the paperwork

May 2005
We are slowly getting better at understanding Spanish and making ourselves understood. The other morning we had an “administration” morning and successfully…..

…updated our Social Security records with the latest documentation from the U. K. which gives us another year of medical cover including emergencies, consultations and reduced cost prescriptions…

…collected our new registration documents for a recently purchased Lada 4x4 from the “gestor” who had made the changeover for us. One of the strange things about Spain is that government administration is so Byzantine in it’s complexity that there are special businesses to whom you can pay a fee to do these things for you. I guess that the government also likes it that way as they receive perfect applications and fully completed forms so reducing the number of civil servants required to administer. As a result, taxes are relatively low and although Spain adheres to all EU directives, it never seems to appoint many people to enforce them. Whilst this allows most people to ignore most of the rules, the Sword of Damocles is ready to fall on them if something goes wrong and they get caught…

…traced a missing parcel which had been despatched to England which is not an easy task, as the post office counter assistant is the most annoying “jobs worth” on the planet. It is no surprise that whilst you can walk into a bank here and draw thousands in cash across a desk without fear, the post office has bullet-proof security glass from floor to ceiling. Wendy is convinced that it is to protect the employees from frustrated customers. However, that day he was in a sympathetic mood and instructed his colleague to check the bar code who proudly informed us that the parcel was delivered to “aero puerto Londrés” two days ago and that it will probably arrive this week…

…tried to pay our €60.00 annual car tax for the Peugeot only to find out that the fee for 2005 is not due until September 2005. We assume that this is because olive farmers don’t get payment for crops from the mills and cooperativas until the end of June and then the whole of Spain goes on holiday until September. Such is the way of life here that even the tax collecting process is geared to the most likely time that people will have the money to pay…

…visited our lawyer to ask where our deeds for the town house are and to startle him by turning up at his office, unannounced. Before we had a chance to ask, he volunteered the information that he hadn't yet received the deeds but that he would telephone the Registry Office in the morning to find out where they were.

We love to make lawyers jump, but when we called back at his office 2 days later, we were told that the deeds were with our town hall and wouldn't be sent to the Registry until the end of May. We suspect inertia, lack of efficiency and pure laziness on our lawyer’s part but we are just stuck with it until our deeds turn up…

Another day we went to Granada to further our application for “residency” in Spain.

We originally applied for this during September 2004 and were told that we would receive a letter requesting our attendance again. As we had received nothing, we decided to ask our friend who speaks excellent Spanish, to telephone to establish the present position. He was told that we were informed in October but that the letter had been returned to the office.

We turned up at the office in Granada to collect the letter, joining a veritable United Nations of other applicants and after 20 minutes we were given the numbers 29 & 30 as our turn. As the number screen was only on 82, we prepared for a long wait. After an hour or so, the numbers on the screen started to run upwards as people poured out of the inner office and in no time we were at our appointed desk. Our “Habla Inglés ?” was met with “No, habla Arabé ?” (“Do you speak English ?” “No, do you speak Arabic ?”) so we resorted to our ready translated questions and after signing for our respective letters, we left to go back to the original police station were we had applied for residency.

This is situated the other side of Granada and as it was then in the middle of the lunch time rush hour, we didn't arrive until 1:58pm. A blizzard of signs reminded us that the office closed at 2pm “a punto” but we hopefully presented our letters and awaited the next step. The desk clerk, bless her, took exactly 2 minutes and 5 seconds to give us some new forms and then closed the window…

Another trip back to our favourite city the next day saw us progressing our applications relatively quickly and we now only have to wait until the end of May to get our cards and become official residents of Spain.

The mystery of the returned letter has now been explained;

Unfortunately, we do not receive a direct delivery of post at the farm as these are made to a small open fronted box which is located inside the nearby bus stop. The letters for everyone in the area are put inside, weighted down with a stone and you just turn up and flick through to find your own. Very rural and very, very Spanish so not too much of a surprise that the postman declined to leave a recorded delivery letter, then !

More administration followed as we now had to talk to the post office in our nearest village to ensure that we actually receive all of our post. Strange thing is that bills always appear under the stone in a timely and reliable fashion….

We visited Algarinejo which is a small pueblo of about 2,500 people, in whose municipality the farm is situated to arrange for a P.O.Box for the farm and to get copies of the official map of the farm so that we could use this in our future representations to the council planning department for repairs and renovations to the farmhouse.

We did have a slightly delayed start so by the time we arrived at 11:30, the post office was closed. (Note for future; opening times 9:00 to 11:00am). We repaired to a small café for a drink and then set out for the town hall to get our copy maps. The immaculately uniformed man at reception of the mayor’s suite listened intently to our request and then informed us that the computer was down and the technician was due tomorrow (mañana). Many years in the computer business made us decide that we should wait for a few days before trying again…

Two days later we returned to Algarinejo and discovered that the post office is so small that they don’t have space for P.O. boxes. However, they will allow us to put up a private box in the bus shelter and we have now met, and been introduced to, the entire staff of the Algarinejo post office so everyone in the area will soon know all about us.

The computer at the town hall was working so a copy of the map was printed for us. This success made me a bit over confident so I asked for an application form for a building licence as this would be required for any alterations that we make at the farm. Before we could blink we were ushered into the town architect’s office and he suggested that we go to the farm then, to show him what we wanted to do. However, we phoned our translator to check when he was available and made an appointment for Thursday 5th May at 5:00pm.

We all duly met at the farm and presented the architect with plans and costing for the work. He made a number of suggestions including the exciting news that our expensively built sewage system was not acceptable and would have to be replaced by another type. We really shouldn't have taken the builder’s advice to “build it quickly and bury it quicker”….

The architect also gave some extremely useful advice about repairs and alterations to the house but then advised that we would need a health and safety report to comply with the law, before he could issue a licence for the work. A large price was mentioned and after a knowing look to each other, we asked if he knew of anyone who may be able to prepare it. He said that he would give the problem some thought and then this humble employee of a small municipality in Andalucia drove away in his shiny, new BMW X5……..

Three days later we enquired, with straight faces, about the progress of our report and were told by the architect’s office that he had nearly finished the report and that it and the licence would be available shortly.

Now we knew, he knew, we knew that he knew and he knew that we knew that he knew but nothing has been mentioned specifically and no doubt payment will be made "to bearer" for the sake of good administration. Such are the ways of rural Spain……

The resulting report was duly collected and turned out to be a MS Word document from a computer with just the names changed to ours. It bore no relevance to our own house, the work we were to carry out but it listed all of the laws that controlled building works, the standards that should be applied to new buildings and a vague reference to to the "total reform" of our house. The actual licence was quite cheap so we didn't argue about it as at least we were now legal and could do more or less, what we wanted to the house.

July 2005
The good news is that we have now got our residency cards from Granada and we have at last, received the escritura (deeds) for the Rute house from our lethargic lawyer. In addition, it appears that Spain has now adopted an EU resolution which will mean that we don’t have to exchange our U. K. driving licence for a Spanish one, saving us endless hours in dreary offices.

Now all we have to do is magic up some Spanish wills…..