Hello,

This is my first post to this forum although I have been reading it for weeks. I would like the state that, after reviewing many forums, I selected this because Madrid Man’s description of his efforts to move to Spain are very similar to our journey in the sense of the dedication and effort expended and that this forum is very active and members respond to questions with so much thought and care.

My partner and I are in our early 40s and we have always planned on moving from the US to another country to retire. We have traveled extensively for many years and now have come to the point where we feel we should not wait until retirement to make our dreams come true.

Of course we soon learned that you just can not move to another country and start working and with the formation of the EU and then immigration problems, many EU countries have passed laws which seem to highly favor EU citizens over non-EU citizens concerning residency and work, which is understandable.

After looking at several countries including The Netherlands, Greece, Germany, France & Spain, were are trying to match country residency and work laws with our capabilities and desires. One area that we are looking at is our gay partnership of 14 years and I have to say that many of the countries we are looking at offer far more privileges and rights than the US, except perhaps Greece. Spain’s law allowing same-sex marriage certainly is interesting and I wonder if we would be allowed to participate at some point after living and working there?

Spain has many different types of residency and work permits compared to other the other countries mentioned above. We hired a law firm in Madrid to look into our situation and give us a report about which residency and work permits to pursue. We should have that report soon.

My partner has a Bachelor of Science in Education (English). He taught school briefly and has been a professional trainer at a large newspaper in Texas for 17 years. He is interested in the TEFL program where you come to Madrid for four weeks of school, get a TEFL certificate and find work teaching English in schools, to adults and private lessons. I have a Bachelor and Master degrees along with several different work “lives” in concert production, health care, mental health care and then working for a large newspaper as a sales manager. I have been recently contracted to help a real estate company revamp their website although I have no technical education in this area. I may be interested in teaching English also but I could also maintain my website work for the real estate company being self-employed in Spain.

We have both taken two Spanish language courses and have traveled extensively in Mexico and Costa Rica but never Spain. We speak and read Spanish a little past a beginner level. We plan to also enroll in Spanish courses upon arrival and will complete courses here before we leave. We have two cats that are our children and would have to go everywhere we went.

Thank you for tolerating this long post but I felt the more info everyone had, the better the response to my questions:

1. After looking at numerous TEFL schools, we are considering the Canterbury TEFL School located at Calle Augusto Figueroa near the Banco de Espana. This appears to be in the gay-friendly Cheuca district. Has anyone heard about this school?
2. We need an apartment or house in Madrid near or within commute to the TEFL school, AC & heating, one bedroom, one bathroom, safe area, allows two cats. I don’t know if I am on the wrong websites but the apartments I have seen are double my current house payment in the US. Any ideas on apartments in this area around 750 Euro per month or ideas on a commute from an area outside of town that is more reasonable?
3. It appears that many Americans have given up on the legal work permit and are working under the table. Does this mean they just got some type of residence permit and not a work permit or did they not get a residence or work permit? I would like to be legal so that we don’t have any worries.
4. Finally, does anyone see anything in our plan that is missing? Anything else important to consider?

Thank you so much for reading this very long post. I have never posted in anything like this in a forum before so I hope I posted this in the correct place and have not broken any rules.

Sincerely,
Gary & Keith