People & Places
London to South Africa
We moved from Wimbledon to South Africa in 2004 and made sure we did plenty of shopping around before we committed to anything in advance, writes Sue McDermott
The cost of our move would impact on our funds for setting up our new business, so every penny counted! The biggest shock in terms of costs was the physical shipment of our belongings. This whole experience was quite 'woolly' – no-one wanted to commit everything to paper and we ended up receiving our goods later than expected and being hit by an import tax that no-one had told us about. We did use a part container, which meant we had to wait for the container to be filled. This caused a delay and overall the removals cost us around £2,000 (the insurance was the real sting in the tail at 1.5 per cent of the total value of the goods – and we had to itemise just about everything.)
Our immigration application was not cheap, either, but after my experiences at South Africa House it was worth every penny and more. So much so, that the company who helped us now help many of our clients moving to SA. Again we shopped around before we left Cape Town on our research trip and paid about £1,400 for our two temporary business permits. Our permits were issued within ten days, totally due to the lawyer we used. Paperwork was very confusing, getting any phone assistance was impossible and without the lawyer, we would not have known how to pitch our business idea to have it accepted. Our lawyer re-worked our business proposal, presenting it in a way, which allowed us to qualify under the regulations of that time.
When we first arrived we moved into holiday accommodation for the first week, which cost about £50 per night. This gave us time to find longer-term rental accommodation. In retrospect I wish we had bought a property sooner as dealing with all the utilities and getting everything sorted in a rental house, also has to be completed repeated in your own house, but our business took off so quickly that we stayed in rental accommodation for a year. This meant that we ended up paying a higher price for property and the mortgage had to be based on our SA salary, not our British one which almost didn't happen. Again we made a great professional contact who managed to organise a mortgage on very limited company accounts. Had we had more time and been better organised, we would have come to SA to buy a property (using British salaries to get the mortgage and therefore being able to borrow more), then returned to the UK to pack up before returning three to four months later once our property had become legally ours. This would have prevented all the disruptions and hassles we experienced when relocating to South Africa.
Where we did save ourselves a lot of money was our foreign exchange. We shopped around first as we knew that just changing money on the high street – especially a large amount – would be costly as commission rates might not be high but you get stung on exchange rates. Changing ten thousand pounds could cost £100 more if you get just 0.1 per cent lower on the rate (for example, only 11.1 to the pound, not 11.2). We used a currency broker we found on the web and have continued to use them as they are the most competitive. Since living here we have realised that day-to-day living is not that much cheaper here anymore. Eating out, wine, petrol and meat are cheaper, whilst most other food and drink is about the same. Broadband is extortionate (about £70 a month) and using the phone including mobiles is about the same price as in the UK. Electricity (there is minimal gas), water, and rates are similar to the UK also, so day-to-day costs are on a par. Do not come to SA and think it is still 'dirt' cheap. It is not.
But it will give you an incredible lifestyle, unrivalled by living in the UK (in my view), particularly if you consider the cost of buying a home. All in all our move was about what we expected and our living costs are a bit below the UK – except, of course, for property. We are now living in an incredible five-bedroom, very secure house with a pool for less than our two-bedroom ground floor flat in Wimbledon! We really can't complain!
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