@43d7c4ea 

Many years ago, just after the Y2K problems had (or in some cases hadn't been) solved, I couldn't find any computer contract work in the UK as most companies had exhausted their IT budgets fixing Y2K. I was offered work in Brussels so I took it. 

Anyone who has done it, will know that moving from one country to another is highly stressful and very disruptive. Somehow, in the process of doing that I forgot to put in a tax return and in due course I was contacted by someone claiming to be the inland revenue. In fact it was that lowest, foulest scum of the earth, a firm of debt collectors! The were working for the Inland Revenue but the way they phrased their spiel, they made it sound like they were from the HMRC. More or less every time  they phoned, I said I was unable to pay the sum they were asking for  immediately but would be happy to pay the sum off monthly which offer they invariably refused, parroting the phrase "if you don't pay immediately, we will bankrupt you". This went on for several years.

They kept on adding sums to what I owed them including adding tax 'estimates' for years when I hadn't even been living in the UK; finally they sent local bailiffs to my house in Belgium. When I spoke to my accountant in the UK about it he said they are claiming you owe them £50,000+, in reality you owe them less than £10,000 however the time I will need to spend to prove that to them will cost you another £5,000, so do you have around  £15,000 looking for a home as, if not, I'd bankrupt yourself then you don't owe them a penny piece. 

That's exactly what I did and, as the High Court of England have no jurisdiction outside the UK I was never obliged to pay them a single penny!

The thing that really annoys me is that I offered repeatedly to pay by instalments  and that offer was refused not by HMRC but by the foul scum working for the debt collectors pretending to be HMRC. By the time, found out that the debt collectors were not, in fact HMRC it was too late, they had already put the bailiffs in; that left me with no choice other than bankruptcy.

However, my accountant at the time said that HMRC are frequently irrational, stupid and stubborn. They often refuse offers of arrangements to pay even when it is abundantly clear that the exchequer would be far better off accepting such an arrangement than by bankrupting the debtor. I'm sure in many cases this is exactly what is happening today! 

 @43d7c4ea 

I don't understand the way mortgages work in the UK. My colleagues in France get fixed rate mortgages (if they want one) for the entire lifetime of the loan! A colleague remortgaged in around 2014 as his current loan was at well about the then current rates and he was offered the new load at 1.15% over 22 years fixed rate for the whole period. 

If the French banks can do that, why cannot the British banks do the same?

Because they are crooked venal bastards? No, couldn't be that, surely! 

 @43d7c4ea 

Yes, on the dentistry front, where I live in Luxembourg it appears that many dentist tend to favour doing very profitable work rather than offering their patients the more economical treatments. When I needed a lot of work done, I was examined by a number of dentists. The first wanted 25,000 Euros, another 40,000 Euros yet another wanted 1000 Euros for periodontal treatment that was not necessary at all plus 10s of 1000s more for bridges and other dubious treatment that he admitted would likely only last 5 years.

A practice in Trier just over the German border wanted  a more reasonable 12,000 Euros but finally I found a German guy who has a practice in Luxembourg who likes saving people money and who did a totally satisfactory job for 6500 Euros