Moving to Lublin from the UK - any financial assitance, benefits or free healthcare available in Poland?

Hi and Dzien Dobry

My wife is Polish and we have 2 kids and live in London. Im a UK national.

We rent a house in the UK and get some housing benefit as my income is low. My wife's mother has died and left us her home in Poland. We have been told that as we now own a property in Poland we wont be entitiled to benefits thus we cannot afford to live in the UK.

We are thinking of moving to Lublin and trying to find work for me there.

Can anybody advise does the Polish government offer any financial assitance for families like us?

Also can we recieve hospital or free healthcare in Poland?

Thanks

Harry

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, BUT no benefits, no free healthcare (unless you find full-time work).
In your shoes, I would be trying to find all available jobs before you get to Lublin, so that at least you have an idea of what's out there.

Your other option is to sell the property in Poland.

Save up some money and start a business in Poland about an idea that drives you, otherwise hard time finding a job.

They're the starting questions: how old are they and do they speak Polish? If they're five or under, you can move them without too much of a problem. At that age kids learn languages pretty quickly and in a year or two they'll be able to hold their own in the classroom with other kids their age. But if they're more like 11 or 12 and don't speak Polish, you're basically setting their lives back by at least two years because it will take them that long to get fluent enough to study in Polish.


Do you speak Polish? If not, what job can you do that a Polish-speaker can't do.
Lublin is a great town, I like it a lot, but there are not many English speaking visitors to the place (which is one of the reasons I like it).


No.
However, you should be able to claim UK jobseeker's allowance in Poland for some time. I'm not sure about the details though.


Yes, but only if you're employed full-time (unemployed people can get it too, but they have to have paid into the system for a certain time).


I'd be thinking sell the property and invest the money in training in the UK for a trade (plumber, chippy, etc).

Eastern wall (or Poland B) has very high unemployment rate. Think it twice.

Don't expect financial assistance (and in any case, the amounts of benefit, where it exists, are very low. The posters who've pointed out the difficulties in finding work in Lublin are correct - it tends to be somewhere people move from rather than to. Nice to visit though, but not an economic boomtown and nothing except language teaching (usually very low pay for a newbie) or highly specialised work (and even then...).

Selling or renting out the property are maybe better options.

Hi mate, i am in the same boat. Also was told no benifits and thought. yeah ok move.
Only to find no one will give me a job.

Best advice... SELL that hunk of junk, polish move to the UK for the very reason.
If the place is worth less than 16k you can say its worth less than 16k and keep it

Put the place on the market and see citizen advice, you dont need to take any offer right now but I understand they consider you selling the property and not living there as a condition. But you need to show you selling.

Benifits here. Yeah right still waiting and you have to register and red tape. Sell take the money hide it!

oh not to mention 19% CGT fees and taxes. Once you have property here they will try and lock you in for 5 years.
2 years and still no job. No benifits, but your pockets will be much lighter

Moving to an unknown place with no money and where work is very scarce and lousy paid is pure nonsense.

No matter what you do with the property in Poland, you still have to pay for media (gas, electricity), local property tax and other bills. You also have to remember to heat it during winter...

If you want to sell it, don't forget that you have to pay at least 3% commission to the estate agent and 19% tax on the property (if you have not lived there for at least 5 years).

If however, you can prove with evidence, that you are in the process of selling it, you may still be entitled to some benefits. They will take everything into account when you sell it.

You are still entitled to child benefit - no matter what.

and if you say the house is worth under a certain amount I beleive you might still get HB.
Or you could sell it and spend the money on training courses for you and the wife, to improve your work prospects.

I'm pretty sure the cut-off point now is £16,000. Even in Lublin a flat is going to be more than 90,000zl (unless it is really small and in need of a complete renovation).

I think the 16,000 pounds cut off point only applies to Council tax benefit, not to Housing benefit. This needs to be checked out though.
16,000 pounds x 5.5PLN could mean that if the house is worth less than 880,000 PLN, you might just be entitled to benefit of some sort.

Sorry mate 16k is 88000pzl not 880000 har har har

As far as I know they cant take you house away but they can stop payments. It needs to be checked by citizen advice. The new forums for housing now ask the same questions as all other benefits.. No more than 16k in money and assets. They even ask you if you have a business with assets or if someone OWEs you money!!!

I have read some place that if you show your selling the place they can continue payments. Some people over price the place so no one will buy it. Of couse its not your fault no one is buying. Again to speak with citizen Advice

Yes that tax thing 19% is Capital gains tax and only goes away after 5 years.
Some poles transfer the property to another family member they can trust... hahaha TRUST! lol

To avoid the 19% tax you can file within 2 weeks of the sale at the tax office to reinvest the money in property. But you have to be a citizen and reinvest all the money, if your a forenger you need to have a resident card. Not sure how it will work if you reinvest some of the money and pay the 19% on the other left over money.

