sprostoni's activity

I used to be good at sums (when I was 12 !!), That is a HUGE amount...........I'm glad we sold the lot ! I had taken the council tax band as being the council tax AMOUNT, ours would have been in excess of £1500 !...........Is this an annual charge (whilst people own the property) ? Crikey ! S

Thanks Penny, I agree, some people will not have known about it, but even so it seems only a 'piddling' amount? I worked out what ours would have been on the house that we had when we lived in the UK and it was something like €25. Even with a 40 % fine on top, it is still only €35/40. (unless my sums are wrong, which could be the case!) I wonder how much it costs to collect it ! (not that I think it shouldn't be collected by the way ) S

Rickardo, to be fair, it is also quite possible that a lot of people have taken residency because they are actually resident here, not just to avoid paying the higher tax on their purchase ? We do not own property anywhere else so presumably we are not affected by this. I do know a lot of people who do though ! Sometimes they have not been able to (or do not want to) sell their property in the UK so they have decided to rent it out. I am a bit unclear on how the tax authorities quantify the amount of tax one should pay, what is the calculation based on ? It will be an interesting one for a lot of people ! I totally agree that foreigners should not escape scrutiny, we're all in this together (someone once said !). S

Now..............who on earth would find fault with this very helpful forum eh? Bravo Ram, S

Cheers Al, Exactly my understanding........I keep telling people, do not spend too much in the way of €€€€s at this time. My main backup plan (when it becomes a need) is still VPN which we still use to utilise the recordings off iPlayer. S

Work out your anticipated data usage before you sign up is my advice ! S

Hi Al, I am in Penna San Giovanni and have an old UK Sky box with a 1 metre dish and (at the mo !?) receive all UK terrestrial channels fine for 95% of the time. I have today been around to some friends to help set up their new HD freeview box (+ sling), also with a 1 metre dish and reception is great, signal strength and signal quality both very acceptable. Obviously the bigger the better, but a 1 mtr dish is fine here. S

Portofino...............I'm very envious, we normally stay 'next door' at Santa Margherita di Ligure, one of our most favourite (is that good English ?) bits of Italy, S

In case we run out, where exactly are you !!  S

In our case, we moved lock stock and barrel over here (to Italy), started learning Italian with a teacher every week before we arrived, continued with another teacher once arriving here and...................I'm useless with languages. Our immediate neighbours speak only 'dialetto'............we do have a large circle of friends who are English speaking and we see them regularly. We have made lots of Italian friends (and acquaintances) and have hosted three different Italian families around our dinner tables (one brought their own food and would not eat ours !!). But all in all we get by very well and just cannot see why we would ever go back to blighty. HOWEVER.....I would think that if 'something' serious happened to either of us, that would change our view dramatically. You make the most of what you have I suppose ? S