his mortgage monthly. He will never know from one month to the next how much money he will have to find. We knew of borrowers who, after decades of paying interest, still owed more than they had borrowed originally. Some started out borrowing at 3%. In Hong Kong dollars.

You may think we have exposed all the risks. Not so. Some contracts carry a sting in the tail. They stipulate that on a very adverse exchange rate change, the whole mortgage switches to sterling and stays there. In other words, you pay all the remaining interest and capital in due course, at a catastrophic exchange rate for you.

The ultra-sophisticated (and ultra-wealthy) protect themselves. They employ foreign exchange managers and buy currency options. Hardly a cost-effective method to buy an ordinary house. The vast majority of people with foreign currency mortgages live unprotected. Helen worked alongside men in their seventies. They dared not retire because their mortgages devoured their income. And always would...

The minute you buy any property abroad - or deposit your earnings into a local bank account even - you put your capital under the jurisdiction of a foreign legal system. If you are planning a protracted, even permanent stay, it is vital to find out something about it.

You cannot assume even in English-speaking ex-colonies that the fundamentals of the British legal system are still upheld. Never mind that the final court of appeal is still the House of Lords. Their Lordships review what the local laws say and reach a decision based on that.

Do not be surprised when buying a house to find one lawyer acts for both buyer and seller. That is normal in many countries. (Even for divorces!) He checks that the seller owns the property and that the buyer produces the money. He draws up the documents of change of ownership and watches them signed. Then registers them with the authorities. It is not his responsibility to warn you about the projected new motorway. Nor to mention the risk of subsidence from towerblocks gerrybuilt on sand. Or even, as happened in New Zealand, that one entire estate was erected on a recently-closed rubbish tip. And another on a streambed filled with sawdust! (Truly. Remember how we warned you that you would not believe returning expats?)

There is little sense in paying a British solicitor to inspect a foreign deed of sale. When translated into English, he will understand the words but not the foreign law that lies behind them. Use your common sense and keep asking questions. Best of all, ask other Brits who have already bought, how they got on. That is your best guide.

Of vital concern to you in the long term, is the local system of

inheritance

Your new house is subject to local law, even if you made an English or Scottish will. A man may leave everything to his wife in such a will. But if the law in your new country stipulates someone different, that prevails.

Many countries only allow legitimate family to inherit. Suppose a childless man and wife jointly own a property and one dies. The share may go, not to the survivor (whatever the British will says) but to the deceased's family. Usually his parents or brothers and sisters. The spouse is left out in the cold.

You may think you have overcome this by making a local will. It must conform to local requirements and not just in terms of who gets what. In France, there are three acceptable versions of a will. The commonest - the do-it-yourself sort - is only valid if handwritten by the testator and signed with his full name. Everywhere, an invalid will starts off a messy longdrawnout intestacy* where the courts decide who gets what.

Some countries impose inheritance tax according to who inherits. There may be little to pay when a close relative succeeds but a fortune if an outsider does, like a live-in girlfriend. And so on. And so on.

For these reasons, you need professional advisers in your new country too. Suppose your assets are spread over several countries - holiday villa in Florida, a share in the London flat currently occupied by your ex-wife and family, your new family home in Canada. You may need a will in each country, to cover the assets located there.

While one will can cover the lot, it will need firstly to be proved. That, with translations etc can take months. Then, it must conform with the local law. That assumes your solicitor knew the rules of the other countries, which is unlikely. In our view the legal fees saved by one will are outweighed by the risks. You did not work hard to have your capital dissipated by expensive international litigation.

Your English will can, if necessary, be made by post. Your solicitor draws it up on your instructions and sends it to you for signature, witnessing etc. Ideally, this is done as part of a tax-planning exercise when your accountant liases with your solicitor to carry out your wishes while minimising any Inheritance tax.

Do not forget that your British-based assets remain liable to UK inheritance tax. That applies even if you have been lucky enough to shake off your British domicile by a permanent move to another country. And a few years must pass before even your foreign-based assets escape the net.

All in all, an enormous subject, made even more complicated by the foreign element(s).

