Ticha's Posts
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 Travel › Re: Parenting In The UK As A Nigerian Migrant. by Ticha: 10:30pm On May 13, 2023 |
lightnlife:No whooping cough is the only vax recommended for pregnant women and you can opt out should you choose to - it's usually to protect the baby as mum's pass thr antibodies on till the newborn can get their own vax 1 Like |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 11:06pm On May 12, 2023 |
Santa2:I say that all the time here. People move for many reasons and some move just because. The husbot works in a global civil engineering consultancy. The company actively encourages staff to move and work in other branches and a lot of the staff take advantage of it! They won't sponsor your visa unless you fill a particular niche but if you ask for a transfer, the answer will be yes! You don't even need manager approval, just HR. Someone called me greedy because I said we were thinking of moving to Canada or the US - our pull to leave NZ is not even an economic or health one. We have Nigeria on the list of countries to consider because we will be going as expats so it works for us at this time (husbot's company has a branch there). We're at a stage in our lives and careers where we can move just because and it's a great place to be! Fortunately or unfortunately, we've decided the next place we move to, we have to be there for 6 years minimum so the children can finish secondary school. This means, depending on where we move to, we may end up with another passport which is not necessarily a bad thing! It creates freedom of movement. I can't wait for them to head off to university. I will move countries every 2 years! 11 Likes |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 7:50am On May 11, 2023 |
Lexusgs430:Same as teaching. About a decade ago, they brought back direct training in the classroom again. Certainly going back many, many years ago, doctors trained as apprentices. Maybe they're onto something... Medicine and Dentistry are a few of the courses you cannot get a student loan for and have to be self sponsored 1 Like |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 7:30am On May 09, 2023 |
KOVIC19COVID20:Yes they do. But you need a family member to lock away a certain amount of money with them and leave it untouched as a guarantee for the mortgage incase the borrower defaults. It's called a Springboard mortgage I think Loughborough Building Society also used to offer guarantor mortgages. |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 1:55am On May 09, 2023 |
Zahra29:I'm watching with keen interest! They've already put a sort of cap on the purchase price by linking the affordability to rents paid in the last 12 to 18 months. It may that they stick to a % above current rent. Interest rates will be the koko. 1 Like |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 10:59pm On May 08, 2023*. Modified: 1:49am On May 09, 2023 |
KOVIC19COVID20:Just read it too. Skipton is one of the lenders that are very flexible and sensible when it comes to lending. We have an expat mortgage with them with very reasonable rates and fees - practically unheard of in the expat mortgage space. Details below for the 100% - https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/may/08/uk-mortgage-lender-100-loans-skipton-building-society To add a caveat - those that the great financial crisis of 2008 hit very badly were people with 100% mortgages who fell into instant negative equity. If anyone goes for this, try and build equity by overpaying as much as possible. One good way to do this is to ensure that the mortgage payments are not at the maximum that you can afford which then gives a buffer. PS - building equity also means if Skipton rates are high to start with, then once the initial fixed rate is up, one can move to a more rate friendly lender. 6 Likes 1 Share |
| Travel › Re: General New Zealand Student Enquires by Ticha: 10:19pm On May 04, 2023 |
shabazz1776:All the unis will have an agent list. Ask them for it. Lincoln Uni uses an agent in India |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 8:28am On May 01, 2023 |
