Bargain or not?

When is a bargain not a bargain? When it's made of concrete and called an apartment or villa, it seems. Everyone seems to be talking about the Spanish "complementary" tax, some people are getting quite worried. You can see where the Spanish government is coming from, I'm sure they used to get quite a bit of income from capital gains tax on property sales, but not anymore. With lots of places changing hands at about a third of the price they were built for five years ago, there is no capital gain. Enter the "complimentary" or "capital loss" tax. It looks like they are charging seven percent of the difference of what you paid for your property and what they "think" it's worth, plus interest of course. It looks like they are going back up to four years, and the paper trail left by the system here provides the taxman with all the information he needs with ease. If you used the little "other" room at the solicitors to take care of any "other business" when you completed your property purchase, things will obviously be worse, as the recorded price you paid will be even lower due to some cash changing hands off the record, so previous owner could cut his/her tax bill, and I hear it still happens sometimes, though I think the practice is coming to be uncommon now. Knowing someone who has received one of these tax demands, and thought he'd got a second one, gives a little insight into it. You have to sign for the letter, it proves the Correos have delivered it, and you have received it, and forget signing as Mickey Mouse, unless you have a passport or NIE to prove you are indeed said M. Mouse. I'm told there was quite a large pile of them at the Correos, so someone in an office somewhere is knocking dozens of these out every day, and you can bet they are not the only one doing it.

Picture the scene, Mr and Mrs Smith came to Spain on holiday last spring, it may have been the year before, and ether fell in love with, or got talked into by an estate agent, that dream apartment that was only two minutes walk from the beach. They paid the deposit, got their NIE's etc, and negotiated hard. They got their "bargain" place in the sun. The Smiths have enjoyed coming out twice a year since and staying in their apartment, the only problems they had were finding their way through all the websites for those cheap flights, and sifting through everything in that bulging mailbox. Here lies the problem, the mailbox. That's the sneaky part, mainly trapping unknowing non resident homeowners, you only get thirty days to appeal apparently, and the Correos only holds the letters for so long. The Smiths have not been out since last September, and did not come out again till the Easter holidays, the appeal window has long since closed, by not appealing, the have "accepted" the tax. The Spanish taxman had written to the Smiths Spanish address, as shown on their NIE's and other documents, not where they actually live, elsewhere in Europe, so they were unaware of what was happening.

My landlord out here, has already been hit for a €5K+ bill on the apartment where he and his wife live, so when I told him about the rather "official" looking bit of paper from the Correos, which was definitely not the usual we have a parcel for you, but you were out type of thing, he wasn't happy, he had guessed what it was. The strange thing was there was only one letter, there should have been two, two names on the deeds, two bills, half each. It turns out the letter was to do with the apartment where he lives, not this one, a bureaucratic oops, or a ploy? It was noticed by my landlord himself by chance, not his legal advisor, that the two amounts were identical, too much of a coincidence, and the one for where he lives is already going through the appeal process. He has had this apartment for three and a half years, so I think the next six months will a worrying time for him and his wife, they don't have the money to take a second hit. There was talk of packing up and returning to the UK, but that would cause even more problems than it solved.

While talking to some newly moved in neighbors, I asked them, if the didn't mind telling me, how much this extra tax had cost them, just in case I took the plunge. The reply was something along the lines of, "what extra tax?" I then explained to them what I had read and heard about it, and that I knew someone who had just got what looked like a second bill for this tax. When they bought the property, the brief for the estate agent was simple. They were looking for something with ease of access, i.e. ground floor, sun on it for a least some part of the day, and it must come in at a budget of €40K including all taxes and fees etc. They decided to check that everything was in order just in case, the estate agent said they had paid their taxes, but when pushed for a definite answer, he backed off and changed the subject. He's got his hefty commission from the bank, and three years plus is a long time, maybe corners were cut to come in on budget to get the sale, we shall see.

