Moving to London

Moving to city like London is a most difficult task in your life, as you have to leave everything where you are now, and your things, neighbors, children’s schools, families & friends and your daily works & jobs. etc… there might be many reasons for you to move to London, perhaps your job or your partner’s job, attending universities, joining your families already who live there or children’s studies. With all these you have to think very carefully before you make a move. You will find some good tips & advice about.

Immigration & Visas in UK:

First of all you need to sort out your visas to go to uk, nowadays getting visas are not easy as before because of new rules &regulations imposed on uk visas & immigration, there is a big procedure to apply for uk visas, please visit our uk visas & immigration page for more details

If you come from EU countries, basically there is no problem to qualify for moving & finding jobs and doing any other important things. However if you come from any other countries of the world, you must get the appropriate visas, making the visas are now very straight forward if you have valid reasons and money but there are different kinds of visas, all the information you can find under uk visas & immigration page.

Finding a Home or Room:

Finding an accommodation in London is another daunting task, London is very expensive city, you need to preplan about your accommodation depending on your budget. There are some areas which is affordable for single or family living, you need to find those areas because central London is very expensive. The whole London is divided into zones (Zone 01, Zone 02, Zone 03, Zone 04, Zone 05, Zone 06, Zone 07, Zone 08, Zone 09 and find the zone maps here), Zone 01 – 02 (central London) is always expensive to find any accommodation but other zones according to its order is less expensive to find and live. If you going to move to London immediately first look for the hotels or hostels or guest houses for two weeks and reserve it first and move first in case you need to extend your stay, you can easily do it and then you can do hunting for the houses or apartments within two weeks because you need to see the house, areas and affordable prices to rent. And there are real estate agents to find you a house or room, some of the best agents listed down here

1) www.foxtons.co.uk 

2) www.savills.co.uk

3) www.hamptons.co.uk

4) www.chestertons.com

5) www.rightmove.co.uk

6) www.thepropertylounge.co.uk

7) www.hamptons.co.uk

8) www.spareroom.co.uk

Please use one of the agents to find a house or room and they will advise you about everything (eg. Documents needed area guide and many more).

Who is going to come with you:

You may well be moving to London on your own or your partner or your family with children and may be your pet,you can check pets & permission page for that, if you are going alone it is much easier than your family and pets, you can check our main categories for most of thing you needed to know such as first time travel to uk and tips, friends and families, british culture, driving in uk, airport guides, transport in London, warnings and dangers, mobile & communications, what to pack befor travel and so on.

Finding schools in London:

If you are going with your family and children, it is a must to know about facilitating their schools first, the uk education system is the best system in the world, Information about the different types of schools and how each one performs can be found here.

you must know one thing in London to be aware of that all the schools have what is known as "catchment areas." This catchment areas means that children living in the immediate vicinity of the school usually get priority basis over the places. This might mean that where you choose to live may well be determined by the school you wish your child to go to.  However, if you choose a private education for your child, as opposed to using one of the state run schools, then this would not apply at all .And further you can find more details about schools by post code or school name on schools web directory.

Opening Bank Account in London:

When you go to to live in London, opening bank account is a must for every individual living in uk because you get paid from your jobs, you pay  your house landlords or even supermarkets, Nowadays it is much easier to open a bank account and  very straight forward procedure, and there are some banks (main banks are Barclay’s Bank, HSBC Bank, Natwest Bank Halifax Bank and many more), However, there are plenty of other options, such as various building societies, Internet only banks and smaller concerns. Banking is a competitive market in the UK, and many banks offer incentives to join them. before you go to a bank, please visit their official website and find necessary documents to open a bank account because each bank has got different policies and documents needed) at the same time please visit Banks In London on our page to get some more  information.

Paying tax:

Paying tax is the only unhappy thing in uk, this tax system is the system where everybody has to follow, by not paying the tax you will get a very hefty fines, the first thing you must know whether you will have to pay tax Eg. if you are earning under the threshold, no need to pay and each individual earning situation is different and the tax system is the vast system in uk, to know everything on individual basis, you must visit the HM Revenue & Customs website.

Driving in the uk:

Driving specially in London is a real nightmare with heavy traffic jams and the congestion zones, you need to think twice to drive a car in London because buying a car is very easy but you need to pay the lease installments, road tax and  insurance are heavy, most Londoners don’t use the cars in London even if they have cars, because London transport is much better and quick also but still you might need to drive the car there for, for more details please check on our page link under Driving in UK.

If you need to find more about London please visit Discover London page, and we wish you all the best to move and live in London.


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