[Rusty Nail]

Thanks for your reply Rusty.
I’m British. I wouldn’t know where to start, how to navigate all the paperwork, what order to do things in. I’d love to just wake up one day and be there.

The wake up and go idea has unfortunately been cut off now. Even then you would still need to do the boring stuff like yourself once here.
You need to perhaps read this and see how to obtain your visa.

LINK TO SPANISH CONSULATE LONDON visa information.

I'm sure that there will be MANY questions from British citizens wanting to move to Spain from 2021 who are unaware of the financial & other requirements for visas. So here's a link to the Spanish consulate in London visa section...

expatforum.sitesdebloques.org

Here is a list of the Spanish consults in the UK and the areas they cover.
Consulates

 

[Rusty Nail]

The other stuff would be: the medical clearance and financials, as listed, and filling out the visa application form and submitting it at the consulate/embassy. As I noted, straight forward.
And by residence I mean a place to live. I believe a requirement is that you have to show a residence.
Residence is different from residency

So when you mean residence you really mean looking for a property, renting or purchase. Glad that is clarified.

 

[Rusty Nail]

For our visa application (NLV) we went through a service, 9 years ago. It seemed expensive at the time, Eu 5000, but I did not mind paying it as I did not know what I had to do, and I was not in Spain I was in the Middle East. And I was making a lot of money at the time so it was almost like spare change.
After spending some time in Spain, I think I could do it all on my own, but it does take some research. And it would probably take longer than if you pay someone to do it.
What are the sticky issues?
1) Getting a NIE; I'm not sure how one gets one outside of Spain like from a consulate. But in Spain, it is fairly easy once you know how.
2) Getting a bank . That's fairly easy even from outside Spain
3) Medical insurance. That was easy, done via internet. We are still with the same company we started with.
4) Residence. Now that is a trick! We settled this by going on a exploratory visit to the city we thought we wanted to live in. That went well, so on that same trip, we signed a lease on an apartment. Since we did not move for 6 months, 1/2 year of rent was thrown away. This is really what you will want to finesse. And I do not think a visa service company will be able to help with this.
5) The rest of the stuff, medical clearance, financials etc are straight forward.

So really, the only problem out of all that is really getting a NIE. If you needed to go to Spain to get one, with airfare and hotel that could come to a couple of thousand Eu, not Eu 5k.

Things may have changed from when you applied to live in Spain.
1) It seems a NIE comes with the visa and is issued when picking up the visa. You have to apply for a visa in the country you are resident in. You cannot obtain one in Spain.
2) It can be done but you will still need a video call NIE/TIE. However, a number of banks still require some sort of personal visit. If you open a non-resident then later you will need to change that to one for a resident.
4) Residency is only gained once in Spain. It just requires a visit to the relevant Oficina de Extranjeros with relevant forms and paperwork. Spain: your residency
5) what other stuff?

 

[Rusty Nail]

Welcome to the forum.
Some questions for you to help us answer your post.
What are you afraid of?
Where are you based?
Where do you want to live?
What is your nationality?
Edit I have just looked at your posting history. I have lined through the question that is answered in that previous post

https://expatforum.sitesdebloques.org/threads/advice-needed-please.1530551/