Gone in 60 seconds

No, nothing to do with the Hollywood film about people stealing expensive cars for shipping abroad. This is about extreme recycling and people known locally as "bin surfers". We have seen this before, but not quite on this scale. The economic climate is pretty bad here, and there are apparently five families in this village where not one family member has a job and the state benefits have long ago run out, so anything going free is appreciated. Having bought a new English style mattress for the bed as ours was not to our liking, the old one was thrown over the balcony and I dragged it to the refuse point on the corner of the street, then I went across the road to pick up the free papers. On my way back a small car had pulled up and the driver jumped out to take a look at the mattress I had left there, it was in good condition. He obviously liked what he saw, he then performed one of the most amazing feats of loading a car I have ever seen. He had also had a lot of "luck" already that day as his car was full to the roof. With great determination, he managed to fold a double mattress in half and wedge it between the assorted scrap metal the chairs already in the car, amazing. A bit of a risk really, since the police having been giving fines out for people having shopping bags on the back seat of a car.

A couple of days later, some of the new owners in one of the other blocks had come out, I'm not sure if they were related, but they seemed to clearing out two apartments. Out went all the old pale blue furniture which came as a pack when the apartments were built, quite a pile was building up by the bins. At this point, a little old Spanish lady wandered past, she must have been well into her sixties. Out came the mobile phone, no doubt ringing a member of the family to bring some transport right away. She then pushed everything into one spot and sat on one of the units to stake her claim. Anyone who took an interest while walking past was left in no doubt that she was there first and seen off with a look that would kill at a hundred paces. It does not seem to matter what you put out, or whether it has seen better days, furniture, electric fans, textiles or kitchenware, it all goes. Forget the hoops you had to jump through in the UK to get rid of things, trail miles to an "authorized" recycling point, or ring the council up to take it away and wait a few months for them to turn up while whatever it is sits on your front lawn. Not here, just put it out by the bins, it'll be gone in sixty seconds!

A Year Goes By

My apologies for not having written much lately, life has got a little hectic, by Spanish standards anyway. We have now been "over here" a year now, so I guess you could say we have settled here. There have been a few ups and downs, but thankfully more of the ups. Although we pay a very reasonable rent, we have twice come close to getting on the property ladder. Due to the banks being told to get property off their books, there are a lot of "special offers" floating about. They are now selling some places for less than the outstanding debt on them. It is now possible to pick up an apartment in some places for €40k plus fees. The CAM bank rang me just before Xmas offering me an apartment in the next block for €37k and a 90% mortgage if I could complete by the first of January. I had a look, might as well, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. A short time with sun in the morning and a view comprising mostly of concrete. It wasn't that cheap to consider with that aspect, it would have been ok for holidays, but no good for living in. After in excess of six months living in a village you get a feel for what you want and what works, there is less of the getting swept along by things, the niggling design layouts become obvious and there are some things you can't change. One offered to me in a nearby village was five years old and had never been lived in, it was in remarkably good condition, just as the builder had left it. Automatic shutters on the windows, granite work tops in the kitchen, not even any of those hideous flowery tiles that you usually find. An asking price of €42k for a two bed apartment with an en suite bathroom to the master bedroom is good, it even had a communal pool on the roof. But the reality check said no to that one as well. I like the village and go there on a regular basis, but spending an afternoon there realised that it was not for me. I would miss the village I live in too much. There will be others I'm sure, I might even get brave and build a place. Maybe. There's bound to be the odd can of worms on that route.

