Good day

I am moving to Edinburgh in three weeks from Bermuda with my two small children, and I have tried to contact agencies that provide help with relocating and noboby has responded. It is becoming very hard as the time approaches. I can not register my daughter in primary school since I can not secure a house to rent. i can not secure a house since I dont have a job. I have tried to secure a job out there but have had no luck thus far. I think my resume is great but......................

Any tips on a great safe area, in the country side, since I love land and not too far from a primary school? I need to concentrate on an area and maybe just take one step at a time.

Any help on anything will be appreciated!!

Ummm... I think we need a we bit more info? Are you British? Do you have a visa? Let's start there.

have you got money to support yourself and your 2 kids and are you entitled to live and work in britain.

But the BIG question is...........Why would you WANT to move to Edinburgh (or the UK) from Lovely Bermuda??

Jamila

Living in Bermuda, I presume you have a British passort and so entry should be an issue but I can't be sure.

Why don't you try simply googling rental agencies in the city and then contacting the local eductaion authority. the whole process should be very easy but you need to work quickly to be sure of a place for your children in the September school intake.

If you don't have a house, job or a school for your children, why do you have to move in 3 weeks?

What is your career history? There are specialist job agencies for various careers?

Thank you all!! I am leaving Bermuda so my girls can have a better life. I do have my British passport as that is not a concern I mentioned. I have tried agencies but it is hard having them reply back to me or call me back.

I have been trying to set it all up for the past 2 months and I would like to have my daughter start the school year out there thats why it is crunch time as I keep getting the run around.

I would love to figure it all out once I got there but being a mom, I wanted to just have it all sorted for my arrival.

My career history is in Corporate Law. I am a Legal Assistant.

I have had more replies to this thread than I have had with agencies to help with the relocation. It is sad really!!

Yet still................ no help!!!

I'm sure you're aware that school is about to finish in the UK for the Summer break, so you have a little time up your sleeve in terms of getting yourself set up. I realise you want to register your daughter ASAP so she can start in September, so perhaps you can rent an apartment (holiday rental) in an area you like (have you had any further thought on districts, etc?) to start with, maybe on a monthly basis, then take that time to look for something more permanent.

It's odd that the agencies aren't contacting you back, they are usually right onto it. Clearly not the case with these ones. Are you wedded to Edinburgh or would you consider somewhere else in the vicinity? Humptynumpty's suggestion of contacting estate agents is a good one, but they can be a bit iffy when you don't have a job to quote as a reference. Worth a shot though.

Areas in/around Edinburgh to look at:
Leith - has become THE place to live now (funny considering its history, but that's the property game I guess), particularly around the docks. You could also look at Portobello, but both are more seaside the countryside.
E14 postcode - that means Juniper Green, Currie, etc. It's southwest of the city and lots of people commute into the city from here. Buckets of golf clubs around (well it is Scotland!) which make for space and green. Not sure about schools, but will give you something to work with.

Agree with Madamtrashheap but noted that you want to live in the countryside.

A couple of issues related to that; 1. you will need to commute- Duh!- if it were me, I'd want to do that by train. Edinburgh is a bit of a pain to get in and out of. 2. Some of the towns on the train lines aren't pretty. Check the train map- on Scotrail's site- and check out a few places. Do you prefer seaside, hills, near bigger towns. 3. what about schools? There's a lot of pressure on Councils to close small rural schools. Some people say they are not good educationally; others prefer them. What sort of school would you like your kids in? How would you manage the commute from a cottage into a village for your kids if you had to leave early to go to work?

The recession has seen lawyers all over Scotland laying staff off- even the big corporates. And your law won't translate to ours- except, pretty much, in corporate.

So, issues.

We moved to the UK about 5 years ago and booked a short term rental before we left, for a few weeks. Once in the UK, we looked around for something cheaper. There's no point signing up for a 12 month lease unless you know where you'll be working. Once we found jobs, then we looked for a long term lease. We found the housing market (not in Scotland, mind you) to be cutthroat, you have to be very fast to get something and agents were never all that helpful. I don't think you'll get much help at all with a rental property until you are there.

You could try http://www.gumtree.com/edinburgh for short term rentals but be careful if you need to hand any money over before you arrive. Or you could book a holiday apartment for a few weeks, just to get you going.

Kay

Sheila is very correct.

The Scottish legal system is very different to the English (Bermuda) system. It requires a separate qualification and the difference is more marked at an assistant's level where much of the work is procedural. Many employers prefer candidates without any experience to those with English experience at this level.

A further problem you will have is the use of interns, which in my view is a disgraceful situation. The market for professions is being flooded by graduates who have huge debts and reduces job opportunities. Many professions have offered internships instead of the historic training contracts. In effect, cheap (free) labour.

It may be possible that you are competing against 20 somethings who are prepared to work for free.

I have to say that Corporate Law outside London is very tight. The work of practices relates to that of their clients and many of those clients were small, medium sized owner managed business. They have been pretty much devasted over the past 2 years. Large practices in Manchester and Leeds have simply become insolvent and been broken up.

Put simply the market is very, very tough.

madamtrashheap, I think you meant postcode EH14. E14 is down here in London!

Agree with humpty (I am a commercial Scots lawyer in my spare time).

