We are the Groen family from North Holland. In December 2023, we bought a house in Dobrinishte, a town about 6 kilometres from Bansko in a beautiful mountainous area in Bulgaria.

We decided to leave the Netherlands for many reasons, but mainly to live in the mountains and in a sunnier climate.
As a child, I used to go to Austria every year for skiing holidays and later for walking holidays. It had always been my dream to live in the mountains.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the idea of emigrating slowly took shape. Because of everything that was happening in the Netherlands, everything that was still to come and the high inflation, we started looking for a country within Europe where life is more as it should be. After Sweden, Hungary and Romania, we finally ended up in Bulgaria.

In August 2022, we went on holiday to Bulgaria by car with the idea of getting to know the culture and the country to see if it was suitable for us to live there.

Our first destination was the Balkan Mountains near Apriltsi, but we did not like this region.

Then we went to the Rhodope Mountains. We did like this, but here you really live in nature or in deserted villages, which is not very practical with children who have to go to school. We also did not find our ideal home here, except for one that ultimately did not go through.

We had initially bought a house in the village of Chokmanovo near Smolyan
However, after checking the provisional purchase contract, we discovered that something had changed from what had been agreed. Thanks to the actions of an acquaintance, we were spared a disaster.

We had almost bought a house, but without the land around it. This could have caused problems later on. The owner could have asked for extra money to buy the land after all, or it could have caused problems when selling the house.

So, a lesson learned is that if you don't speak the language and don't know the people, it's important to stay alert and surround yourself with people you can trust.

After the sale was cancelled, we headed to Bansko and never left. For us, this was the ideal region with schools, shops, good roads, good facilities, lots of tourists, mountains and an international community.

Our house in Wieringerwaard went on sale in early 2023 and was sold after a few weeks at a profit. The keys were handed over on 1 September and after staying with grandma for a week with the six of us, we left for Sofia by plane on 7 September 2023.
This marked the end of an exciting and uncertain period in the Netherlands, but the beginning of an uncertain and exciting period in our new life. At that point, we did not yet have a house. And then, sometime in October, we arrived in Dobrinishte.

We contacted several estate agents here. After viewing many houses, we finally bought a house in Dobrinishte. It wasn't actually our dream house, but simply the only good option given our budget and the low number of houses for sale in the region.
Nevertheless, we are very happy with the house and have been living there permanently since April 2024. It was in poor condition and is still not finished to this day, but we are very happy there. We have a garden with vegetables, fruit trees, rabbits and two dogs.
We don't want to go back and have made our dream come true!

In addition to buying the house, we also had to apply for a residence permit and transfer ownership of the car. Almost no one at government agencies spoke English, so we were glad that our solicitor helped us with this.

We would like to share our experiences with Dutch speakers who also want to take on the challenge. We know the problems you may encounter when emigrating to Bulgaria and we want to help you with all the challenges and problems you will face. We make sure that you can focus on work, learning the language and enjoying the surroundings instead of spending all your time arranging everything.
It saves you a lot of time if you do everything right the first time. You can spend this time skiing, hiking, enjoying the terraces or other fun activities in life!

Do you also want to leave for Bulgaria? We would like to help you!

We are happy to help you find a house and possibly help you with contractors during a renovation, because things are different in Bulgaria than you are used to. Once you have the keys in your hands, you may have to renovate the house. But then there is the language barrier and any possible help is very nice when selecting contractors and requesting quotes for the renovation.

Would you like to know more about what we can do for you? Contact us.