semmyk:Ese sir! Oh and the interest rate bands can vary quite a bit as different lenders apply different bands. For example: For lender 1 - anything under 90% ltv falls under one interest rate band, then 80-89%, etc For lender 2 - anything under 85% ltv falls under one band. For our last re-mortgage, the interest rate band after 60% ltv was 40%! So basically 41% - 59% ltv attracted the same interest rate. That difference would give me a deposit for another BTL! So it's sometimes not just a matter of a low deposit. Some lenders also start adding fees once the ltv drops - which I find weird - so when calculating total interest, you also need to look at the product fees if there are any. But you're right Semmyk - it depends on the person, their goals and financial capabilities. My personal rule of thumb is to use as little of my own cash as possible at the beginning, buy the biggest house I can afford within my parameters and then overpay. I see the overpayment as forced savings - one day, I shall be taking that equity out for something else even if na new kitchen 8 Likes 3 Shares |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 8:07am On May 01, 2023 |
deept:Plus you can always overpay on your mortgage (almost all lenders allow 10% of the loan per annum), and when things get hard, pause the overpayment. Not using all your available cash also means having reserves for any repairs that crop up. One of the things a lot of first home buyers ignore is the amount of little work here and there that ends up wiping you out or you ignore it and it becomes a bigger issue. There's no landlord to call on! 10 Likes 1 Share |
| Travel › Re: 8 Things You Need To Know About New Zealand by Ticha: 4:07am On May 01, 2023 |
Nochious123:Welcome and ask your questions here. We will help as much as we can |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 5:28am On Apr 25, 2023 |
Happiness09:You need a BTL mortgage from the get go if your plan is to rent out the house or apply for a CTL (consent to let) if you bought as a residential property then need to move etc. It costs between 100/150 GBP to get one. Almost all lenders will automatically give you a CTL for the length of the fixed period, if you apply at least after 6 months of starting the mortgage without any questions asked, apart from Santander that can sometimes have skoin skoin. Banks like Natwest will allow your CTL to remain till you change it over. Somethings can be red flags - ie your new address is in the same city/ town/ boundary area or you apply for CTL immediately you get a mortgage. Somethings to note - you will require a higher deposit for a BTL. Some banks will allow you have CTL for 1/2 years then ask you to swtich to BTL plus also ask you to top up your deposit/equity if it's less than their required BTL deposit. Regardless of being an accidental landlord or not - ensure you're up to date and scratch with all the tenancy rules and regulations. It can become an albatross if you don't do things correctly So although you can potentially fly under the radar, once one thing goes wrong, gbege don happen be that. So start well and start right. Cross all your Ts and dot your Is. Fines for landlords can be financially crippling. 6 Likes |
| Travel › Re: 8 Things You Need To Know About New Zealand by Ticha: 11:35pm On Apr 20, 2023 |
yankison:I have answered your question. Read my response carefully. Especially the part in bold. If in doubt, call INZ or the purported employer yourself |
| Travel › Re: 8 Things You Need To Know About New Zealand by Ticha: 1:04am On Apr 18, 2023*. Modified: 1:52am On Apr 21, 2023 |
I am going to put this response here. Those of us that answer and respond to questions do it from the goodness of our hearts. We have full time jobs and lives. No one should hound me (Yankison this is directed at you) to respond to them. If you want immediate response, then please go hire an immigration lawyer! To get any NZ visa, any visa at all, you must: 1. Create a RealMe account and upload all your details yourself as well as submit your visa application through there. 2. For all visas other than visitor - you must complete a full medical panel. A very invasive medical panel and only 3 or so hospitals are approved to do it. So you will have to contact the hospital, book an appointment, pay upfront. Then have your RealMe details, type of visa application details and passports which you hand over to the clinic staff as the result is uploaded directly to INZ. 3. There are different types of work visas and the exact type being applied for determines the visa costs. It would also be noted on your medical form. You need medicals for all work and student visas. 4. Complete a police background check and upload it to RealMe. NO AGENT CAN GIVE YOU A VISA!!!! NOT EVEN A VISITOR VISA For Visitor visas - you need a RealMe account, you need 6 months bank statements, you need to show strong, very strong ties to Nigeria and of course, you pay an application fee upfront. Every information on NZ visas is detailed -in great detail on the INZ website. Do not allow anyone scam you. NZ has the most straightforward visa systems. It is very easy to navigate and understand. 2 Likes |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 7:25am On Apr 15, 2023 |
