Expat Community > Bahamas

paradisebound
Joined 2015
Posts: 2

Rentals, work, crime, import duty, hindsight...and many more!

9 years ago

Hi All

I have read page after page on this forum with great interest, but feel I still have so many questions in preparation for our move to Nassau from the UK this July! Many of the questions have been asked before, but I've noticed that many of the replies have been in PMs so I've not quite found all of the answers I was looking for.

By way of background, my husband has recently secured a job at St Andrews school and will be starting this August. I am currently an Insolvency lawyer in England, and don't yet have a job to move to. I understand that it is very difficult for trailing spouses to secure jobs/work permits, but I'm willing to give it a good go! Whilst I have several years experience, I only qualified in October last year and so I am told that I would be better to find something once I'm there rather than to use a recruitment agent (partly due to their fees and partly due to abundance of lawyers already working in the Bahamas). Accordingly, my questions are as follows:

1. On the basis that my husband will be based in the East and (hopefully) when I find employment it's likely to be in downtown Nassau, which area would you recommend we focus our housing search (we're looking for a secure 2 bed apartment in a gated community with pool access)? I have read that the commute to downtown from the East is horrendous and that most ex-pats seem to live in the West, would this be a realistic commute to St Andrews? (Please note that we only intend to buy one car and whilst I'm content to use public transport, I anticipate that I will no doubt have to work very long hours and would only be content with this if the public transport is safe enough (and reliable) to use after dark.

2. I'm told that finding an apartment without engaging a realtor will be cheaper, are there any recommended websites that aren't run by realtors to source one, or are we best waiting until we get there? Please note, since we don't know what my income will be (if any) we are limiting our budget to $2k and there appears to be very little inventory for this online.

3. If anyone here does work in law or insolvency, what are typical hours like in the Bahamas and should I expect similar annual leave as in the UK (circa 4 weeks) or is it more like the US with 2 weeks per year?

4. Given the climate, do people still wear business suite to work? (we're trying to clear out anything we won't need!)

5. I've read a lot about safety/crime, but again many of the responses to women with these questions appear to be in PMs. We live in Manchester, so I'm very aware as far as city living goes, however should I be nervous about travelling home from work after dark, or indeed out and about on my own during the day outside of our residential community?

6. In terms of deciding what to bring, we're hoping to just fill suitcases and pay for extras if necessary and bring mostly clothes. Are there any other particular items that you took from home that you were really pleased you did, or conversely didn't take and really wish you had, particularly with regard to the high cost of goods in the Bahamas versus the high cost of shipping/import duty?

7. Similarly, I've read so much about the import duty - will they really charge us 40% of the original cost of our used clothes? Will they go as far as to charge import for things like wedding/engagement rings or is that just taking it too far? I looked at the list published on the government website and saw that it goes into such detail as to include pens etc, I just can't imagine this really being the case!

8. Anything you know now about moving that you wish you knew before??

Thank you for taking the time to read. I should be grateful for any advice you can give!

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