Newbie Residencia

Do you have a query on how to get things done in Andalucia, where to find things, who to call? Find out by posting and hear about others experiences.
PavAmber
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Newbie Residencia

Postby PavAmber » Fri Jun 30, 2017 5:57 pm

Hi all

After much advice from here, we have finally sorted our "residencia". Given the conflicting "requirements" given by various town halls etc. I thought it might be useful to detail what we were required to provide -v- not needed. We found the whole process far less stressful than expected and even got a "bien preparado" from the officer dealing with our application.

For the sake of clarity, we come under the Alcaucin ayuntamiento and attended the police station in Torre del Mar which also covers Nerja etc. Appreciate the process and requirements may be different elsewhere.

Many thanks for all the advice received on here over time. It worked!!

1. Get there early. We arrived just after 7am and got tickets 14 & 15. Make sure you are queueing in the line "fila extranjeros". People were turned away once a certain number of tickets had been handed out. They opened the doors bang on 08:30.

2. Passport + 1 copy (we took too many copies). We saw at least 2 couples turned away for not taking their original. Seems obvious, clearly not.

3. Completed form EX18 + 1 copy.

4. Completed Modelo 790 paid and stamped by the bank indicating you have paid your €10.60 (apparently about to go up a few cents). Don't take copies of this one. Contrary to some advice, we paid this before our visit to the police station

5. Proof of full health cover. This got more attention than anything. We are under retirement age so have taken out insurance with Prevision Medica. They helpfully provided us with a letter/document stating we had cover and are clearly used to doing so. On a complete hunch, we chose to take the full policy with us and glad we did as it was studied in depth. They clearly are not going to accept anything that means you may be a burden on the state. Letter/form from your provider + 1 copy.

6. Nota Simple + 1 copy + receipt of payment. We own our house without mortgage so did not have to provide any evidence of income / pension. Interestingly though, they were happy we had the receipt from obtaining the Nota Simple from the Registro de la Propiedad in Velez Malaga as it showed we had not added any loans/debt to the property up until the date of obtaining it.

7. NIE document + 1 copy. Apparently not a requirement but they were happy we had brought it and took it anyway!

Important. If you are going (like us) as a couple, you need 2 x packs containing all of the above. You also need to take 2 x tickets on entry.

Much to our surprise, the green card was issued there and then. Let them dry before putting them away. Ink smudges pretty easily!

From entering at around 8:30, we were out inside an hour and it was painless. We had taken a Spanish speaking friend as our interpreter who turned out not to be needed. I don't yet speak a lot of Spanish but could understand what we were being asked.

There is lots of good advice on this forum and people who are prepared to help. I would strongly urge people to listen. This helped us immensely. We didn't rush and also picked up a useful document on what was / was not required from the Nerja foreigners department.

I suffer from anxiety when dealing with these things and compensate by over planning (making document packs etc) but it worked. I have to say it was a fairly comfortable process. Now for the driving licences......

Hope this helps someone.

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby Gasman » Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:07 pm

Keep your spirits up PavAmber and dont panic. Nicely done on that one - good luck and fair winds for the Driving Licenses !!!
Planning and preparation .... great!

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby fyfin » Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:38 pm

Fantastically clear posting and well explained. Very interesting that they accepted the nota simple. I have heard this mentioned before but don't know of anyone here who were advised to take one with them. All had to provide proof of income which is much trickier, translation etc.
We come under Almeria Oficina de Extranjeros so maybe it is different although they should all be the same in the same region.

So pleased for you and preparation is everything, as they say "Fail to prepare - prepare to fail" . We got caught out as the 790 fee had gone up 10 cents the day before we went so we had to pay an additional 10 cents at the bank! lol

Driving licence is a doddle compared to residencia or at least that's what we found.

Best of luck and tha nks for the informative post , it may help others and that's what it's all about.
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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby Paulinmalaga » Fri Jun 30, 2017 8:13 pm

Thank you for a very clear and precise posting of your experience. Interesting that after the conflicting posts a few months back where some posters were saying you had to show proof of income ( (€600 per person per month) and have a lump sum of €6k in the bank (Torre del Mar office) etc that this is NOT in fact the case in a reality. Again great factual and real account of what was actually needed. Great help to newbies.
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elusive
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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby elusive » Fri Jun 30, 2017 8:20 pm

Glad all went well .preparing certainly helps alot.knowing what you need and what to expect is half the battle.then act like you know what you are doing and you are three quarters there!