Adayoung:Once your offer has been accepted by the vendor/ seller 2 Likes |
| Travel › Re: 8 Things You Need To Know About New Zealand by Ticha: 12:51am On Apr 12, 2023 |
Lighthouse50:Just go for a degree (L7 quals) regardless of where. You don't need higher qualifications if you choose a course that is on the Green List. That automatically puts you in a position to get a residency visa straight after studies. 1 Like |
| Travel › Re: 8 Things You Need To Know About New Zealand by Ticha: 7:36am On Apr 11, 2023 |
Lighthouse50:Colleges are cheaper (almost half or just over half the cost of universities) - Te Pukenga and Te Pukenga subsidiaries being the big one (16 polytechs merged into one). They often focus on vocational degree courses so it will be a degree with a workplace component. You can't study Pharmacy, Medicine etc but you can easily study almost all other courses at UG level. To get the post study work rights, you must study at L7 and above so degree and above. PSW is hit and miss if you study at L5 and 6 (full vocational courses) - it has to be specific courses only. Also if the course has more work than study elements as most vocational courses do, then your chances of getting a visa will be pretty slim as well. Remember that you can't bring any dependents on an UG or lower study visa. |
| Travel › Re: General New Zealand Student Enquires by Ticha: 6:12am On Apr 03, 2023 |
peze:Fab! Good luck. I live in Wellington so not a million miles away. It might also be useful to detail the admission process for future applicants? I notice there isn't a lot of real time info on here which is a shame. 3 Likes |
| Travel › Re: General New Zealand Student Enquires by Ticha: 10:39pm On Apr 02, 2023 |
peze:Congratulations! There is a good Nigerian community in Palmerston North or is your course based in Auckland? Ask the university's international office to link you up with current Nigerian students to enable you start accommodation hunting. |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 10:49pm On Mar 24, 2023 |
claremont:Or he bought the property a long time ago and therefore the mortgage has reduced accordingly. 4 Likes |
| Travel › Re: Parenting In The UK As A Nigerian Migrant. by Ticha: 10:43pm On Mar 23, 2023 |
Damdad:You can send an email. You have to be specific that you're removing the child from the school roll otherwise they will start counting absences and reporting on it 1 Like |
| Travel › Re: 8 Things You Need To Know About New Zealand by Ticha: 10:28pm On Mar 23, 2023 |
Munachimso30: |
| Travel › Re: Living In The UK: Property,Mortgage And Related by Ticha: 10:38pm On Mar 21, 2023 |
semmyk:This looks very interesting! 2 big fish hooks - you will always sell at a discount and to another first home buyer which in theory is ok but majority of people rely on the equity from their first home to buy their next one. In a market where prices are stable and or declining, you'll actually be selling at a loss. This would translate to people not doing up the houses - any monies spent is lost as renovations almost always does not translate to equity uplift unless it's huge renos. Plus being fr only first home buyers totally narrows your buyer pool. My advice will be to only go for this if you know you'll live there for a very, very long time to negate the impact of the discount. 3 Likes |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 11:46am On Mar 16, 2023 |
pretty1986:Basic Aussie nurse salaries - https://www.medshop.com.au/pages/nursing-salary-guide I've used this site mainly as it shows a direct comparison. Use www.seek.com.au to check actual salaries for each nursing role as presented in Aus. 3 Likes 1 Share |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 4:47am On Mar 16, 2023 |
AgentXxx:The full pension is what you get if you have paid upto 35 years worth of NI or paid the difference by paying into it upfront now (I think that particular scheme closes sometime this year). Otherwise, you get a proportion of the full pension (basic) if you've paid more than 10 years of NI but less than 35. The basic pension is about £105.80 a week. The full pension is about £185.15 a week. Your employer pensions (whatever is there and accrued) is then a top up and the accruing income and interest are not taxed! As you can see, just having the employer pension means you'll have more than just the basic or full pension to live on from when you retire. Unless you want to work till you drop! 9 Likes 2 Shares |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 9:49pm On Mar 15, 2023 |
AgentXxx:Don't opt out please. You need at least 35 years of NI to access the full pension. And 10 years NI to qualify for basic pension. Even if you move elsewhere, you can still draw that pension. See it as forced savings 11 Likes 3 Shares |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 10:44pm On Feb 25, 2023 |
