Living in England - the reality. I am now returning to Poland.

I have lived in East Sussex for 5 years. I am now returning to Poland. I think honest and hard-working Polish should be made fully aware of what really goes on in England. If you are not a criminal, thief or liar you will not prosper in England. When I arrived to work as a care assistant to work for a large company they did not arrange any accommodation then I was charged almost half my monthly salary to live in a room no bigger than a cupboard! The only help I got was from citizens advice who just tell you that employers can do what they like but you could write them a letter. Over the course of my time employed by various companies I have not been paid and been the subject of very unpleasant behaviour from English workers. I followed procedures to complain but do not waste your time. An employer can sack you whenever for no reason and get away with it. The system of justice here is flawed. I have even reported to the Police here and been told the following: when you are sacked and your reputation ruined based on false accusations and no evidence of any crime they will not investigate. When you are the victim of extortion and theft they say no crime and will not investigate. In England you need to save all your money to pay a solicitor to write letters for you but do not imagine this will get you anywhere! Also remember that to work here you rely on work references. These will not be given automatically and do not think written honestly if ever written. Unfortunately it is not only English to be wary of here. In my attempt to move back to Poland I paid Polish who have set up here as a Ltd company Sokol4trans to take my house contents to Poland. They destroyed items and stole from me. They still have half my possessions which they are holding to randsom. I quote the Police 'good luck' it is apparently not a crime. If you want your voice heard you can continue to complain to your Police Crime Comissioner, Trading Standards via Citizens Advice, The Fraud Department, the Ombudsmen, The Government Ltd Company insolvency department and finally the Prime Minister's office but do not get over excited about a positive result. On a more domestic note if you want to bring your pets to England be prepared for huge vet bills and amazing medication prices. I got English pet insurance again so expensive and did not cover the basics. I ended up calling my Polish vet and having meds posted to me. Now I can warn you about English estate agents who I have had the misfortune to meet over the last 8 months. Do not use any estate agent here. You will be conned, lied to and manipulated. If you want to sell your house here in England you will lose all your sanity and then your money and find out the property law here is a farce. A 'buyer' can and will waste months of your time then the day before exchange of contracts withdraw offer or try and lower offer, pass on your confidential documentation to whoever in an attempt to force a lower priced sale and they never have to put down a deposit but demand you stop marketting your house to others. Do not be tricked by estate agents who want you to let unserious window shoppers into your home. Do not agree any sole agency contracts. Be aware that these agents are wanting thousands of pounds of commission from you but really are working for investors who will pay them to cheat you. If I had anything good to say about living and working in England I would include it but over 5 years I can not give you anything positive. I suggest you try moving to another country.

sounds like life in modern europe to me, love,

Plenty of people do make a go of it here, you know so perhaps it is just you?

as you say yourself
" Unfortunately it is not only English to be wary of here. In my attempt to move back to Poland I paid Polish who have set up here as a Ltd company Sokol4trans to take my house contents to Poland. They destroyed items and stole from me"

well just carry on crying about 'England' then.

did you seriously go to the police because you had been sacked? LOL

Good. Let`s make Slavic world better place for living so that our people can avoid misery like traveling to England and beg for jobs there

OP, sorry to read of your experiences (I am a Briton).

Firstly, lawyers come in all shapes and sizes, and some are fair and some are expensive but whatever they charge there's always the few whose main interest and knowledge mainly centres around where the best places are to drink and the horsepower of some car or motorboat they want to buy. Not meaning to boast, but a friend's friend who is a lawyer once told me I could forget my claim against a large national co in the UK and I had "no chance". I then quoted the law to him, he looked a bit confused but repeated his doubts. 3 or 4 weeks later I had my money out of that company, every penny. And my friend's friend was no ordinary lawyer but a partner at a central London firm on true megaquid per hour. I kid you not.