I do think anyone corporate with experience will get a job; but it might take a while. It will depend on background and references; and it will be in house or with one of the big guys if you're not Scots qualified- in my wee firm the commercial assistants straddle corporate and commercial so an English qualified assistant is as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

But it IS getting better, and the property market is much depressed from 5 years ago- unfortunately that means the rental market is more buoyant, since no-one can afford to buy.

>>madamtrashheap, I think you meant postcode EH14. E14 is down here in London! >>

Indeed I did! Stupid fingers - as much as I like E14, that would be a hell of a commute!

Oh thank you very much!!!

You all have given me much to think about and work with. I guess a short term holiday rental is ideal at first. That way I can research the schools, find a job and have a look at a house. Being the mom I am, although I am in the legal admin field, I will work as a mail person if that meant feeding my children.

I guess now, the only thing is to look at the best location in Scotland that is country side as well as family friendly.

Thank again!!

Agree, you really need to do some resarch on where you would like to live. I note you would prefer countryside but if you want to be work in Edinburgh, what Sheila says about the difficulty of commuting is very pertinent - driving into Edinburgh is not fun. Plus I would have thought you might find it easier as ' foreigner' to feel at home in a city ? More for you and your children to do, plus Scotland generally is still not very mixed but the cities are more mixed than the countryside. As a non-local myself I would not fancy living in some of the country areas outside Edinburgh.

The only place on the fringes of Edinburgh which had occurred to me to start with was Portobello as previously mentioned; plus there are some leafier suburbs such as the afore-mentioned Juniper Green but there is not likely to be much rental accommodation in such areas. Personally I think your best bet would be somewhere like Morningside or Stockbridge, which are nice suburbs just outside the city centre. Stockbridge in particular is quite cosmopolitan and very nice, with a villagey feel. The Stockbridge Colonies would be ideal and there are sometimes flats to rent there. In an area like that you wouldn't need a car, you could walk or take the bus everwhere (and Edinburgh city has quite a good bus service).

(NB Leith is the exact opposite of countryside, it's the former docks area and now an 'interesting' mix of yuppie flats, fashionable bars & restaurants (3 Michelin starred !) versus being still overall a very deprived, urban area high in antisocial behaviour and a certain amount of crime. I know, as I have lived there for the last 6 years and would not recommend anyone with children to move there - or possibly anyone at all.

Re getting an Edinburgh holiday let in c.3 weeks - that would be a BIG problem, as the festivals kick off at the beginning of August and everything is likely to have been snapped up months ago at vastly inflated rates. Apart from extra vistors to the city, there must be at least 10,000 performers etc to be accommodated. Bear in mind there is also a large student population here : you may think (as I did when I first moved to Edinburgh) that you are not looking for the same type of accommodation as students, but you'd be surprised - Edinburgh has a lot of very posh students who will pay up to £2000 per month for a New Town flat, for example.

Given the time of year, maybe you might want to consider trying Glasgow first ?

Anyway, good luck. Here are a few of the more long-established and reputable letting agencies in Edinburgh - Braemore Property Management, Alba Residential, Ryden Lettings, DJ Alexander, Rettie, Dove Davies.

Also look at www.espc.com (the Edinburgh Solicitors' Property Centre, an umbrella organisation). It's mainly for property sales but I've just checked and it does have a rental section. I had a trial search on Stockbridge and there is just one property at present, a 2 bedroom unfurnished flat with a garden at £900pm - actually, that looks ideal to me, assuming 2 bedrooms is enough, although maybe you'll want furnished at least to start ? £900 is a bit on the high side, though - you should be able to get somewhere for £750-800 although maybe not in Stockbridge. (Bear in mind you will also be liable for the council tax, which will add c.£100-225pm.)

There are also a few countrywide websites which act as an umbrella for different letting agents, such as lettingweb.com, but check out the particular agent an advert is placed by.

Whatever you do, avoid Grant Management who are crooks.

Presumably you have familarised yourself with other more general stuff like the cost of living here - prices of property as well as transport, food etc ? It's not cheap.

Again, if you decide to go for it, good luck ! I would not want to discourage you as we are also working on our dream of moving to another country. (You do know what the Scottish weather's like, don't you ? When we got back from Italy on Friday it was 11.5 degrees here )

Hi,

I stumbled across this while looking for something else but thought I would add my thoughts. Caroline has already given you some good advice re Leith as I don't think it is a particularly great area and is certainly not the place to live as one poster mentioned. If you want something in that price range you would be better going to Gorgie which is a similar area but much safer. If you want countryside you could try Balerno (the next village after Currie) as it is the outer-most suburb and surrounded by countryside plus the Pentland Hills park. It's well-connected by bus and a very safe environment for children (I should know as I grew up and went to school there) Currie and Juniper Green are also nice but not quite as much countryside around them.

Morningside and Stockbridge are nice but I guess can be quite expensive. Corstorphine is also nice.

I also think you could get some temporary housing help from the Government, particularly as you have kids. Sometimes you may be offered something in a not particularly great area (e.g. Wester Hailes) but you might get lucky.

Lastly, it is a nightmare to find any short-term accommodation in August, though if you went further out to the suburbs it might be possible.

Edinburgh is a fantastic place to live and if it weren't for work-related issues, I would move back there from France.

Thank you Caroline and Nickice!!!

You both have been quite helpful!!