When we did ours in 2014 we were told if you owned property there was no requirement to show money in the bank. It was one or the other.

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby PavAmber » Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:31 pm

elusive wrote:Glad all went well .preparing certainly helps alot.knowing what you need and what to expect is half the battle.then act like you know what you are doing and you are three quarters there!

When we did ours in 2014 we were told if you owned property there was no requirement to show money in the bank. It was one or the other.
Elusive.
Yours was some of the advice we took early on so thank you. It appears your 2014 experience is still the case now. We were told that proof of income was only required if you did not own your property outright.

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby PavAmber » Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:42 pm

Paulinmalaga wrote:Thank you for a very clear and precise posting of your experience. Interesting that after the conflicting posts a few months back where some posters were saying you had to show proof of income ( (€600 per person per month) and have a lump sum of €6k in the bank (Torre del Mar office) etc that this is NOT in fact the case in a reality. Again great factual and real account of what was actually needed. Great help to newbies.

Thank you Paul.

To be clear, we were told that if you did not own your property outright then proof of earnings/pension would be required. They only wanted a Nota Simple to prove ownership of a non-mortgaged property. That said, the nota simple is not dated which gives you another problem in that you could have got it (say) a year back and since added debt. We got round that by attaching the receipt for payment from the registry office.

We did ask out of interest about levels of earnings required if you didn't own a place. They very clearly told us that an income (pension of pay) of more than €430 per month or €5,160 per annum per person was required. This matches the advice on the information sheet given to us by the Nerja foreigners office exactly. You would need a stamped certificate from a bank stating that you matched the income requirements. Statements or downloads from the internet are apparently not sufficient. A certificate from a UK bank must be translated by a sworn translator.

As I said, the biggest area of interest was our medical cover.

elusive
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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby elusive » Sat Jul 01, 2017 8:47 pm

Your welcome pav

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby Paulinmalaga » Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:11 pm

Thanks Pavamber, yes fully understand what you have clarified. Was simply previous thread back in march seemed to say that both were needed regardless so it great to have a fully functional working example. Also good for newbies to see the actual figure of €430 per month which is significantly different to the €600 + that was being bandied about.
Again great factual post.
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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby IreneD » Sat Jul 01, 2017 11:11 pm

Great, concise info for anyone about to go through this, PavAmber. I was in a complete tizz when my OH and I did ours and was helped and encouraged so much by the kind people on this forum. Fyfin was particularly helpful, I remember. Our only difference was we didn't know the copia simple was acceptable in place of proof of income but we had a very helpful official and interpreter and they let us go and get one and saw us again later that morning. I was told recently that you can't just go and get one these days - it can take a few days, I'm not sure how true that it. (Also, we are pensioners so had the S1 forms to show we wouldn't be a drain on the health service).

Going early is essential, we were turned away the first time we went, as the allocation of tickets had all been given out by the time we got to the police station (also Torre del Mar).

We used a gestor to exchange our driving licenses. (Although it took some months and wasn't without stress, as it took so long.) Let me know if you would like the details of the gestor we used. Some people seem to sail through, doing it themselves, others seem to have trouble....

It's a great feeling isn't it, to obtain the green card? I was so happy that day :)

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby PavAmber » Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:13 am

IreneD wrote:Great, concise info for anyone about to go through this, PavAmber. I was in a complete tizz when my OH and I did ours and was helped and encouraged so much by the kind people on this forum. Fyfin was particularly helpful, I remember. Our only difference was we didn't know the copia simple was acceptable in place of proof of income but we had a very helpful official and interpreter and they let us go and get one and saw us again later that morning. I was told recently that you can't just go and get one these days - it can take a few days, I'm not sure how true that it. (Also, we are pensioners so had the S1 forms to show we wouldn't be a drain on the health service).

Going early is essential, we were turned away the first time we went, as the allocation of tickets had all been given out by the time we got to the police station (also Torre del Mar).

We used a gestor to exchange our driving licenses. (Although it took some months and wasn't without stress, as it took so long.) Let me know if you would like the details of the gestor we used. Some people seem to sail through, doing it themselves, others seem to have trouble....

