There are two more matters that I missed during my reconnaissance in 2004: animal welfare and litter.

With regard to animals, my wife put out the word that she would fund the castration of two pets per month. In two years her offer has only been taken up for two animals, whilst there are cats and dogs breeding happily everywhere. Some individuals solve the animal proliferation problem by e.g. tying live kittens into plastic bags and throwing them into a dustbin. I was told that in the prevailing religions any interference with God’s work (e.g. procreation) is seriously frowned upon. In spite of official denials, there is also intensive farming and I received reports of cruelty at animal markets. There are also unconfirmed accounts of dancing bears, caged tigers and wolves as well as of a zoo run on Victorian lines with disregard for modern ideas of animal care.

With regard to the other matter – litter – the Montenegrins dump everything everywhere and stinking refuse detracts very much from the ‘wild beauty’ of the land.

A few months ago, Montenegro became an independent state. This may be an opportunity to throw many of the old concepts overboard and to learn from the mistakes of other countries which have paid a high price for factory farming, failure to operate neutering programmes for stray pet animals (particularly in an area where rabies is never far away) and similar acts or omissions. In that way Montenegro could eventually become the ecological state that it purports to be.

Our situation as tenants made it imperative to acquire or own accommodation. Finished houses were out of the question, because every single one shown to us by the agents needed Semtex renovation; besides, few Montenegrin houses are finished with all of the construction work completed. Eventually, we found a plot where the owner had started building but ran out of funds, and we had a nice house built there.

Our lawyer had arranged connections to the utilities’ grids.

One day, Crna Gora Telekom disconnected my phone, the reason being that they had lost €500 from my account. It took a letter of complaint to Telekom’s auditors – a quoted company’s failure to keep proper accounts is an offence – to get matters sorted out.

Then everything looked fine until I noticed that we had not yet received a water bill. An official of the water company had taken off my lawyer the connection fee, fitted a meter and had the pipes connected. Anyway, I asked the water company (Vodovod) to issue a bill. They denied all knowledge of me, accused me of having stolen their water, threatened me with a fine in the amount of 3 million litres of water, and announced that they would turn off the supply unless I paid this fine within 24 hours of it being issued. They also charged me for 650,000 litres of water, which I could not possibly have consumed even if I had had all taps fully open 24 hours a day. I reacted by instructing my lawyer to apply for an injunction, to sue the water company for a refund of the over-charge and to institute criminal proceedings against the official who embezzled the connection fee. That was the last I heard from Vodovod, and my lawyer shrugged her shoulders and commented: “It’s Montenegro.”

For my wife and me, this house was for a number of reasons really only a temporary measure to get us out of the rental trap. Hence we sold it last December to three Russian families, who bought one storey each. The sale was handled by one of Montenegro’s leading estate agents, who also provided the sales/purchase contracts in three languages: Serbian, Russian and English. The payment of the purchase price as well as the vacation of the premises was supposed to be a phased operation proceeding in parallel with the construction of my new house, which should suit our requirements better. It turned out that the three versions of the contract differed from each other substantially, to the extent that all four parties ignored them altogether and proceeded with a paperless, “gentlemen’s agreement” transaction.

On our arrival in Montenegro on 12 January 2005, we dreamt of a house by the sea and we looked forward to having dinners with the sound of the waves in the background. We had to change our minds on that subject. A Montenegrin beach in winter looks like a brothel in the daytime. The restaurants on Jaz beach, for instance, closed last year on 15 September (we were swimming well into October), and after the first Yugo (strong south-easterly wind) the beach was covered in flotsam consisting of driftwood, plastic bottles, shoes and even a dead sheep. The dustbin along the access road has not been emptied for five months and the surroundings have presented a real health hazard. A clean-up operation is not expected until the first tourists trickle in for the next summer season. In summer, on the other hand, you are deafened by the music emanating from the cafés and by inebriated holidaymakers who want a good time.

Strong swell may travel 30 ft or more up a shallow beach and produce spray 20 ft high when it hits a rock. As a result, nearby houses suffer erosion and damp problems. Most important, vendors of seaside property are talking Monopoly money and the asking prices have risen sharply since my reconnaissance in 2004.

As a matter of interest, a high percentage of the advertised houses or plots are not really for sale and their owners will only part with them to buyers who pay well over the odds.

I used to contend that swimming in a pool was like running a marathon on a balcony. I had to change my mind on this subject as well. My new house will be on a hill with a sea view, and I shall swim in the sea only before mid-July and after the end of August. In the spell in between I shall use my pool, because there are 450,000 Europeans fighting over a few hundred beaches and in order to get into the water, bathers have to slalom past sun-worshippers and wade through a barrage of cigarette ends and ash, which together with their stench cling to feet and footwear. There seems to be a bias in favour of the marginal-cost mass tourists and the associated big hotels, who get privileged access to beaches, and against the expat retirees, who spend big bucks in Montenegro, and do so also out of season, thereby alleviating the ghost town syndrome.

I have lived in Montenegro now for just over two years and there have been discrepancies between the findings from the reconnaissance and my actual experiences as an expat retiree, as follows:

It is extremely difficult to obtain the status of a temporary Montenegrin resident and we expats drive across the Croatian border every three months for lunch and a new border entry stamp. With this method (which is encouraged by the immigration authorities) we remain permanent tourists. This suits me fine, because it enables me to maintain my Austrian residence and the Austrian health insurance that goes with it.

