Frozen account

[DavidSearl]

FROM DAVID SEARL

FOR WAZJULIE AND OTHER POSTERS


1. To answer the original question, yes, it is normal and the law permits, an account which is blocked or “frozen” to keep up all standing payment orders, direct debit, domiciliados, to maintain the property or insurance or teevee payments or whatever. It is legal and it is standard practice.
2. Funeral expenses can also be taken from a blocked account. Go to the bank with your funeral director and you will see how easy. You don’t even have to go yourself. Funeral directors make sure they get themselves paid. They present the death certificate and their bill and get paid.
3. What is blocked on a two-names husband and wife account is one-half of the balance on the date of death. Any deposits made by the survivor or in the survivor’s name after the date of death are not included in the blocked amounts and the survivor can continue to use the account in this way.
4. Four years is the Statute of Limitations, after which a tax charge lapses and The State cannot collect it. Really four years and six months as noted here already because the period does not start until the six-month legal declaration period has passed. Many people have got away with this but it is not legal, and, yes, many problems can arise in the meantime, perhaps when two signatures are required on some document.
5. A non-resident can and must file a Spanish income tax return on any income arising in Spain. But this is a non-resident tax declaration filed on Form 210, not the regular Spanish tax declaration form. It does not make you a resident for tax purposes. Therefore, you are not entitled to the exemptions of 95 per cent or 99 per cent or whatever that are available to the resident on Spanish inheritance tax.
6. Standardly, you would not present to the UK authorities or pension plans a Spanish death certificate. You would present the report of the death of a UK citizen abroad, which your funeral director would obtain for you, or the International Death Certificate, which are normally used when death is attributed to natural causes. If there is an autopsy, this could be included separately.
7. Also, be warned that, when you finally get to your bank with death certificates, declaration of acceptance of inheritance, taxes paid, that they will not open the blocked account. They will present all the documents to their lawyers, who will take several weeks to vet the papers to be sure that everything is in order, and then they will at last release the remaining half of the account into the name of the survivor.

Good luck with it, David Searl