There are two other areas where a decision to stay long-term may force you to take action - income tax and pensions. If not already, you will now become a local taxpayer. Tempting though it may be, do not assume it is up to the local Inland Revenue to contact you. Almost inevitably, the ball sits on the other foot. You may well incur penalties for delays in informing them of your existence, never mind income.

We would recommend in the first instance you visit a local accountant. Use him to find out the position rather than the tax office. He obviously advises you what you should do in future. Equally important, he counsels any immediate adjustments you should make to improve your position before you `confess'. His presence if you need to `come clean' is not only marvellous for morale but should secure you more sympathetic treatment. His very presence proves you are serious in your attempt to regulate matters.

Once permanently abroad, you lose all rights to pay into a UK job-related pension scheme. There may well be a compulsorily local state scheme to join. Depending on your circumstances, it may be possible for your past DSS contributions to earn you some local state retirement pension too. At the same time, your employer may have a scheme for you to join or there may be local-based or off-shore private schemes available instead. Obviously, research is required.

More research.. More expense... Just when you thought you had taken the easy way out by staying put. If the idea of mastering a whole new system of life deters you, you can always return to the one you grew up with. In the next chapter, we look at going back to the UK for good, whether to work or retire. And what steps you should take to protect your wealth before you arrive.

An acquaintance of Helen's was deported for switching off a television set. She committed her crime in a hotel lounge. The programmes had ended. The National Anthem blared forth. The newly independent African country took her action as an insult. She found herself back in the UK within twenty-four hours. Other expats usually get longer to arrange their affairs.

Back to the UK for good means back to the clutches of the Inland Revenue. Your accountant should advise the best time of year to return from a tax point of view. This may be one factor among many. Sometimes you can improve your date of return by taking a holiday abroad first - even Jersey will do.

You may have been accepted as not-resident and not ordinarily resident in the past. Now, you revert to a normal `resident and ordinarily resident' taxpayer. So you must capitalise on the last few months.

As a non-resident, you could forget about UK capital gains tax. Now we trust, your investments, like shares say, are currently worth much more than you paid for them. A happy situation. Except you could be liable to tax on any future sale.

Your accountant will tell you, on request, which investments are at risk. At risk that is of there being a lot of tax to pay on any future sale. He will advise you to sell them, and realise the gain tax free before you return. Perhaps you would not otherwise have sold the assets. You anticipate they will continue to flourish. You can sell and immediately buy them back again. This is called a `bed and breakfast' transaction.

Similarly, your remuneration package may have included stock options. Exercise them before you return and sell the shares if there is any risk of capital gains tax arising.

The same applies to overseas interest-bearing accounts. Close them before you return. That done, the interest to date escapes UK tax. There is nothing to stop you reopening identical new accounts with the proceeds.

Returnees can continue to hold accounts off-shore (in Switzerland say, or even the Isle of Man). Once you are resident, the income is liable to UK tax, being part of your world income and must be entered on your UK tax return.

So, contrary to what many think, you should judge your off-shore investments in the light of their profitability and not their mythical tax-saving potential. How many Brits have set up limited companies in the Channel Isles in the mistaken belief that they could legitimately funnel off profits from their UK business?

Perhaps you receive payments from your overseas employer after your return. Your long-awaited terminal bonus, say. Even an ex gratia payment (a non-contractual payment to thank you for a job well done) or a contractual profit share. Alternatively, you may have paid into a foreign pension scheme and now wish to commute part of, or your entire pension, for an immediate lump sum. Are these sums taxable in the UK? If so, can you benefit from some of the concessions available where similar payments are made to UK former employees by UK former employers? Big questions. All needing professional advice.

You may continue to hold foreign investments and receive a foreign income or pension for the rest of your life. Perhaps when you started it, you were assured it was tax-free. True. But that was free of tax in the country in which it originated. Not in the UK. Thousands of British residents groan and growl because their tax-free American pensions are taxed in the UK.