I had a thought just before Xmas, I had not had a holiday that year. Yeah, I know, I live in Spain so life is one big holiday. That's what most people, including family members, seem to think. But since I live and work here, why should I not have one? If I had stayed in the UK I would had a few during the year. I managed to get away for a week at Xmas, I went back to the UK to see friends and family, and little Lottie, the new grandchild which I had only seen photos of. I spent the first three days nearly housebound, I picked a bug up on the plane. It was great to go back for a while, shorts not required in that weather though, it seems I have acclimatised to Spanish weather. I don't realty see enough of the grandchildren, but we can't both keep flying back and forth, the budget won't stand it, so Linda goes on her own most of the time. We also managed a weekend in Benidorm, Linda managed to find a cheap all inclusive deal on the Internet. A lot of people that live round here seem to go for Xmas, it's only just over a hour along the coast. While wandering round the streets burning off breakfast and dodging people on electric scooters, can you believe they do two seater ones now, we came across the hotel where they filmed the TV series. We had a wander round it, just being nosey, no one bothered us. The pool looks a lot bigger than it did on the TV, it's huge, no sign of Mateo at the pool bar, it must of been his day off.

I have the dubious honour of being probably the last swimmer of the year, the first of December would you believe. It wasn't  actually intentional, more like an occupational hazard. It was the day I had finally given up wearing shorts to work and got the jeans out, it was getting a little nippy in the mornings. I had just reset all the valves  on the pump and was standing up to close the lid on the pump house when I must have caught the back of my foot on the edge of the pool. Splash! I went over backwards and luckily, or unluckily, depending on your point of view, I landed in the pool rather than on the concrete at the side. After a few seconds the shock of the cold water subsided and a thought hit me hard enough to spur me on at dragging myself out of the water. Because I was wearing trousers I was carrying items I would not normally. Back pocket, wallet, complete with the required "paperwork" that one carries over here. My cheap but necessary Spanish mobile lurking in one pocket, and my now not so shiny, extremely damp, iPhone! Oops just does not go far enough. Thinking everything in my wallet will dry out later, I routed through my pockets for both phones. My Spanish phone still worked, so I rang work and told them I was taking the rest of the day off and why. The sound of people having hysterics on the other end was not being hidden, and I'm sure somebody had an "accident". With a sense of dread I fished my iPhone out of my pocket and gave the case a shake to get rid of some of the water. I opened the case and gave the home button a prod, which is apparently the worst thing you can do. The screen lit up, it was still working! After a fifteen minute drive home and a change of clothes, I rang the insurance company. They wanted me to send it back to the UK registered post, to see if they could repair it. The thought of my phone crawling it's way across Spain to the UK still full of water, by which time it probably  would be beyond saving, to be bodged back to health, possibly, then wait a couple of months for its return, didn't seem worth it for a two year old phone. I start to resign myself to purchasing a new one.

What happened next I do not recommend anyone else trying. It requires a very steady hand and an awful lot of bravery/stupidity. The first thing you are supposed to do with a wet phone is switch it off and take the battery out. Switch off, no problem, SIM card out, ok, battery??? It's buried inside the case somewhere. Laptop on, launch Google, search for how to disembowel a 3GS. YouTube had some promising results, which I watched, seems relatively straight forward to open the case, and of course totally void the warranty at the same time. One last shake of the phone and more water comes out of the slot where the SIM card used to be. Two small screws at the base of the phone by the speakers, no problem. A search through the kitchen drawers provides me with one of those cheap "precision" screwdriver sets you get at the local Chinese shop. I select the smallest one with a pozidrive head and out they come. So far, so good. Insert plastic case opening tool, available for $3.95 plus postage, I end up using another screwdriver and a light touch. Place suction cup over home button, support top of the screen, and pop it open. Being resourceful and not having a suction cup, I realised the sun shades in the car are held in with them, so used one of those. Open it did, but one of the ribbon connectors came undone but after a little fiddling about it went back home. After tipping to one side to get the last of the water out, I used Linda's hair drier on full for ten minutes drying the insides out, I might have got a little carried away, but I had nothing to lose at this point. After letting the phone cool off for a bit, I put it back together and switch on. It actually works better than before as all the dust has washed out of the speakers! The downside of this is Linda was going to buy me a new one for Xmas, which I now did not need. More socks. Perhaps I should have let it die quietly.