Odedenshi1:PM and I'll link you up with my in law who works as a child social worker in Northampton. He maybe able to offer guidance. 9 Likes 1 Share |
| Travel › Re: Do I Take This UK Job Or Go To Canada With My PR by Ticha: 10:39pm On Feb 25, 2023 |
GraciousWords:We actually directly compared Toronto and Vancouver to London and NY. We stayed in Burlington, ON and looked at Elizabeth, Edison and Newark area for NY (makes sense as we’d rather live in a house.) and I have a spread sheet that tells me there are about 70 ish towns and cities with a direct train link into London that takes 50 minutes or less. So similar travel distances. Husbot worked in London for 2 years and we lived in St Neots and created the SS then to decide where to live. I worked in Cambridge and our joint income was just under 45k! We did have just one child then though! Rightmove has 513 listing for 3 bedrooms or more in Zone 1 to 6 London for £500k or less. London has about 9m people Zillow has 1942 listings for 3 or more bedrooms between Newark and New York close to transport hubs for $800k or less. NY has about 18m people Zillow has 261 Listings for 3 bedrooms or more between Markham and Burlington with Toronto in the middle for 800k. Toronto has about 6m people Income wise for us – we will both double our incomes in NY or DC. Husbot’s job is fully remote, and the company’s administrative headquarters is in NY. Our COL and SOL will be awesome in DC! He can keep his current income in Toronto or Vancouver but will lose almost half anywhere else in Canada. I will hurt badly for income in Canada. To move to Canada, we will have to sell our NZ home which will make us mortgage free outside Toronto or Vancouver. We can just re-mortgage our main UK home to buy another one in the UK. I’m so averse to selling a house unless we have to! So overall, our SOL will be same as NZ but COL higher in say Calgary or Halifax which are our other options due to seriously lower wages and the other advantages we would lose. I hate driving, I love travelling (my 9 year old has been to 34 countries), We are not outdoorsy people. NZ has taught me that! Give me museums, NT places etc any day. I have medical issues that I need to keep on top of, 2 out of 3 kids will need braces soon. We won’t be living from hand to mouth but we most certainly won’t be able to drop $8k on private surgery like we did in 2021 without a 2nd thought. Our over all SOL and COL will be lower in the UK. Certainly an average child who has schooled in any of the two countries will do well in university anywhere even the US, all thing being equal. I mark iGSCEs twice a year but the rankings are done across board ie even countries (80 ish in total report annually) that do not write iGCSEs report secondary school grades to CIE for ranking and the top 20 countries have remained there since I’ve been marking in 2014. They might move up and down a couple of places but they remain strong. Interestingly, UAE and Singapore are in the top 5 every single year – so many international schools and a huge emphasis on passing exams. I will definitely encourage anyone who does not have a ‘western’ citizenship to take PR in Canada. We’re only doing all these calculations because we have options. Otherwise, I for don pack my load go Canada since, HCOL or not! Happy to chat and share our insights and japa moves! |
| Travel › Re: Do I Take This UK Job Or Go To Canada With My PR by Ticha: 9:32pm On Feb 25, 2023 |
JayGordon:Our kids are all under 10 as well. Our eldest just turned 9. Certainly in IT, incomes seemed pretty high! Almost at par with the US. Hubby would be able to retain his NZ income in Toronto and Vancouver but not in Calgary or Halifax (those were our 4 choices). He'd lose almost $90k in Calgary and Halifax. I would be losing out hugely everywhere in Canada. We briefly considered the PR route and decided it was not worth the move at all. It'd be setting our early retirement plans too far back to make any sense. However, we will quite like to thoroughly explore Canada so if we don't move to the US, we might take a year out from mid next year and just be tourists around Canada/US. We're weighing up options between Netherlands, US and the UK. The UK is seriously winning out for now. Hubby is worried about guns and racism in the US or we'd head to DC or NY which our best options. |
| Travel › Re: Do I Take This UK Job Or Go To Canada With My PR by Ticha: 7:51am On Feb 25, 2023*. Modified: 10:38am On Feb 25, 2023 |