Only one organisation can authorise investments which are tax free in the UK for a UK resident. That is the British government. And it does. Some government investments, some National Savings schemes for example, are tax free to British residents. You will now, as a resident, be eligible for approved taxfree schemes which the government authorises other bodies to offer. Like TESSA* which is open to residents and non-residents alike. Or ISA*. You may find them interesting now that you are liable in full to UK tax again.

Remember what we said in chapter eleven about Double Taxation agreements? The aim is that a taxpayer does not suffer extortionate tax in more than one country on the same income. The generally agreed principle - in so far as there is one - is that the country where the income arose grabs first slice of the cake.

Now that you have returned, it is not your house in Cheltenham that the agreement affects. Rather, your American deposit account interest, the Gibraltar-based pension, the Manx-based annuity, any income you may be receiving from abroad.

Equally, now that you are resident again, the double taxation agreement affects any capital gains you have made on the sale of assets abroad since you returned. This time, naturally, the foreign country of origin gets in and taxes you first. In Spain, your solicitor grabs 10% of your property sale proceeds. He hands this to the Spanish government towards any capital gains tax you may have to pay. As before, you should be given credit in the UK for the specific tax you have paid abroad. Obviously, proof of payment is demanded.

Take an expat who lived abroad long enough and in such circumstances that he acquired a foreign domicile. He does, of course, lose it if he returns to the UK for good. As a result, his assets worldwide are liable one day to inheritance tax.

That said, steps may be taken to improve the position with the use of non-resident trusts for instance. Such sophisticated tax planning must be done while he is still non-resident and hence non-domiciled. It will always require the expensive professional aid of British solicitors, accountants, tax-planners so should only be considered where vast sums are at risk. The savings can be enormous too.

Your trip home may offer a good chance to import a bargain car. It is a bargain, not for tax reasons, but because car prices vary widely from country to country. Naturally, you need to do your homework. Conventional wisdom quoted Belgium and the Netherlands as the cheapest EEC countries. But it seesaws.

First, find out what the same vehicle costs in the UK. The Car Appraisal Section of UK Customs and Excise will give you an estimate of the Car Tax and VAT you will face. The AA will do all the paperwork for members and non-members, for a modest fee. They can also arrange for MOT, repairs and/or modifications to be carried out so that even your unusual car gets its National Type Approval Certificate.

With luck, you can drive the car home, sort out the formalities at your port of arrival, pay out the dues and continue on your way. You will need to carry cash (Heaven forbid!) or a certified cheque. Customs and Excise accept neither credit cards nor high-value personal cheques.

Alternatively, many dealers in Europe will sell you a car which they deliver themselves and you personally set about registering it.

So, here you are back home, all steps taken to safeguard your treasured earnings. You have savoured your first pint, picked up your first cold. Now back to work. Perhaps for the same company that sent you off. Was it worth it financially? And career-wise? How do they value your hardwon experience? What step do they put you back on in the executive ladder?

This will, of course, vary with your company, and their experience in handling expats. At least one recent study (footnote - "The Management of Expatriates" produced by the Cranfield School of Management) has evaluated this. Their researchers discovered that, even when expats had completed their tour successfully, employers had difficulty in placing them in new positions on their return. Not in the sense there was no room for them. Rather, just how good are they now? At this point, a high profile and a little trumpet-blowing (perhaps an unsolicited report on your achievements) may work wonders.

On their side, the employees and their families, had difficulty in adjusting to life in the UK. It is wise to anticipate this.

For expats returning to retire, remember the pensions based on a notional salary that we cautioned about in chapter seven? If your level of pension comes as a shock, tackle the trustees first. Your last resort in a dispute could be the Occupational Pensions Advisory Service, 8A Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2LP

A few months of the British climate, coupled with pension squabbles and first-hand experience of the present-day rat-race, may make you decide to retire abroad. If so, turn now to the next chapter.

For the permanently expat, everything we have already covered in chapter fifteen applies. You too need to come to terms with a whole new country's legal and social system. Without a kind employer to hold your hand.

To choose between sunspots, you will do as much research as when deciding between jobs. And cover broadly the same ground - cost-of-living, life style and so on. This research is rather pleasanter. Perhaps a European tour, like we enjoyed. One big bonus - you can take your time. The future belongs to you.

