JANE COLEMAN moved to her new home in Tenerife with her husband six years ago intending to spend her retirement relaxing in the sun and putting her nursing days behind her. But chance would be a fine thing. Now she finds herself busier than ever working as a carer and home help, looking after impoverished and destitute fellow Brits.

“I couldn’t turn my back on all these people,” she says. “They are in poor health and have no one to look after them. I’ve lost count of the number who have bought property out here without thinking about the future.”

One of her clients, Mike, whose wife has died, suffered a stroke last year and couldn’t manage on his own. Now Jane cleans his house and does his shopping for him. He has a British pension but does not receive any social care, because in Spain care of the elderly is done within the family.

Coleman says: “It’s not just retired people this is happening to, it’s all ages, even people in their twenties who have tried to make money from a time-share business only to see it collapse. In Spain having a contract of work is a passport to all sorts of benefits and if you don’t have a job you lose all entitlement.”

Mike’s plight is typical of a growing number of British people who have sold up and moved abroad. But their property dream has turned into a nightmare of poverty, deprivation and ill health. The Foreign Office says that the number in that predicament now runs into thousands. The British Consulate in Málaga spends much of its time dealing with elderly British nationals who moved there ten or 15 years ago but who now find they cannot manage because of inadequate preparation for their new life.

And this is a problem that is likely to grow. A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) indicates that almost one in ten Britons now lives abroad and that a British national emigrates every three minutes. It predicts that a further one million Brits will move abroad over the next five years.

Bruce McIntyre, the British Consul in Málaga, says: “Sadly we spend much of our time dealing with elderly British nationals who cannot manage alone. Sometimes a partner has died and the other is too old or infirm to go out and buy food. Sometimes people have made bad property investments or have not budgeted their pensions sufficiently and are living in extreme poverty.” He says that British retired people need to realise that not many European countries have welfare provisions like the UK. There are often no old people’s homes, no district nursing, community care or meals on wheels. He adds that there are some steps new residents can take: Register with the local authority, so that when you fall ill you can receive medical care; Would-be emigrés must do their homework: the costs of renovating and maintaining a property and of hiring a local lawyer can leave residents with no money for day-to-day expenses; It helps if you can speak the language. The IPPR report shows that the inability to speak the local language is one of the biggest barriers to settling into an overseas community.

Nevertheless, the problem of impoverished Brits living in Spain has led Age Concern to set up an office in Majorca. The charity says it helps about 100 people a year to repatriate to the UK. “If people are registered officially as residents in another country within the EU, they are entitled to the same support as other residents in that country,” an Age Concern spokesman says. “However, the support available may differ from the support in this country – very limited social services, for example – and language may make it difficult to access.

“Returning to England is often the last option and can be very traumatic for someone who has lived a significant portion of their life elsewhere.”

A Foreign Office guide, Going To Live Abroad , is available at www.fco.gov.uk/travel. An Age Concern guide on retiring abroad is at www.ageconcern.co.uk

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