Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

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fyfin
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Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:39 pm

I had advised my friends that they would need to register at the foreigner's office as residents and receive their residency certificate, before they could go to the INSS and get into the health system, and in due course receive the tarjetas sanitarias.

However, another friend suggested to just go to the INSS office with all available documents including the padron certificates and it has worked , they have been given the usual temporary A4 documents to enable them to register at the local health centre, which they have also done, and the tarjetas will be sent in the post.

Everything I have read has said you need to have a residency certificate to enable you to register on the health system , unless, of course they are now accepting the padron as evidence of residence.

I wonder has anyone recent experience of this as I feel a bit silly having told them they needed to register as residents first, although they are going to do that anyway but waiting until a few state pension payments have gone into the bank to show income on bank statements.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby Free at Last » Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:57 pm

We registered our S1s with the INSS in January 2015 and we were asked for our "residencia" cards, which were copied, to be able to do so. We weren't asked for padron certificates.

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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby IreneD » Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:09 pm

Yes, ditto for us - we did it the same day we obtained our green "residencia" cards at the police station, copies of the cards were essential.

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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:23 pm

That's what I thought. So I don't know how they managed it without a residents certificate. Good luck to them , just shows it depends who you get at which office.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby Miro » Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:55 pm

Theoretically, they shouldn't even have been able to get on the padrón without being registered as residents first. Kind of sums up Spain, doesn't it? Hit & miss, and nobody knows their a*** from their elbow. :x And just as some, like your friends, can get lucky, others can get unlucky, with just as little reason or explanation. Hence I've refrained from posting on the "stay in Spain or return to UK" thread, because so far it seems populated by happy shiny people who constantly get lucky, and I didn't want to spoil the mood!
Last edited by Miro on Tue Mar 14, 2017 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby firsttango » Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:58 pm

Succinctly put as usual Miro....love the "happy shiny people" line...classic

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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Tue Mar 14, 2017 6:59 pm

Now, I don't want to start an argument, there's enough of them on other forums but I'm pretty sure having residency is not a criteria for being on the padron.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby El Cid » Tue Mar 14, 2017 11:21 pm

As you are not allowed to sign on the Padron unless your habitual residence is in the locality, it is most likely that you'll also be required to be on the foreigners register. Which comes first is debatable but sadly many towns encourage anyone who even only spends holidays here to sign onto the Padron.

Again, as various offices of the Policía Nacional seem to make up the rules as they go along, anything is possible!

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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:53 am

Of course, signing on the padron is however voluntary and requires very little documentation, unlike residency which is quite onerous. It would seem to me, therefore, quite odd that the INSS office would accept the padron as evidence of residency.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby El Cid » Wed Mar 15, 2017 8:24 am

Sorry, Fyfin, but it is not optional.

Ley 7/1985, de 2 de abril, Article 15

Every person who lives in Spain is obliged to register in the Register of the Municipality in which he / she lives habitually. Those who live in several municipalities must register with the one who lives for the longest period of the year.

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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Wed Mar 15, 2017 10:37 am

Fair enough Sid, of course it is not voluntary and I knew that so I was wrong to say that.
What I'm trying to say is that since 2012 there is a world of difference between signing on the Padron and registering with the Oficina de Extranjeros as a citizen of the EU.
The former is a simple case of walking into your town hall with a few documents, in our case, passport, NIE, and escritura and hey presto we were on the padron. Indeed, our local town hall doesn't seem to worry whether you are a habitual resident or not.
Obtaining the little green card "certificado de registro de ciudadano de la union" was much more difficult and in our case took three trips of over 50 miles to the Oficina de Extranjeros. Proving you have the resources to not be a burden on the State was difficult as even some translated documents were not accepted. Then, if you are married, and your wife is dependent on you, you will discover your original marriage certificate is not acceptable either as it is "out of date". I could go on but I think you get the gist of it.
So getting back to my original posting - Are they now accepting a padron certificate as evidence of residency instead of the certificate of residency (little green card) to obtain healthcare i.e. tarjeta sanitaria. We didn't try because official information said otherwise, so maybe the answer is to just try it and see what happens as our friends have done. I'd still be interested to see if anyone else has managed it.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby Miro » Wed Mar 15, 2017 11:20 am

fyfin wrote: The former is a simple case of walking into your town hall with a few documents, in our case, passport, NIE, and escritura and hey presto we were on the padron. Indeed, our local town hall doesn't seem to worry whether you are a habitual resident or not.
But in our municipality you have to produce your residents registration (green) form to sign on the padrón. In some other municipalities, apparently, they don't even ask for proof of medical insurance to register foreigners. So yes, it's just a case of trying and seeing what works where you are. There is no consistency in Spain, because nobody really knows what they're doing :roll:
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:21 pm