In France, there is a good scheme offered by some French and foreign car manufacturers to non-residents. We took advantage of it. You `buy' a brand new car from the manufacturer. You can drive it anywhere on the Continent or North Africa, for a period ranging from 3 weeks to 6 months as you choose. There are no mileage restrictions. If anything goes wrong with the car or there is an accident, it is repaired free by any of their agents and - if necessary - replaced. Around the clock insurance even covers emergency accommodation. The scheme cost between a third and a half of the price of car-rental, the longer the cheaper. At the end of the period you simply return the car. Its distinctive red TT number-plates ensure smooth sailing through frontiers. (For example, contact Renault DVSE, 186 Avenue Jean-Jaures, 75019 Paris, France.)

Expats tend to be early retirers. That may well have been the goal they set up when they chose to become expat. Ideal, if you can retire well-heeled, while still young and healthy enough to enjoy it. The sole drawback is you find yourself an oddball.

The official retiring age varies wildly even within the EC. Any pension entitlement you built up in the country of your choice, if you lived there before, will not be payable until you reach their official age. In Denmark, men and women draw it from age 67. Italy, by contrast, shells out to women at 55 and men at 60.

Someone who worked twenty years in England and twenty years in France would receive two state pensions, one from each. See the DSS pamphlet for the tortuous rules.

If you are not officially a `pensioner' you may well have to satisfy a stringent set of rules to allow you to stay for good. Never mind that you have sold up everything in the UK, bought a house locally and registered with all the appropriate authorities.

Do not be lulled by the fact that your chosen paradise belongs to the EU. Their agreements only relate to workers.

Here in France, we had to apply annually for permission to stay. We delivered the forms in January and hoped for a decision in April. Over and above the usual documents, they demand evidence of sufficient income to live on, at a level they choose. Capital was irrelevant on the grounds you might blow it all tomorrow. The first year, there was a medical to pay for ... And they checked up on us with the British police... Finally, they expected written proof from the country where we were last resident that we had been authorised to leave! Now, thank heavens, we apply five-yearly.

It is impossible to find out from Britain, just what any country will demand because each county (county not country!) inserts its own small print. Like whether all documents must be expensively translated.

Outside the EU, the UK has agreements with other countries for mutual recognition of past pension contributions. Examples are Australia and New Zealand. Again, read the specific and tortuous DSS pamphlet.

For the isolated, the elderly, the sociable you might consider buying an apartment in an aparthotel as we mentioned in chapter fourteen. You will normally meet up with other expats who occupy their apartments all year round, while enjoying the hotel's amenities. As their flat is not available for renting, they do not receive a share of the profit. They pay a management charge towards running costs.

Unlike a time-share, no greedy promotor lurks rubbing his hands. All the owners unite to keep the management charges as low as possible for everyone. And the hotel profits buoyant.

An aparthotel can provide the ideal solution for an elderly person. You need the sunshine to keep bronchitis at bay but might otherwise feel lost and lonely in a foreign country. In an aparthotel, as well as the other residents, you meet a succession of visitors, many from Britain. The hotel staff too is always at hand to advise and help you. You share all the pleasures of the garden and none of the work. Benidorm, just to name one resort, boasts a vast British colony with its own British newspaper and even a branch of the RSPCA.

If you receive a DSS pension, it can be paid to you abroad. UK pensions, other than Crown pensions, can be paid gross of UK tax. First, you need to produce a statement from the local tax authority that you are liable on all worldwide income in that land.

The same applies to Life Assurances annuities that you may have earned from previous private pension schemes. It also applies to pensions payable under company schemes you belonged to over your career.

Without such a certificate, tax will be deducted in the UK before you receive your pension. Any deductions made in error before the position was clarified, can be refunded.

If you live abroad but are entitled to a UK DSS pension, how much you get varies. It depends on:

- your contribution history and

- which country you live in.

