Moving to Spain

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littlebranshill

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www.littlebranshill.co.uk
Am thinking of retiring to Spain with my 4 dogs and horse. Has anyone had experience of this? Any area recommendations? I was thinking Murcia or maybe Seville way? I would want to keep my horse in a good livery yard. I think keeping him at home would be harder over there.
 
My friends have had a terrible time buying a house in Spain to live. They bought before brexit and still haven't moved permanently yet. They have to keep coming back for 3 months. Also you need to prove how much money you have to support yourself. Just make sure you have Spanish speaking people as friends. They have spent a fortune trying to move. Both are retired and sold their house in the UK so have the money.
 
littlebranshill said:
Am thinking of retiring to Spain with my 4 dogs and horse. Has anyone had experience of this? Any area recommendations? I was thinking Murcia or maybe Seville way? I would want to keep my horse in a good livery yard. I think keeping him at home would be harder over there.
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I have a few friends with horses near Vejer de la Frontera - it's a very horsey area, loads of yards (some with more 'English' approach than others - some friends keep their horses at a traditional Spanish yard but the owner's wife is English so they are a little closer to our way of keeping horses than some other places), pretty much everyone in the villages has a horse in the back garden for bar rides and ferias 🤣. Also close to beautiful beaches and Vejer itself has become something of a gastronomic centre. Oh and you have the Sunshine Tour there each year so plenty of top-class horse sport to watch!

A friend's nephew (English parents, grew up near Vejer) has setup a business to help people immigrating negotiate the paperwork, that sort of service can be very helpful as the bureaucracy out there is complex at best (and downright murky at worst).
 
Some 10 years ago now we took our 3 horses and a dog to Murcia to a family seaside flat and livery yard, with a view to staying 6 months, maybe longer.
In many ways it was great and very educational. We booked the 3 horses into the closest yard and duly made lots of new friends particularly amongst our fellow liveries who were Spanish, Austrian and German. No complaints there.

Grass for horses is not grown in Murcia, it is the fruit and salad bowl of Spain, if land is available it is used by farmers for crops. The sheep, goats and horses there live inside with brief sorties.
Our horses however hated their stay with absolutely no grass nor did they appreciate the hay substitute.Their hooves seemed to rot away due to the surface of their compound and had to be shod instead of being barefoot. They got hard feed along with all the 25 others and were otherwise in good condition. They were considered to be molly coddled as we exercised them every day, mainly to give them a decent leg stretch but riding round plastic greenhouses to get onto the tracks frightened them , particularly when radios blared out whilst we rode pass.The other horses only got half an hour lesson out of their stables every other day and could only see their opposite neighbour when indoors.

The farrier whilst competent was illiterate and therefore had to be fetched each shoeing day by one of the liveries as he couldn't get a license.

The groom was expected to work 7 days a week with no days off. He lived on site but had no transport of his own. It turned out he was an illegal immigrant'and the YO knew this.

Everywhere was kept beautifully clean and tidy but fellow liveries warned us that there was a huge fly problem in the 43+° heat of summer. The Austrian was arranging to take his horse (bought in Spain) home as he could not cope with the idea of putting it through yet another summer. We moved ours to France where they settled immediately as there is lots of grass.

Veterinary care was excellent, for both the horses and the dog. However one of the horses, having broken a leg was expected to wait for hours in pain whilst the normal vet attended a Good Friday parade just in case an accident happened there. I was fairly vocal that such an attitude was not acceptable and I was prepared to go and fetch another asap.

On both journeys through Spain we stopped overnight at https://www.ponyclubaragon.com/ it'was truly amazing with happy horses (even ours), grass and an on site clubhouse serving meals.

Hope I've not bored you.
 
Since Brexit, an UK citizen cannot just up sticks and move there. Maybe you are citizens of the Irish Republic, so have EU residency rights, but otherwise it will take time and determination as well as deep pockets.

I would definitely not recommend moving to the south of Spain, unless you really like the heat in the summer months. Sunnyone mentions 43°C+ heat... in the coming years this will just get worse and when there are droughts the authorities will prefer to give water to agriculture rather than to leisure.
 
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sunnyone said:
Grass for horses is not grown in Murcia, it is the fruit and salad bowl of Spain, if land is available it is used by farmers
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My family are Spanish though I've not lived there, and I visit several times a year.