You need to ask a notary person.

You could buy a smaller flat under the limit and rent it out but for small flats under the limit rent might not be worth it. About £100

and then there are the risky movers who get some agents to value the place under the value, what could backfire and be jail time in the UK.

You at all and total need to decided where you want to be and what you want to do. If you leave and decide to come back later there is all the mess with taxes, credits and extra.

Test it yourself. I would go with pretend to sell make an add on otodom.pl and print it out tell citizen advice its no fault of your own and your selling the place, you are a UK citizen (This might be a loop hole). I had the distinct feeling the jobcenter was trying to hide some facts, Like you need to say the right things else they wont help you. Dont move to Poland without securing a job, for both of you.

PS if your valuing the money you can deduct the 19% tax because you wont get this cash if you sold! So thats in your favour for 5 years. Best to check if this is correct. So then you can keep it if the limit of 16k is not broken after the 19% cgt

So 88000 could under the right conditions be fee for agent and CGT so 2000 + 18000 = 106000 under the right conditions.

Lets face it they asking for the ASSETS value! Best to check because in court you could argue that the value is based on the cash you will receive.

PS dont tell anyone you over priced the property and that why its not selling. Its the bad economy wink wink!

Just to clarify,
Sorry, you are quite right. 16,000 pounds is only 88,000 PLN not as I said above. As most houses will be valued above this amount, you may need to use some creative accounting. I would take numerous photographs, inside and outside to show the actual state of the property. I would also get an estate agent to give you a price as a general guide.

I have just checked the gov. website. The limit which excludes any benefits being paid is 16,000 pounds - for any assets - this includes - cash (bank accounts), stocks and shares and property.

They are tightening down on benefits.
Allot of people are now SELF EMPLOYED, Its all so the government gets the unemployed numbers down and all looks great.
Self employed is the new unemployed.

And if you come off benefits and move to Poland you will loose your tax credits after the new tax year. I think you get 1 years from leaving not sure you need to check. That means if you go back to the UK... You will have to start over and get ZERO tax credits for the first year. Because they work this a year in advance!!! And that's the biggest money you get on benefits. SO if you go to Poland and want to come back make sure you have more than 1 years money too survive in the UK!. Of course I think there is emergency funds but you will have too check.

And to complicate things you will have a residency test done too see where your habital residence is and cant claim for 3 months anything with the new laws

Also when you arrive in Poland and take a job you will need to pay the difference in on your earnings in the UK in POLAND!

And if you have not got your state pension paid up you might need to keep sending money back to the UK what I think is £50 a week! Else no one is going to pay your pension. Then again you could register as self employed and pay £13 a month if they accept it. When your old you will be on the street without it.

But making yourself self employed and coming to the UK will just complicate things more.
You need to really look into this before coming. Ask allot of questions and sum it all up with pros and cons and then decided what you want to do.

I see allot of people from all over the world coming to Poland and most dont even consider what will happen when they get older. These days when you hit 40s of age people dont want to employ you. Its all about the now. Get they young ones with the degrees in work them like dogs till they fall over and then replace them with the next wave of young ones.

Look around you and see how many older people are in good jobs. No you only find them as the checkouts and places. This is the reality of the world. Nothing to do with race or looks or what you know. Just milk them. Throw away sociality. Think nice a hard before leaping from country to country and find you have zero pension or money or broken family. Most Brits here are retired, their pensions take them along way here due to the exchange. If this changes... They will be heading back too. Think about your kids education and opportunities and where you want to be buried one day. Stability makes a family stronger. Opportunity, a future.. If you have none of this...

Surely there is an excellent gap in the market here

buy these peoples houses for 15.999 and then sell them back to them in a few years - take a cut of the benefits (say 1.500 per year) - its already a 10% return and if it goes wrong you still have a house you can resell to someone else ?

wouldn't use my own capital as it involves too much reliance on politics, forex etc but just thinking...

but the rule is stupid - how can the benefits be so large compared to your salary that its worth to jack your job because of that ? I don't think that's right - doesn't the minimum wage in the UK cover living expenses ?

Frankly the age of the children is the most important thing here. With kids aged three or four, moving to Lublin from the UK is not that bad an idea (although it's certainly not something I'd recommend). With kids aged say 14 who don't speak English, you'd be basically ending their education and doing inexcusably severe damage to their future prospects.


All very interesting points, pity they can't be discussed in this thread.