The UK has negotiated social security agreements with over thirty countries. If you retire to a country outside that list, you receive only the amount due on the date your entitlement started. Or, if you lived in the UK as a pensioner for a time, the amount due on the date your ordinary residence ceased. Forget your annual inflation increases. Unfortunately, this restricted amount is also paid to pensioners within some of the countries on the list. This includes such popular retirement destinations as Canada and Australia.

If you return permanently to the UK, you start to draw your pension at the correct current rate. But there is no refund to make up for reduced payments in earlier years.

Unless you move to a country with a comprehensive free national health service, private medical insurance will head your list of outgoings. The well-known names, like Private Patients Plan, operate world-wide. Or you can choose a local insurance company. A pensioner must expect to pay thousands of pounds a year in premiums.

Do not be fooled because the land of your dreams belongs to the EU. You may be entitled to exactly the same as a native. If their entitlement is nil, so will yours be.

Take France. We were quoted £1,000 a year in 1988 for the pair of us to join the state scheme. Workers must join it, others can choose. It reimburses 70% at most of your costs, if you fall sick or are injured. Many expenses are not covered at all. And others for a maximum amount that is laughably out of date. Frenchmen buy private insurance as well to cover the other 30%. Reasonable, you think. Then you discover that it costs more to insure for that 30% than full cover would cost in the UK. Imagine the paperwork of claiming from both the state and your insurance company. Your bellyache entails a visit to the Doctor (2 claims) followed by a lab analysis (2 claims) and a course of pills from the chemists (2 claims).

In Germany, by contrast, your Doctor must advise your insurance company whether he thinks your behaviour caused or contributed to your illness. If you are to blame (smoking? drinking? lechery?) forget any pay-out. If he prescribes brand-name pills (Aspro), you are reimbursed only the cost of cheap generic pills (aspirin).

The retiree has two snags to watch for with private medical cover:

If you are a very young retiree, you will find it tricky to get cover. Companies are geared towards covering employees. Secretly, they suspect that you retired early for undisclosed health reasons.

As you get older, your choice of insurers will shrink. Some companies frankly refuse anyone over seventy. What do you do then? Others will keep you on - at a greatly increased premium naturally - as a reward for earlier years of loyal membership.

Neither problem is insurmountable, provided you shop around. The sorts of expat publication we have mentioned before provide a lot of information on this subject.

Lastly, that old chestnut - domicile. You do not lose your British domicile simply by declaring that you intend to retire abroad. Many people have changed their minds before now. The Inland Revenue reviews all the facts of your life history - when it is over.

We have spelt out the problem side of retiring abroad. The many and varied means we have outlined throughout the chapters will help you enjoy the best of both worlds. Not to mention the useful pensioners' organisations.

Everything else about retiring abroad is a plus. Wonderful healthy climate, a lifestyle of your choosing, a cost of living that enables you to splash out. Cheerful companions and maybe even your family on hand to help. Or other expats to swop yarns with. All that is worth a little planning isn't it?

Well, we don't need your answer. We have tried it for ourselves and we know. Thirteen years on, life's still terrific. It beats working any day. As expats, long may we all enjoy it.

******

If you have found this book useful, why not try

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If you have any comments on this book, you can contact us on unclruss@yahoo.fr

cost of living figures - government and private agencies record the prices, month by month, in their countries, of the cost of various basic items. Like foodstuffs, petrol, housing. Among other uses, statisticians compile league tables of which countries are the most expensive or cheapest to live in. The trouble is, who decides what is basic? The UK includes mortgage and loan costs: Germany does not. How important is each item relative to each other? You may drink tea umpteen times a day but eat turkey once a year. What is a basic item in one country (like rice) is not part of everyday living in another. The quality of information collected will also vary greatly. Besides, the figures are distorted when subsidised items are given excessive importance.

cost-of-living allowances - payments made to expats to cover the additional costs of living abroad.

credit card - a relatively safe and flexible way of paying your way abroad as easily as at home. There is no commitment to repay more than a certain amount a month unless you exceed your credit limit. Interest rates are very high. See chapter nine.

charge card - similar to a credit card except that you must repay promptly so that it is effectively a short-term loan. See chapter nine.

currency - Virtually every country issues its own currency. That is the notes and coins they use. As a visitor or resident, you will need to buy and use it too. Sometimes, as in China, there is a separate currency only tourists can, and must, use. A currency whose value does not change violently relative to other currencies is said to be stable. The opposite is a volatile currency. One whose currency is stable and generally improving long-term is hard. One in decline is soft.

domicile - a vague legal notion as to which country is your homeland. At birth, you normally take the domicile of your father. People with British domicile are liable to inheritance tax on their assets worldwide. People with another country's domicile are usually liable to UK inheritance tax only on their assets situated in the UK. See chapter six.

