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!