I'm also surprised to hear about what sounds like difficulty selling your house or flat because we're told it's a sellers' market in the UK and buyers have to toe the line. In England, it's always been the case that a seller or buyer can withdraw at the last moment. It's a risk we've always had to live with (Scotland is different). Many buyers lose hundreds of pounds in surveyor and legal fees when a seller suddenly withdraws or sells to someone else for more. It happened to me once too. I lost GBP600. But you must have done very well if you bought a house or flat, so England was quite a lady for you really :)

Your English is really rather good, and I'm surprised you didn't go for a better job somewhere. As for references, few employers check them much or at all. That's one of the problems there, nobody really bothers. As a care assistant, you would have been CRB checked, and if that's clear then you would likely be able to find another job as a CA. Although, as commendable as caring roles are, they are not for everyone, and with very reasonable or rather good English I'd have been tempted to look to an office role if in your shoes.

If a reference for you is very questionable, it may go beyond what is called "fair comment", reasonable or privileged and yes it is actionable in law.

For the UK
gov.uk/work-reference
findlaw.co.uk/law/employment/employment_law_basics/getting_a_job/500307.html

For Ireland
hayes-solicitors.ie/news%5Cnews_11_2003_June_5.htm

I am surprised that E Sussex was as dud for you as it sounds. But you return to Poland the richer for it in many ways and are likely to prosper due to your improved English and world experience, if you're in a fairly good part of Polska! I hope all goes well!

yes, while most of the people have only one life.

I am really sorry to hear about your negative experiences in England - hope you are more comfy back home and shame it did not work out :(

oh for goodness sake stop crying like a baby, go back to your mama. I wouldn't been surprised by few misfortunes that have befallen you but you seemingly worked up all workload of them. Evidently England doesn't suit you and vice versa.

That was an amusing read.


I would have thought that if absolutely nothing was positive you wouldn't have stayed for so long. Best of luck back in Poland, you're going to need it.

Exactly

Zuzanna, OK, so you had a few bad experiences. But otherwise, did you like it here in the UK? :-)

Just want to add for anyone browsing the thread in the future:
- the majority of agents (or all in my experience) in some towns don't cease marketing when a buyer offers to buy and starts conveyancing. They may even leave the For Sale board up until the day contracts are exchanged. I had this experience in the South West in the 1980s. I was most taken aback that the agents refused to consider anywhere as sold until contracts exchange day. I later discovered it was commonplace there. Of course, some agents probably suppress interest so that they can sell a place cheap to some contact giving them cash in a brown envelope. Such corruption probably happens in several countries, though. As for deposits, agents are supposed to ask for a holding deposit of a few hundred quid if someone says they're buying, but I think they do have to return it if the deal doesn't go ahead. The deposit paid on exchange of contracts however is not usually refundable if the buyer backs out.

can you explain how there English were treating you

Sounds like another Pole in the UK who has developed "everything is better in Poland" syndrome.

She should have pushed out two or three illegitimate children. That would have made the UK worth staying in.

Speaking from your own experience i gather.

Borek - this was a nice poem but our policy is to avoid posts in Polish - it goes to the bin - sorry

Someone who is buying and selling property in East Sussex doesn't really get my sympathy vote tbh.

Likewise. Anyway, almost all the problems she describes exist in some form in Poland (often worse) and probably in most other places if you're unlucky.

The bit about complaining to the Prime Minister's office about her removal men is frankly nutty - perhaps Mr Cameron will interrupt a COBRA meeting or the G7 summit to sort out her damaged pots and pans.

She just comes across as weird and very negative.

Zuzanna, I think you need to look here, it'll help: dictionary.reference.com/browse/paragraph?s=t

"Hookers & Blow" Lift Britain Over France As World's 5th Largest Economy (google it)
Now that's something to be proud of.
Can't say I would want to raise my children in such an enviroment however.

Reb

Where you going to live where prostitution and drugs dont exist? Heaven? Hell?

good for you to come back to Poland. Poland is promised land. Very essence of the West, in any sense. True culturally Western world on the contrary to the western Europe, that is only geographically western in Europe (nothing else Western there, really).

Then after all, island is never part of solution. Some stronger flood and bye bye England. In a blink of an eye they would be destined to depend on humanitarian help from other Europeans. Poor b******s.

lol Crow, good one, just like the Serbs eh?

