I am married to polish born guy, we want to buy land, house, and renovate while living in uk then move to Poland. Any advice or info is appreciated 😁
Almost half the active members on here are Brits who moved to Poland. They know quite a bit about this move.
As a PolAm (Polish born and raised, living in US) I can tell you a few things are key:
1) learn as much Polish as possible. While many youth speak English, most signs, government offices, various institutions only use Polish. In the cities English is fairly common amongst younger people, the Poles who lived abroad and moved back, etc. but nonetheless Polish still is the dominant spoken language by far. If you live in a more rural area there will be very few English speakers.
2) Be very careful when purchasing property in Poland and deal only with reputable agencies. Many foreigners get preyed upon in business and property transactions because they're ignorant of the regulations. Also, there's a new law that prevents foreigners from buying farm land.
3) If you need to get a job start looking early. Don't plan on getting by teaching English. Even though it's probably the easiest job to get, the pay is awful. The average wages in the cities are around 4,000 zloty a month (around $1,100), teachers tend to earn below that. There's a few international recruiting companies that can help you. If you an IT pro, you'll find a good job quickly. I'd recommend using a renowned international recruiting company and targeting multinational and transnational firms directly.
If you're planning on retirement, make some investments to get cash flow going. I would NOT recommend opening up a small business in Poland for a foreigner if they're putting up their own capital. You can try something small out like a service based business that doesn't require a lot of start-up capital, but still I'd shy away from it. Better to invest elsewhere. The Polish stock market is quite volatile too and has a limited amount of companies listed I believe only around 500. Better to buy on US or British exchanges imo.
4) Real estate is FAR FAR cheaper in Poland than in UK - especially compared to London. For example, there's several brand new town homes on the Wroclaw outskirts about 10 minutes drive from the city center that are start at 400k zloty - about $110k+.
Honestly I would recommend renting before you buy though to make sure you like living in Poland. You can get a nice place in a city for around 3.5k zloty.
5) Take care of all the legalities i.e. PESEL, car registration, etc.