Talk pro and con about move to UK

Dancer-

I think renting for a year would be fine and even a good idea not only to build up credit but also be sure about were we want to live.

Property taxes are called council tax here.  Mine is £2500 a year (not London).  Most of the tax is paid at the time of purchase of the property.

It's not exactly the same thing, as you have to pay council tax even if you are a tenant.  I think ours is around £1500 a year (Scotland).

I'll chime in with a council tax number too. Ours is £1200 for a one bedroom flat 10 minutes walk from Cardiff city centre.


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My husband (the UKC) and I were speaking about "pros and cons" of moving back today. Strangely, the chat moved onto council tax. That alone made moving back to the UK a "pro" for us. We live in a suburb of Houston. Our tax included our school tax and it was 3% of the appraised value. The appraised value went up 20% over last year. A neighborhood three miles away, it's 3.75%. Paying $7200-9000 a year in tax for our modest home, made the council tax we paid in Greater Manchester feel like "chump change".

We did compile a rather lengthy list of "pros and cons" and realized that we needed to just throw the damn list away. We married 20 years ago on February 24th. If either one of us made a list on "pros and cons" back in the summer of 1995 when we decided to get married, we may never have done it! We simply made a decision and went forward. Everything fell into place right away.

When I left Houston in late 1995 on my fiancée visa, I had a three-year-old son (from my first marriage), two suitcases and $70 in my pocket and a real excitement for my future. I left England in 2004 with a husband, three children, four suitcases and $75. My husband had a job loss and suffered a 23 month stint of unemployment resulting in bankruptcy. However, we were off to the US full of hope for our future.

Nwkh--My thoughts are that you shouldn't overthink the "pros and cons" of moving. If you feel good when you think about moving, make a decision to go and everything will fall into place. Take it from me, there's amazing highs and devastating lows with any life change but you'll survive and be better for the experience. Good luck!

I absolutely prefer life in the UK. Tho I do miss NYC bagels and pizza, and ham egg and cheese on a roll breakfast sandwiches. But other than that and family, I don't miss the states.

My salary is higher and on the whole, my bills are lower. We pay around £1400 a year in council tax in Liverpool for a terraced house.

Tho there are costs I notice are higher, chicken beef pork etc., Cereal, soda.  But fruit and veg is ridiculously cheap, so is pasta.

Weekends breaks to Europe are cheaper than weekend breaks from nyc to Florida.

Good luck deciding xx

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a suburb of Houston.

Has there been a city changed so much in the last two decades? Atlanta perhaps?

I was reading up on Tampa....Clearwater was mentioned in another thread. Just looking at Google Maps of the area...a huge change from when I roamed around down there 20 years ago...

There has been something of a "Great Migration" in the US....the rust belt emptying...

A lot of the places up North have a State income tax....and without it Florida...Texas...they get the money elsewhere.

Years ago I worked with a guy who was doing a study on the perceptions of property tax among retirees in Florida. Someone was working on an exemption idea for over-65s. One thing they felt strongly about - since a great deal of property tax goes to education - was that they had already "done their part" back in Ohio.  Their children were up and running....why, now, did they have to pay for these children down in Florida?

I believe in England, the vast majority of funding for primary and secondary education comes from the National Government in the form of grants to Local Education Authorities....in the US, the Federal Government contributes very little.

So there may be a slightly skewed perspective....Council Taxes may be less here than Property Taxes back in the States....but education is such a massive sum that comparisons are hard.

I get quite confused by it....all these separate revenue streams make for good shell game political crap. For instance, Local Governments here in England are catching hell for Osbourne's cuts. The cuts in central government grants are felt at local level, with local authorities bearing the responsibility for cutting services or raising Council Taxes.