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All of you buying a new property. Your local Coucil can take upto two years to assess your for the tax and as you would be away when you receive the demand youwill miss the dead line a fine will be imposed.
(not a large amount )In order to avoid the situation and for good practise I had visted my Council ( Estepona) to make arrangement to set up a standing order.
Their response was that we have not yet assessed your property and cannot do anything (dont bother me I am having a sietsa) I brought to their attention that they have my property details and I am here with my Bank details to make arrangements why this cannot be done. ( a normal council employee shrug of the shoulder)
My request that as I have been to the office twice and have taken the effort to set up the basis of timely payment of my tax could she confirm that I will not have to pay the fine. The staff concerned just walk away.
Please note that I have a reasonble command of Spanish language. What are my rights as Tax payer ????.
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Shakeel,
All of you buying a new property. Your local Coucil can take upto two years to assess your for the tax and as you would be away when you receive the demand youwill miss the dead line a fine will be imposed.
Please note that I have a reasonble command of Spanish language. What are my rights as Tax payer ????.
That’s precisely why it is compulsory to provide a valid Spanish address for notifications when applying for your NIE and why our foreign clients use our firm’s address for notification purposes.
Cesar
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I regularly have to deal with four local councils in the Valencia area about questions of IBI.
I have learnt over the years that it almost always requires more than one visit to resolve any given question. This is because invariably the person you need to deal with is mysteriously out, or the computer is down, or from last week the point you want to discuss is only dealt with on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
At this point, you can put your foot down and raise your voice and demand your rights. And the staff may well change their attitude and resolve the point.
However, I find it less stressful and generally more effective to simply gather up my papers and return the next day, or the next week, or sometimes next year. Nothing very dramatic is likely to happen in the meantime.
So my advice is simply go with the flow and take it easy. Unless of course, the matter is truly urgent – in which case you will probably be dealt with quickly.
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Thank you all for your reply. The fact remains.
1) Why should somebody be employed to deal with rouitine matter. When it is in the interest of the Council to collect the IBI.
2) By somebody forwarding you, your post further it does not help in setting STO sitting out of UK, Can you imagine documents are sent by post to the Council where they will end up ???????
I do go with the flow but bringing these issues up we all can see the position and work towards changing things ( Valencia land grab is a good example had every body just gone with the flow)
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I thought it was a very true (and humerous) view of how things work here. Perhaps these things only happen if you are in andalucia or a guiri 😉 Does help to smile though, sometimes when you are unsure and don’t understand its easy to forget and the facial expression is just a scowl, must be a bit annoying getting all the people in who don’t understand and the grim faces.
When we went to apply for residencia there were about 35 people infront of us and one of the guy’s recognised us as being a neighbour of his father. He called us to a side desk and we were out in about 10 mins. All our documents were rubber stamped without looking at them. Bit of enchufismo eh?
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Spain is different especially for a person from UK, in almost everything, it can be argued that this is part of its charm! Generally speaking though in the majority of the cases you can join the same queue and speak to the same people as the resident/national so take deep breaths and try to get your matters sorted out early in the morning.
I bow to the superior knowledge of César, but it was our understanding the the NIE document should reflect the address of the applicant, ie the address of the spanish property the applicant has bought. It can be argued that this is why the document should be relevant.We know that this is not always the case but with the NIE document having a greater importance now and is required for just about everything, isnt it unwise to have a different address to that of the spanish property. I appreciate that the address can change in time but this is normal and in such cases one can apply to be issued with a empadronamiento if circumstances demand.
I know it is not the point but the fine obviously depends on the amount of tax to pay but in most cases can amount to an extra few euros. Take a chill pill, we dont want UK stress levels here in Spain please 🙄
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We completed on our purchase in July 04 and were told our first IBI tax would be due September 05. We duly visited our apartment in September and were surprised we had no bill in our post box, so went to the bank to set up a direct debit. We were told it was not possible without a bill, so decided to wait.
We have just returned and discovered that everyone on our development has had a 10% charge added for non payment and that if it wasn’t paid by 5th July another 10% would be added.