I'm assuming you have EU citizenship? We, last year (spent August 2022 in Vancouver and the greater Toronto region) looked into the prospect of moving to Canada or returning to the UK - we're currently in NZ and we have chosen to return to the UK or move to Europe for a few reasons. We have UK and NZ citizenship and would have gone the work visa route for Canada (through the husbot's job) How old are your kids? Is your wife wedded to a nursing degree? She can segue into a teaching degree from working in care (no shifts and school holidays yay!), could you live apart temporarily? That way you could potentially take advantage of both? Basically we found that: 1. Canadian salaries are lower than UK salaries for our jobs on average (husbot is in Engineering and I am a qualified teacher, we both have over 20 years experience in UK/ NZ/ Aus) 2. Canadian cost of living is higher in Toronto/ Vancouver (where we can get slightly comparable salaries) but the COL is way way higher than the UK or NZ (rents/ houses are higher costs, food more expensive, bills generally more expensive). For example - our mobile and internet costs in the UK for 5 weeks was around £15 for the 5 weeks (2 sims and 30gb of internet, no contract). It was a whooping $72 for 4 weeks, 1 sim and a paltry 3gb of data) in Canada. That is £44! Anywhere else in Canada will see me earning around $50k pa! Hian! That one go hard o £500k in the UK will enable us choose a school and buy a house in the school catchment area in majority of the large UK cities (excluding London). $800k in Vancouver and Toronto will mean we're heading at least an hour out of the city to find a house. It will get us an apartment but why would I do that to myself?! 3. We hired a car for only 3 days to head up north and just used public transport within Bristol where we stayed. We needed a car for the whole month in Canada. Public transport is diabolical in Canada. So we will need 2 cars in Canada and just 1 in the UK. 4. Primary and secondary education is much of a muchness depending on location in both countries. However, our children will be able to access university education as domestic students in the UK (as long as we're there 3 years beforehand), Ireland, Australia and NZ. Uni fees are dirt cheap in Europe anyway. To put all this into perspective, we (family of 5) lived just outside Norwich on a combined wage of just over £50k until 2017. We owned our own home and 2 rentals. We had an au pair, travelled abroad every holiday, spent every half term somewhere in the UK and didn't feel we were poor at all! The feeling of being poor actually came after we moved to New Zealand and tripled our wages. Our move to NZ has been a fantastic financial decision. Any move to another country now either has to make serious financial sense or give us something we're missing. Heading back to the UK or Europe will take us closer to home and give our children a strong connection to 9ja. We haven't been back to 9ja since 2016 and used to go every year when we were in the UK. If I'm moving to anywhere else now for better finances, it'll be the US! Hope that helps! I actually did a week to week breakdown cost of all our expenses in the UK and Canada so we could do a proper comparison. Happy to share if it'll help! 7 Likes |
| Travel › Re: General New Zealand Student Enquires by Ticha: 7:11am On Feb 20, 2023 |
EZEUDENE:Everything you need to know is here - https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/visas/visa/visitor-visa NZ is one of the countries that allows you to change visas in country. Of course you have meet the requirements of whatever visa you're applying for |
| Travel › Re: Living In The Uk-life Of An Immigrant (part 2) by Ticha: 8:46am On Feb 07, 2023 |
Ihategirls:Haba this is uncalled for. He actually sign posted you to all the relevant information you need. 1 Like |
| Travel › Re: General New Zealand Student Enquires by Ticha: 8:43am On Feb 07, 2023 |
untamedd:You have to go back. They will book your return tickets 2 weeks after the finish of your last piece of course work. Of course people can go home and then head elsewhere but any return ticket they purchase for you will be back to your home country. If you do not return home and they know, the expectation is that you pay the money back. However, it's most likely not enforceable once you're no longer in NZ. On the other hand, it will scupper your chances of ever living or visiting or working in NZ and Australia. The scholarships are largely down to luck. The whole of Africa has been allocated only 58 spaces this year and applications from Africa with Nigeria being the largest number of applicants averages around 25,000 applications per round since 2018. The application portal is open now till 28th Feb NZ time so go for it! 3 Likes |
