Retiring to Southern Europe on a fixed budget
What a budget has to cover
Four lines, not one: the property with its transfer taxes, notary and survey; the residency file with government fees, translations and local counsel; private healthcare priced at retirement age rather than at forty; and a liquid reserve, because several routes ask you to evidence income or savings and money committed to a house cannot be shown.
The four decisions in order
Which country, judged on where the family will visit, language, distance to healthcare and how the country treats foreign pension income. Which route, and what it asks you to evidence and for how long. Healthcare and tax, settled before filing. The property last, rented first in almost every case.
Where an eighteen-month plan goes wrong
The house is bought before anyone checks whether the route needs that capital liquid. Healthcare is arranged to satisfy the file rather than the family. Tax is treated as next year's problem, though residency and tax residency are separate tests with separate calendars. And nobody owns the timeline across four professionals in two countries.
What RICHVOULT does and what it costs
Route comparison against where the pension is paid from, a written roadmap, document assembly and filing tracked to approval, healthcare registration, buy-side property search, and a renewal calendar afterwards. Strategy Session EUR 500 with a roadmap in five days, credited against any package. Residency Management EUR 4,900. Relocation Concierge EUR 14,000. Tax structuring from EUR 1,500. Government fees, counsel, insurance premiums and transfer taxes are quoted separately and paid to third parties. RICHVOULT takes no commission from agents, sellers or insurers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is eighteen months enough to retire to Southern Europe?
Comfortably for most routes, provided the sequence is right. What does not fit is discovering in month fourteen that the money is in a house and the route wanted it liquid.
Should we buy property before or after residency?
After, unless the route specifically counts the purchase. Renting first costs a year of rent and removes the largest single risk from the file.
Is a budget of EUR 700,000 enough?
It depends far more on which country and which route than on the number. The same budget is comfortable in one market and marginal in another once healthcare, taxes and a liquid reserve are priced in.
What happens to a pension after moving?
It depends on where it is paid from, where you become tax resident, and the treaty between the two. This is settled before filing, with a local tax adviser rather than in-house opinion.
Does RICHVOULT take commission from estate agents?
No. RICHVOULT acts buy side only and takes no commission from sellers, agents or insurers. It is paid by the client and only by the client.
Contact RICHVOULT
Email: hello@richvoult.com | Offices: Barcelona · Dubai · London