Miro, very interesting! I think we actually took the padron certificate with us when we went to register at the foreigner's office. You're right though because even different people in the same office have different ideas of what is acceptable. We got the jobsworth lady the first time and next time a lovely laid back guy who was great. Oh well, that's Spain and one of the reasons why it can be frustrating but also why we love it.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby elusive » Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:43 pm

Which office was it fyfin

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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby Wicksey » Wed Mar 15, 2017 3:33 pm

We signed onto the Padron when we first bought a house here and we only had NIE as we weren't living here then. There's an article in the Sur last week about it. It says it is not a legal requirement to register but people are "strongly encouraged to do so". It also says that "anyone who spends at least 3 months in Spain is asked to register on the Padron".

We received a reminder to renew ours the other week and dropped by the town hall who didn't actually want to see any further paperwork ..... amazing!

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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby Lyric » Wed Mar 15, 2017 3:53 pm

I've been to the same Town Hall several times now to renew Padron and never been asked for any documentation, just asked for my NIE and asked how many copies ?
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:28 pm

Elusive, the office our friends went was Huercal Overa INSS office in Almeria province. Lyric, you don't renew padron although it's worth checking after a couple of years that you are still on it. What you are referring to is the certificates which last 3 months and which you need for various things you will do here in Spain. We pay €1.50 as an admin fee but I guess that's up to the individual town halls how much if anything to charge. Wicksey, I have heard that if you haven't been in for a certificate for a couple of years then they might ask you to renew but I would have thought they'd want some evidence. But, as I said it just depends who you see and which office.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby Miro » Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:54 pm

Wicksey wrote: There's an article in the Sur last week ...says that "anyone who spends at least 3 months in Spain is asked to register on the Padron".
I trust the English press here about as much as the hordes down the local bar. Surely the article is confusing the padrón with the EU foreign residents register? Not the same thing.
There was an interview published in the EWN last week with the British Ambassador to Spain, asking his thoughts on Brexit etc. When asked what he would do himself if he was a British pensioner living in Spain, he said first of all he'd make sure he registers on the padrón to ensure he continues to get free health care. So there you have it everyone, it's official: simply register on the padrón, and you'll be guaranteed free health care. :crazy:

We received reminders a couple of years ago from our town hall that we needed to (obliged to) renew our registration on the padrón. It was free to do so, and since we were previously registered, I don't recall having to produce anything other than our ID and green residency paper, but if we want certificates (called "volante" for some reason), they charge €1 - or €2 for "historical" padrón certificates (Certificado). The green paper is also required just to get a volante/certificate - passport alone is not acceptable. But that's just our town hall - on a Monday Wednesday or Friday, if María or José is serving you. I have no idea what the purpose of either is, but have been asked for them on the odd occasion, so now never leave the house without at least 6 copies. :lol:
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby fyfin » Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:37 pm

Ha Ha Miro so looks like the ambassador was right after all in our friend's case.
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Re: Tarjeta Sanitaria without residency

Postby Wicksey » Thu Mar 16, 2017 4:54 pm

fyfin wrote: Wicksey, I have heard that if you haven't been in for a certificate for a couple of years then they might ask you to renew but I would have thought they'd want some evidence. But, as I said it just depends who you see and which office.
Last volante that we got was in 2012 (and it was free) so maybe there was a 5 year reminder set up somewhere.

When we went in they had a huge list of people they had sent letters to as they had an old Apartado number that we had to correct and he went through the list to see what address they had used. The envelope was handwritten with our campo address and the old previous apartado number .... luckily our PO is pretty good at putting incorrectly addressed post into the right box.

Town Hall didn't ask for any ID or anything and just tapped away on his computer and said it was all up to date now. He took our phone number for "next time" so maybe they'll just phone us when they are reviewing it.

(A volante from the town hall was the one thing we didn't have to produce to get registered on the NHS here!)


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