We had to go to the local gestion office, pay our bill in cash only whereupon they gave us the ’06 bill which we couldn’t pay there but had to take it to the bank and pay it by end of September. The gestion office happily took our details to set up a direct debit for ’07 payment but we could not get any explanation on why we were never sent a bill in the first place, which is what the developer told us would happen.
Only in Spain 🙄
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Tricia, Please read my mail I was the one who raised the subject. this is exactly what I had been on about.
I further agree fully with Diego the attitude of the funcinarios. The fact of the matter is that the profession of Jestors had been borne out of the working practises of the funcinarios. Their working practises have damaged Spains reputations and still continue to do so.
To my dismay it is the Spanishyoungsters first choice as a career, when asked I was told, that I dont need to do much, have job security and there no accountabilty.
If the funcinarios claim to be hard working, why are they not working for a private Company instead pushing paper with the help of a Gestor who once again we pay for it.
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Shakeel
I did indeed read your post which is why I decided to add my contribution. My main gripe is that how can you pay a bill which has never been sent to you anyway, even though they have your Spanish address and then have the cheek to impose a fine for non payment and insist on cash only. Failing that, if this is normal Spanish practice could the developer or lawyer not have warned us that we would not receive a bill and would have to physically go down to the gestion office. It even confused me as to why the very nice man in the bank did not inform us about this when we attempted to set up a direct debit in the first place. 😈
Tricia
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The difficulty can be that the various processes need to take place in a certain order, and this very rarely occurs for many reasons. Any supplier of services ie. telephone, community, water, electric, suma, will always issue a bill. In the case of suma depending on location it can take perhaps up to four years to receive the first, but once issue, you will be issued bills for the previous years also. Some properties do not have postboxes, some have postboxes but are not receiving postal delivery, some have postboxes and are receiving post but the owner is not there or has not checked postbox or does not know where is their postbox. Matters are complicated if the owner cannot visit the property perhaps for many months. In my experience it is not possible to setup the direct debit for payment of suma until you receive your first bill. This must be paid in cash or in your bank and then you can setup direct debit to take effect next year. Visit your local suma office with copy of paid bill and request to setup direct debit.
I agree that some of the funcionarios do not actually function very well, but there has been for many years a genuine need for the services of a good Gestoria which can and are used by nationals and foreigners alike, if only to avoid the ‘hassle’ of d.i.y. of course there is a charge but if it is reasonable and the service is good, hopefully everyone is happy 🙄 -
Hi Tricia,
I am not the one to speak favourbly about the working of a Country that I adore including its people, however this only applies on a personal level.I however do not see how the builders can be responsible for the incomptency of the Councils or can comment/make judgement on them.
An average Spaniard or your Mr nice guy at the Bank would not even think of taking this matter up as they know how the system works and are at times surprised when us northern European take up these issues. ( so Council, provisinal, local govt incomptency is a way of life and have become a second nature)
You should also realise that it suits the Council to levy penalty as they collect more ( Lets face it nobody is going to querry if the Council is ripping us so called rich Northern europeans) as the local Spaniards can deal with the matter. thus do not pay the penalty
Apart from the above some Councils turn a blind eye on illegal constructions as they can once finished can fine the owner/developer thus more money for the Council, where they can then have a nice drink up for the employee at the local Feria. ( Where do you want me to stop)
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One of the first things I found out about when considering relocating to Murcia was how the system for paying bills works ( or doesn’t) as the case may be.
All the books I bought spelled it out.
Obviously there are regional differences.Utilities are payed bi monthly and can be set up by direct debit. IBI and car tax are due in April and one has until May/beg.June to pay them otherwise a charge is levied. The book also mentioned that bills often went awol !!! or weren’t sent out so the onus was on the customer to make sure these charges were paid or else incur penalties.
Even so I did check on everything once here.With regard to your comments Tricia about bank staff or builders letting one know ,unless of course asked, this wouldn’t even happen in England.
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With regard to your comments Tricia about bank staff or builders letting one know ,unless of course asked, this wouldn’t even happen in England.[/quote]
It is only when things go wrong that you realise that your own research wasn’t good enough. Direct debits were duly set up for bills except IBI as we couldn’t do it without one.