Millions of Poles disagree with you, which is why they have moved from Poland to the UK. But then they have actually been to Poland and to the UK, things which you have never done. And unlike you they live in the real world, a world without your fantasy Slavic commonwealth but a world with a European Union which Poland is doing very nicely as a result of and a world with lots of Serbian war criminals (things which appear not to exist in your fantasy world).

Hi Zuzanna103,

Just read your message, I'm so impressed on what I just read... I'm in opposite situation that you are really, coming from UK to Poland, and lucky enough to have work in UK, paid off house and some savings... Otherwise reading that: "I think honest and hard-working Polish should be made fully aware of what really goes on in England. If you are not a criminal, thief or liar you will not prosper in England. " I think it would be fair to write it like that: I think honest and hard-working Englishman should be made fully aware of what really goes on in Poland. If you are not a criminal, thief or liar you will not prosper in Poland. I have been in Poland many times in my life, now I'm living here from June last year and I really can say what you said with changing the countries around in your story...

I think you would not face the problem if you will do research before going to UK and have let say 3 months of average UK salary with you, this is trip to another country, it is a life changer and you were taking a huge risk so you couldn't expect to have everything served on the golden plate... If you were in the wrong company you could apply for work in another companies, I'm sure there is still thousands of companies like that in whole country.

In regards to nasty experience with some polish tradesman, unfortunately these things can happen - again doing research before using a company would help a lot! All you can do at this stage is to write nice review and copy and paste it everywhere you can, that way at least you may gain some personal satisfaction if that is what you want...

Unfortunately with estate agents - this is again coming to research before using a firm. I can see two problems in your story: lack of money and lack of preparation/research. Sorry to say that but you have failed on both and hence why you had to deal with such a nasty experience.

Why have you left Poland? What country you want to go next?

Hi Zuzanna.

I am an " Einwanderer " from Germany. I also experienced a hard time getting a job at the beginning, probably because I did not have much job experience in the first place, and was a bit picky about certain jobs. But I've never felt treated " unfair " by the English folks over here. The government was always extremely helpful and polite, certain job search agencies also were quite helpful. The only negative experiences I experienced in my first job in a restaurants-kitchen which only used people for a couple of months to get some cheap workers in and a German factory which mostly employed Poles ( which by the way treated me like ****, not the English people, the Poles ). But besides from that, I've not experienced any trouble with the Government or laws in the UK.

Yes, it is a different country, and it might not be as much of a " paradise " as people especially from eastern-european countries imagine it as, but it definitely is a country which offers you many opportunities as long as you are willing to work hard for it and pay the price. As every capitalist country I guess !

I am here since about 3 years by now, I am self-employed but mostly work with Austrian,German and American customers based in Austria,Germany or the U.S.

However, maybe I am treated differently because my wife is British? Or because I am German? Or just because I came to the UK having in mind to 100% integrate in to this society? I don't know. But it finally worked out. So far, the only thing that annoys me, is that I am not a British citizen yet, and that the weather is not great :-)

V/R
Labrador.

I speak to one polish person in my job as I am not keen on the polish. I've been told by a pole that the polish say that all British people are stupid yet the polish their selves who come here to work are not always very smart or intelligent. They think too highly of their selves and over value their selves. They put down England and complain abouthings here. If it's that bad here then why don't they go back to Poland where it must vbe so much better? I feel that the polish project their insecurities onto the British because they have to come to us for help. Pathetic behaviour really.

Thats rite ! Leeve menes leeve

Britain in a good place to make some money when you don't have your own family yet. I would never start a family in the UK for the sake of my children and their future.

Most of Western Europe drifts away from its roots and this won't end well for them.

It is a horrible place to return to. because of their catholic hyporcity and liers with ego and who care only about themselves. Ukraine is better even and only because the people are better than here, almost all people are better in the world.


lol the female poles are even worse. read this quora answer this female pole wrote talking crap about other migrants and syaing polish ones are superior with typical polak lies:

Why-is-Poland-so-anti-immigration-when-a-large-number-of-their-population-migrated-to-other-countries-like-the-UK/answer/Wiktoria-Marszałek

hypocryte catholics and liers about their own: tinypic.com/r/2cwr6dd/9

they should go to berlin and see how many bums there are polak even turks are superior.