It's not a question of grass not being grown in Murcia but it's a semi arid area and actually hot or cold desert in places so grass only grows if you water it daily as on golf courses or or public parks. Left to itself the landscape wouldn't produce grass.

That would apply to the costas and nearby inland areas Brits usually move to.

You would have to go North or to the centre as in the overnight stop mentioned in Zaragoza but then you are moving out of the comfort zone for ex pats

Last year I visited a friend of my cousins who has horses. This is just north of Madrid. There are some livery yards which often double up as riding schools but she is in a smaller arrangement, 2 or 3 owners, someone paid to work there, manage it themselves. There were lots of these as we pulled into the wrong one twice looking for her.

Huge sand school, she has warmbloods and jumps. They have turnout but it's scrubby rough grazing so hay and straw are fed. Chaff and mixes similar to what we feed. I think she liked having a visitor who looked at what she was feeding with interest.

Weather there is extreme, cold in winter, very hot in summer 40°+ and the little pines and olive trees in the area don't provide much shade so they would come in during the day. I was there in March so the horses were out except for the one on box rest.

Very Spanish area so very little support.

North (Galicia, Cantabria, Asturias, País Vasco) there is a wetter climate and wild herds and lots of grass, that's where Spanish beef comes from but moving to a climate like the UK may defeat the purpose.

OP ask yourself what you want and need out of the move.
 
We bought our house in Andalusia region 2019 initially holiday home. Moved here full time June 2023 with our dog. We used a good solicitor and visa agent and have had no issues with purchase of house and our visa’s. Any regrets? None at all 😀We have been made so welcome by the lovely people of village and feel at home. Yes it gets hot but our dog has settled so well and loves going to bar in afternoon 🤣 PS vets are so much cheaper than UK and our vet is excellent.
 
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sunnyone said:
Some 10 years ago now we took our 3 horses and a dog to Murcia to a family seaside flat and livery yard, with a view to staying 6 months, maybe longer.
In many ways it was great and very educational. We booked the 3 horses into the closest yard and duly made lots of new friends particularly amongst our fellow liveries who were Spanish, Austrian and German. No complaints there.

Grass for horses is not grown in Murcia, it is the fruit and salad bowl of Spain, if land is available it is used by farmers for crops. The sheep, goats and horses there live inside with brief sorties.
Our horses however hated their stay with absolutely no grass nor did they appreciate the hay substitute.Their hooves seemed to rot away due to the surface of their compound and had to be shod instead of being barefoot. They got hard feed along with all the 25 others and were otherwise in good condition. They were considered to be molly coddled as we exercised them every day, mainly to give them a decent leg stretch but riding round plastic greenhouses to get onto the tracks frightened them , particularly when radios blared out whilst we rode pass.The other horses only got half an hour lesson out of their stables every other day and could only see their opposite neighbour when indoors.

The farrier whilst competent was illiterate and therefore had to be fetched each shoeing day by one of the liveries as he couldn't get a license.

The groom was expected to work 7 days a week with no days off. He lived on site but had no transport of his own. It turned out he was an illegal immigrant'and the YO knew this.

Everywhere was kept beautifully clean and tidy but fellow liveries warned us that there was a huge fly problem in the 43+° heat of summer. The Austrian was arranging to take his horse (bought in Spain) home as he could not cope with the idea of putting it through yet another summer. We moved ours to France where they settled immediately as there is lots of grass.

Veterinary care was excellent, for both the horses and the dog. However one of the horses, having broken a leg was expected to wait for hours in pain whilst the normal vet attended a Good Friday parade just in case an accident happened there. I was fairly vocal that such an attitude was not acceptable and I was prepared to go and fetch another asap.

On both journeys through Spain we stopped overnight at https://www.ponyclubaragon.com/ it'was truly amazing with happy horses (even ours), grass and an on site clubhouse serving meals.

Hope I've not bored you.
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Thank you so much. That's very very helpful
 
I worked on a yard in Galicia not the area you're looking at but great for horses the hay and grass was lovely and we used to do youngstock livery for showjumpers based around Madrid in the south.
 
My friend moved to the Canaries on retirement and managed to wangle an Irish passport due to an Irish grandmother which made things a lot easier for him. He has been studying Spanish but still struggles with it for more than basic things. He is renting rooms from a German family and seems quite happy there.
 
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