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The answers, before you have to ask for them.
Everything below is written from doing this for real, in plain English, with no gate in front of it. If you never contact us and just use the guides, that’s a fine outcome.
Green Spain
A few of the places we know by heart.
Free download
The Green Spain relocation guide
Twelve chapters, 27 pages — visa, home, paperwork, healthcare, money and settling in, in plain English. No email address required, and no obligation to talk to anyone afterwards.
The guides
Six things worth reading before you move.
Buying
4 essential tips for international buyers
The four things that most often catch people out when buying in Spain from another country.
Buying
How to buy a property in Spain
The full step-by-step: offer, arras, notary, taxes, and what your lawyer should be checking.
Building
Building your dream home
New builds, renovations and restoration projects in Galicia — permissions, people, realistic timelines.
Legal
10 questions for your Spanish lawyer
With BGI Law Galicia — the questions worth asking before you instruct anyone.
Money
Managing your finances & smart banking
Moving money to Spain, opening an account, and the transfer costs nobody mentions.
Health
Health insurance in Green Spain
Private cover is mandatory for visa holders — what it costs and what it actually gets you.
Area guides
Where in Green Spain — the places people ask us about most.
Written from sourced research, checked in August 2026, with the unflattering parts left in. Every guide ends with who it suits and who it doesn’t. More areas are coming; these are the five most asked for.
O Rosal
The Rías Baixas subzone that shares a border with Portugal — 67 mills, a July wine fair, a valley that suits growers and walkers, and a health centre that closes at three.
Ribeira Sacra
The Sil and Miño canyons — a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2021, a World Heritage candidate sent back for revision in July 2026, and a place where the terraces are labour, the winters are frost, and the hospital is in Monforte.
Vigo
Nearly 300,000 people, an AVE station, 47 beaches and the Cíes — and 1,790 mm of rain, a city built on a slope, an airport that lost Ryanair, and rents that are climbing.
O Baixo Miño
Tui, Tomiño, A Guarda, O Rosal and Oia — a station and a motorway at one end, a port and beaches at the other, vines in the middle, and Portugal across the water. Choose the end before you choose the house.
Monforte de Lemos
The Lugo-side base for the Sil and Miño canyons — 19,000 people and growing, a 24-hour hospital, direct trains to Madrid, a Parador in a monastery, frost in winter and the N-120 as the only real road.
Common questions
The awkward ones, answered.
Foreign income and landlords, pets, Military Authorisation, mortgages, NIE and padrón, the Non-Lucrative Visa — the questions people actually ask.
Success stories
Families who took the leap — and never looked back.
From the United States to Galicia
How an American family found their footing in the green north — and what surprised them most.
From the UK to Galicia
A British move north, from first enquiry to a home with the paperwork behind them.
“Galifornia”
The California family who swapped one green coast for another — and named it themselves.
From the Costa Blanca to Asturias
Already in Spain, and ready to trade the heat and the crowds for mountains and rain.
Start here
Got a question these didn’t answer?
Ask it. A person reads every message — one of our two Head Consultants, Caroline or Lucie. And the first proper conversation is free.
