House to rent with garden and fence suitable for dogs (and monkeys)

Hi All, I am inbound Malta week of 30 June to 6 July 2012, looking for a house to rent with a big garden, preferably out of town where I can have a largish cage built for my two Capuchin monkeys, as my wife and I intend relocating to Malta October or November this year.

Been watching the pet blogs, but there is little on the importation of monkeys. Both of mine are diabetic and require constant care and watching to control blood, so quarantine is out of the question.

Would anyone know of a vet who may have some previous primate experience?

Hi and welcome to Expat.com AntonovRSQ!

As for accommodation i could advise you to post an advert in the Malta housing section.
It might help!

Regards
Armand

Hi Antonov,

welcome to the forum.

Knowing how difficult it is to import animals in general from non-EU countries I would recommend you contact the appropriate veterinarian authorities in Malta as soon as possible. Our cat from America needed 6 months to get the necessary documents. I can't imagine monkeys being easier.

As you are coming from South Africa I presume that money will be no problem so finding the right property to accomodate monkeys in the garden will not be easy but not impossible.

I'll try and get some info from our vet on the monkey business -)))

Cheers
Ricky

Thank you ricky - you are a scholar and a gentleman!

Interesting comment Ricky 'As you are coming from South Africa I presume that money will be no problem'. Unfortunately not, the conversion rate to the Euro is a killer. Assume one sells a R1,000,000 (that's right 1 Million)property in SA - which would probably be at least a one acre property, multiple rooms, garages, swimming pool etc. Convert to Euro and you will end up with about 96,000 Euro. What would you be able to buy for that amount in Malta? (Or anywhere else in Europe/UK for that matter:)

Hi roikat,

my comment was not specific to South Africa but to all non-EU nationals considering residency in Malta or the EU for that.

One option would be appying under the 'High Net Worth Individuals' tax scheme which requires a minimal yearly rent of not less than 20.000 €/year amongst other conditions.

Coming from non-EU countries to work is usually problematic and residency is limited to a few years in general.

Coming from non-EU countries as economic self-sufficient persons are only granted temporary residency. That is not really what you want if you want to relocate to Malta with family and monkeys. But the more income you can show the higher your chances are of staying long-term.

Opening your own business is also an option but this requires quite a bit of money too.

In all cases the critical length of legal stay is 5 years as that entitles you to permanent residency which the authorities try to avoid granting to non-EU citizens.

So my immediate presumption was that someone coming from South Africa to rent a big house with garden for his monkeys will most likely not have a problem paying the rent but more likely have problems finding a suitable place. I hope I'm not that wrong because then it might be difficult to find the right place here in Malta.

It's just my way of thinking -))))

Cheers
Ricky

Agree Ricky - Malta has taken the (in some ways understandable) line, as has the UK, that they are overpopulated - as they can't stop EU citizens moving in, all they can do is price out non-EU citizens (unless they are very wealthy). One way of doing this is the high min rent or purchase price requirement.



Unless, of course, if the OP is married to an EU citizen

HNWI scheme - AKA the " we don't want you to live in Malta unless you've got so much money that you could afford to live somewhere better anyway" scheme

I now understand the way you were thinking Ricky :):) Just speaking from our own experience on arriving in the UK with what was considered a large amount of money in SA terms but worth peanuts in property purchase value in UK or EU. As George says the UK is now also doing it's best to keep out non EU's because they are the only people that can be kept our by regulating!