It's a great feeling isn't it, to obtain the green card? I was so happy that day :)
Thank you Irene.
We got our Nota Simple on the spot so no going back. I did go to the wrong registry office though which caused some confusion in Torrox Pueblo! The lady there kindly pointed out that the office for our property would be Velez Malaga and they were most helpful.

A great feeling indeed!

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby gerryh » Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:32 am

PavAmber wrote:.... Now for the driving licences......
Given all the research and preparation you did to get your Residencias then changing your UK driving licences to Spanish ones should be an easy process for you. :thumbup: :thumbup:
You are obviously more than capable of doing it for yourselves.
Cheers
Gerry
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elusive
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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby elusive » Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:45 am

In practice changing our licence was easy interms of going to traffico and handing everything over.the problem for us was when traffico sent letters to us saying DVLA had given the all clear and we needed to go back to hand over our uk licences.one recorded delievery letter never arrived and when the other did it had the wrong scanning sticker on the front (someone elses name) so the correos wouldnt hand it over and sent it back to traffico.

So we made another appointment ourselves and luckily when we went all the paper work was sat waiting for us.handed over the uk licence got the piece of paper to sgow the police if stopped and our spanish licences arrived a couple of weeks later in the post

So I would just keep an eye out for your letters and chase it up if ypu dont hear anything

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IreneD
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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby IreneD » Sun Jul 02, 2017 2:39 pm

The main problem we had with my driving license exchange, with the gestor, was the day she (finally!) e-mailed us to say Trafico had confirmed all well with DVLA and I could go to her office in Torre to sign the paper which would then get returned to Trafico and they would issue a temporary permission to drive, valid for 3 months. (Before then, I'd had a permission from their office, a photocopy of my UK licence stamped by them). When we got to their office, she looked blankly at me and said someone had already been in and signed! Turned out someone had the same first name as our surname and neither she nor the guy who'd signed MY form had noticed. That was really careless - for a start, I'm female! - but when she realised, she simply tippexed out the chap's signature and I signed over the Tippex! She said she was going to contact the other person to come back and sign his correct form. I was glad I'd gone in the same day I got her e-mail, as the form was still in the office - not sure what would have happened if it had gone off to Trafico....

I got the temporary permission very quickly after that and the actual license a couple of weeks later. And I would still recommend her lol!

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby jogger » Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:17 am

PavAmber, I found your post really helpful and informative. We will be looking to do this early next year and have been confused about all the different requirements but your post has simplified that. One thing, what is a Nota Simple? I'm guessing it has something to do with the ownership of one's house.

We will be using the same medical insurance company as you, I've heard good things about them from FAL.

Thanks for your great post.

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby Gasman » Mon Jul 03, 2017 11:26 am

The Nota Simple is a simplified summary of your deeds to the house (escritura). Ours was actually a one page sheet fixed at the back of the Escritura received when we bought the house. So before going off to ask for a Nota Simple, check in the back of your escritura as you may already have it ... it is certainly easier to make a copy of that one page, than contemplate copying all the Escritura!!! as proof of house-ownership. It has all the necessary details on it to identify owner, property, cadastre and townhall details, notary involved etc etc.

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby PavAmber » Mon Jul 03, 2017 1:51 pm

jogger wrote:PavAmber, I found your post really helpful and informative. We will be looking to do this early next year and have been confused about all the different requirements but your post has simplified that. One thing, what is a Nota Simple? I'm guessing it has something to do with the ownership of one's house.

We will be using the same medical insurance company as you, I've heard good things about them from FAL.

Thanks for your great post.
Hi Jogger
From our neck of the woods too by the looks of things, we were in Romsey.

Read Gasman's post below yours. He is absolutely correct. It is a 1 page document summarising your deeds. The relationship with obtaining your residencia is that it shows the authorities that you own the property outright without debt. As per my original post, we obtained one a couple of days before going to the police station in order to have an up to date receipt (there is not a date shown on the Nota Simple). Saved a lot of putting together income data.

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Re: Newbie Residencia

Postby jogger » Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:58 pm

Thanks Gasman and PavAmber, I will check the back of our deeds. We bought in January so I hope that is up to date enough, if not where do I get a more recent one to prove no loans?

Yes we are only up the road in Chichester, the south coast is a lovely part of the world, just a shame about the weather :)

Thanks again all.


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