That’s what I was getting at, we did ask both the developer (who is massive and been building in the area for about 10 years ‘helping you every step of the way and after completion’ blah blah), the solicitor and then finally the bank employee who is local. When all 3 of them tell you to wait until you receive a bill, then you tend to think that is how it is done. If any one of them had suggested to us that if we do not get a bill then we should hot foot it to the local gestion then of course that is what we would have done. 😉
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Shakeel
I couldn’t agree more but was attempting to answer other comments which suggested I was silly to expect the developer etc to tell me, which wasn’t the case. I repeat, if you take the time to ask three separate sources for the information and they all tell you the same, as opposed to ‘I don’t know’ then you could be forgiven for thinking the information is correct.
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Shakeel
I couldn’t agree more but was attempting to answer other comments which suggested I was silly to expect the developer etc to tell me, which wasn’t the case. I repeat, if you take the time to ask three separate sources for the information and they all tell you the same, as opposed to ‘I don’t know’ then you could be forgiven for thinking the information is correct.
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Tricia
I was not suggestng you were in anyway silly. You asked and your question re bills were answered. Unfortunately in Spain bills are either not sent or they are delayed. This was pointed out to me verbally and is constantly referred to in many books/mags etc.
My point was no-one is going to tell you this not even in England. The onus is always on the individual to chase things up when overdue.
I have just had to pay more for my road tax. Everyone said “wait for the bill” but as this is due in April and it’s now July. just how long should I have waited . Tried to pay and our local town hall wouldn’t accept payment !! Didn’t want to incur a fine for driving illegaly so paid a gester to sort it out.
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Tricia
I was not suggestng you were in anyway silly. You asked and your question re bills were answered. Unfortunately in Spain bills are either not sent or they are delayed. This was pointed out to me verbally and is constantly referred to in many books/mags etc.
My point was no-one is going to tell you this not even in England. The onus is always on the individual to chase things up when overdue.
I have just had to pay more for my road tax. Everyone said “wait for the bill” but as this is due in April and it’s now July. just how long should I have waited . Tried to pay and our local town hall wouldn’t accept payment !! Didn’t want to incur a fine for driving illegaly so paid a gester to sort it out.
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Fair enough Melosine but that’s why we went to the bank because we knew or believed it was due, which is when the employee told us if we haven’t got a bill by September then our tax would be due the next year and we would get one then.
I shall now make it my mission to be someone in England who will indeed alert owners to this ‘oddity’ of the Spanish system 😆
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Fair enough Melosine but that’s why we went to the bank because we knew or believed it was due, which is when the employee told us if we haven’t got a bill by September then our tax would be due the next year and we would get one then.
I shall now make it my mission to be someone in England who will indeed alert owners to this ‘oddity’ of the Spanish system 😆
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According to the “books” IBI assessment is done every January. If not in property then one has to wait until following year. Maybe this is what the bank clerk meant.
Having said this I don’t know if it’s true.
Not believing everything I read or hear, as we moved in end of March , did check with gestor who reported nothing to pay as yet.
The vendor from my friend bought her property contiued to pay the rates for three years !! No-one in authority being it seemed bothered to change the ownership title.
That’s Spain -
According to the “books” IBI assessment is done every January. If not in property then one has to wait until following year. Maybe this is what the bank clerk meant.
Having said this I don’t know if it’s true.
Not believing everything I read or hear, as we moved in end of March , did check with gestor who reported nothing to pay as yet.
The vendor from my friend bought her property contiued to pay the rates for three years !! No-one in authority being it seemed bothered to change the ownership title.
That’s Spain -
Hi Trica,
Just to help you work out when your tax was due, there are two threads you may want to read where Maria de Castro and Cesar both answer similar queries regarding IBI (both lawyers who regularly contribute)
http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=645&highlight=ibi
http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=955&highlight=ibiHeather
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Hi Trica,
Just to help you work out when your tax was due, there are two threads you may want to read where Maria de Castro and Cesar both answer similar queries regarding IBI (both lawyers who regularly contribute)
http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=645&highlight=ibi
http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=955&highlight=ibiHeather
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