Eurocheque - Your UK bank supplies you with a special cheque book and card. This enables you to pay for things within Europe by cheque.

estate - everything you possess at death. You draw up a will to direct who you want to inherit what. The proceeds of life insurance policies are not included in your estate. Why? They did not arise until after you died. This is useful in inheritance tax planning.

exchange controls - the restrictions a country may place on the import and export of its own currency. While the government does not deny that the money belongs to you, some countries impose such restrictions on what you can do with it that it amounts to long-term confiscation. Some countries, like Germany, which have officially abolished all exchange controls, still insist that you tell them every time you take out more than DM30,000 (= say £10,000). Why? So that they can inform the tax man who will ensure you came by it honestly. Failure to declare means, if they find out, an on-the-spot fine of Dm5,000 and, of course, they inform the tax man too.

exchange rate - the cost of one currency in terms of another.

foreign currency - see currency.

Foreign currency borrowing - you borrow, say to buy a house or set up a business in a currency which you do not normally use. So you must change your money into that same currency in due course to pay interest and to repay the capital of the loan. You borrowed because the rate of interest was lower than if you had borrowed in your normal currency and the exchange rate currently favourable. This is a wild gamble not to be recommended -see chapter 16. Pity the tens of thousands of people of Argentina who borrowed to buy houses, run businesses in American dollars rather than Argentinian pesos because the government promised to keep the two currencies at the same level. An impossible promise. A horrendous 40% devaluation means a borrower who thought he would have to find 100,000 pesos to repay his $100,000 loan now has to find 166,667 pesos instead.! An his interest payments rocket similarly.

I.S.A. - Individual Savings Account. A tax-free investment in Britain. At present you can invest a maximum of £3,000 per person per annum and the return is tax-free.

inflation - the rate at which prices rise over a given period. It is measured by a cost of living index. See cost of living figures above for some of the reasons why it can never be more than an approximate guide for you.

intestacy - situation where a person has died without leaving a will. To be avoided because of the costs, delays and worry of sorting everything out.

money market - most banks will accept large sums to invest overnight for an unknown rate of interest which is normally higher than they offer on their normal deposit accounts. Your money is not tied up.

non-resident - the opposite of resident. See residence. A person cannot be non-resident and resident in the same country in the same tax year. He can be non-resident and ordinarily resident. See ordinarily resident.

off-shore - the opposite to on-shore.

on-shore - based anywhere in mainland England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or any of the British islands except the Isle of Man and the Channel Isles.

ordinary residence - see residence and ordinarily resident.

ordinarily resident - a person cannot be considered resident in the UK in a tax year if he does not spend more than six months of the year there. He can still be considered ordinarily resident in that year if he spent on average more than three months there a year over a four-year period. See residence.

residence - a person who normally lives in the UK is considered `resident' and `ordinarily resident'. He pays UK tax on his income worldwide and capital gains tax on profits from the sales of assets worldwide. On death, his estate is liable to inheritance tax on his assets worldwide. A person who is agreed by the Inland Revenue to be `not resident' or `not ordinarily resident' or both can escape some of this. The most important factor is the number of days you spend in and out of the UK in a tax year. See chapter six.

TESSA - tax exempt special savings scheme available to UK residents and non-residents. They speak for themselves. Many building societies offer them. Currently, £9,000 per person can be invested over a 5 year period.

testator - man making a will. A woman is a testatrix.

travellers cheque - a safe but not very flexible way of taking money abroad. See chapter nine.