My investigation of 2004 did not go deep enough for a judgment on the Montenegrin people. Even now I have only met a tiny fraction of the 650,000 inhabitants. The following account is, therefore, not suitable for generalisation. Anyway, as an expat of the British community in Kotor put it: “Montenegrin schools have three Rs: reading, writing and ripping off foreigners.” Although violent crime is rare (I have not come across one instance during the whole of my stay), there are lots of Fagins and Jack Dawkinses about. On the other hand, there are also extremely honest people, such as one market trader who chased after me across the whole car park to return a 10-cent coin which had dropped out of my pocket in front of his stall.

I started my life in Montenegro in rented accommodation. The choice was limited because I required access for two large furniture vans and a trailer containing 120 cubic metres of personal belongings and I arrived with two dogs and three cats, which are not every landlord’s favourite tenants. Anyway, I moved into the best accommodation the agency could muster, and it was atrocious. Feedback on this and a number of other transactions can be found on:
http://place-in-the-sun.info (click “feedback – read”).

I visited my landlord some three weeks before my actual arrival for occupation of his premises and I had a small cat basket in the boot of my car. He suggested that I might as well leave it with him and he would store it somewhere in his garage rather than for me to carry it around on my journeys. When it came to settlement of the final bill, he charged me one month’s rent for storing an item worth €3 for a period of 23 days, and I had to pay it, because he exercised a lien on my furniture. The rent was supposed to be €400 per month, but it was nearer the €800 mark after we had to buy a new kitchen (his looked like instant food poisoning) and pay storage rental for the already mentioned basket, and he tried to extract another €600 for having the house disinfected because of our pets, which, as a matter of fact, are cleaner than many Montenegrin children.

My interface with Montenegrin people came under strain again when we employed a young local woman as a housekeeper. She stole, embezzled and cheated and when we decided to dispense with her services, she even tried some extortion. Further information can again be obtained from the ‘feedback – read’ section of my website. My attorney submitted six writs against her, but nearly a year later the court has not even issued the summonses as yet.

In 1999, my wife and I retired from careers as professional pilots. Shortly afterwards, my mother-in-law (who had lived with us) died suddenly and we were rattling around in our big house in Mid-Wales like peas in a pod. The fact that we are childless facilitated our decision to become expats. Hence we sold our property in Wales and bought a house in Primosten in Croatia. In 2004, we sold our Croatian place and in early 2005 moved to the coastal part of Crna Gora, better known as Montenegro.

Why Montenegro?

In the second half of 2004, I busied myself with a thorough reconnaissance of my chosen area and came up with the following data:

There is the pleasant Mediterranean climate and the warm sea. It is shorts and tee-shirt for eight months in every year and – except for the north-facing shore of Kotor Bay, where there is no winter sun – one can enjoy lunch on the terrace at least twice a week even in January and February. Then there is the countryside and the unique fauna and flora in it. Even at the height of winter the hills are bright yellow with flowering mimosa trees. Adverts thrash the slogan “Montenegro – wild beauty” with full justification. There is also the absence of pollution. They claim that Montenegro is Europe’s ecological state. Finally, owing to a bilateral agreement, British state pensioners receive full (as opposed to frozen) benefits anywhere in the former Yugoslavia.

So far, it does not sound different from Spain or Greece. But here go the additional attractions:

Montenegro is a tax haven. Foreigners may form Montenegrin companies without participation of Montenegrin nationals and hence can take advantage of the 9% rate of Corporation Tax. Furthermore, there is no capital gains tax in Montenegro at this time. The introduction of such levy is planned for some time in the future, but at a rate of only 7.5%, i.e. less than a quarter of the EU average. Stamp duty for the acquisition of real estate stands at 2% (as opposed to 5% in Croatia) and there are no restrictions on foreigners wishing to buy houses. (If they wish to purchase undeveloped land, they need to spend some €500 and form a Montenegrin company.) At the time of my reconnaissance (late 2004) property prices were still reasonable (but rising steadily) and construction costs were low and still amounted to only two-thirds of Croatian prices. As far as rates are concerned, property owners here pay €100 for every £1,000 they would have to part with in, say, Wales. The icing on the cake consists of low prices in the shops – such as €1.40 for a very drinkable one-litre bottle of Vranac wine or €5.40 for a kilo of rump steak – and very low utility costs.

The list of benefits goes on. Even branded (and not just generic) drugs, pills and potions are ridiculously cheap; medical treatment in private clinics (not in the state hospitals) is excellent and extremely good value for money, e.g. €100 for an appendectomy (and any special requirements that cannot be met locally are addressed efficiently in Belgrade, which is only half-an-hour’s flight time from Podgorica or 45 minutes from Tivat); there is a modern ophthalmic contact lens surgery in Podgorica; and as far as dentistry is concerned, I expect tourists coming for dental holidays any time now. The leading dental and implant surgery in Budva is equipped like the Starship Enterprise and offers fillings for €20-€50 depending on complexity, and their surgeon has more implants to his name than some patients have had hot dinners. Owing to a bilateral agreement, EU citizens have their medical expenses incurred in Montenegro or Serbia reimbursed by their national health services.

For the potential European immigrant, Montenegro can be reconnoitred easily and cheaply. From Budva, it is only 68 kilometres (41 miles) to Dubrovnik International Airport in Croatia, where reasonably priced hire cars are available. BA, Czech Airlines and Croatia Airlines offer APEX flights from a number of British airports. Alternatively, there are Ryanair flights to Bari in Italy with a ferry connection to Bar, Montenegro’s main port. In a few months time, the Balkan motorway will be operational as far as Makarska and will be extended to Dubrovnik Airport by 2009.

The country has a stable currency (the Euro) and good banking facilities. Funds can be moved unfettered in and out of the country.

These are the data as reconnoitred in 2004.