SPANISH BUREAUCRACY: HOW NOT TO DIE TRYING TO SORT OUT YOUR PAPERWORK

You have finally decided to take the plunge and have found your dream home in the sun, and have decided to make an offer.

In order to buy a house in Spain you need to have a NIE: Número de Identificación de Extranjero (Foreigner Identification Number).

And because you have decided to make a permanent move, you are going to need Residencia.

And because you are becoming self employed you need to register with the Social Security office.

And you need to register yourself and your family with at the GP surgery. Or if you are retired you need to transfer your pensioner health care to the Spanish system.

And then you have to enrol your kids at the local school.

First thing in the morning, you take yourself to the local police station. There nobody speaks English, so it takes you a while to understand that you are at the wrong police station. Local police doesn’t deal with any of those issues, you need to go to the Policía Nacional, which might or not be located in your town.

The following day you go to the closest Policía Nacional station. There you find out that you are unable to do any paperwork because you don’t have an appointment. You request an appointment, and the next available one is in 4 weeks time.

4 weeks later you go back to the Policía Nacional station. And you take with you the documentation that you have read online (on the official website) that you need. Then the funcionario (government employee), which is always a very jolly and approachable person (yeah, right), informs you in very strong terms that you don’t have all that you need. And obviously nobody speaks English, and even if they do it is not good enough and a lot of things get lost in translation.

3 visits later you manage to get your NIE.

Now you can try and register with the Social Security office. And everything starts all over again.

4 visits later, once you have managed to register as autónomo (self employed) with the Social Security, you go back to the Policía Nacional station for your residencia, where again it takes you 4 visits to get all the paperwork done.

And you still have to fight your way through registering with the doctor, the school…

At this point, if you have any hair left, it has gone all white and you are wondering if it was at all a good idea to move to this forsaken country where we love to move papers from one desk to the next.

And you are right. Our bureaucracy sucks (excuse my French).

But everything will be a lot easier (and potentially you will be able to do each formality in just one visit), if you bear in mind certain basic points:

• You are now in Spain, do not expect any public employee to speak English. They do not have to do so as English is not one of the official languages in Spain. If they do it is a bonus, but the onus is on you to know the language or to take someone with you to help you.

• Always ask at the particular office where you are going to do the paperwork which documents THEY want. Because the info on the official website is obscure and subject to interpretation, each office will ask for similar but maybe different things. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but it will save you some trips and irritation to do so.

• Smile, even if you feel like ripping off the funcionario’s head. You need to bear in mind that public government employees are, by default, permanently in a bad mood because someone is making them work, when their actual right in life is to read the newspaper at work and go for breakfast. So, breathe in breathe out and put into practice the British good manners and say please and thank you for everything, like if you were treating with royalty. If you manage to have a good relationship with one funcionario you will be able to go back to him/her forever and will be always helpful to you. Just never go there when your favourite one is on holidays or on a sick leave.

• Patience. A lot. You are now living in a place with a different pace of life. The sooner you get used to it the better, and you will manage to not get mad every 2 minutes.

• Our opening times are sacred. If the place closes at 2 pm, they will close the window on your face, regardless. So be there early and with plenty of time to spare.

• Bring originals and copies OF EVERYTHING, and several copies too. And translate your documents by a sworn translator. And make copies. Of everything.

• Make copies of everything.

• Make copies.

• Oh, and take photocopies of everything with you.

• Positive attitude. Just go everywhere with the mind frame that you are not going to get it done that day. So if you manage to solve everything there and then you will feel so much happier!

• Finally, it is a very good idea to pay some €€€ to someone to do all the paperwork for you, be that your relocation agent, your solicitor, gestor, your cousin or the next door neighbour. That way you will be totally relaxed and will spend your time on what is really important: living your dream.

BEWARE OF THE CULTURAL SHOCK: SOME HINTS ABOUT OUR WAY OF LIVING

Spain is different, we all know that. We behave in a different ways than some of our fellow European countries, and we do and believe certain things that would definitely shock you, mainly if you are British. This is just a brief summary: 

• We are loud. VERY loud. When you come to Spain one of the first things you notice is that there is always a humming noise about. It might take you a while to realize that it is the sound of people talking. Why is it so audible? Several reasons, mainly because we are loud, and because of the good weather. We spend the majority of time outdoors, and we are very sociable people, we always meet in big groups, and we all have something to say, and we need to make ourselves heard, so we raise our voices even more. We are not having an argument, we are not about kill each other, do not worry.

• We are touchy people. We like to invade other people’s personal space. We hug, hold hands, kiss a lot, link arms, we pat each other’s back like there is no tomorrow. We believe that if the table is set for four, you can certainly squeeze another 3 unexpected guests.

• We are a very family orientated country. And by family we don’t mean mum, dad and the kids. You have to include aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, cousins (various degrees), boyfriends and girlfriends of any given relative, the relatives of the any given boyfriend and girlfriend, and so on. So when there is a family gathering you can find yourselves easily with 20 guests. And those family gatherings are not something planned in advanced the majority of the times. It is more like, we were passing by and decided to stop and say hello. Always unannounced, no previous call, no matching agendas 3 weeks in advance. And because we believe you can always find a sit for one more at any table (as explained before), then you end up with a full house. We have a saying “donde comen 4 comen 5”, which means that if there is food for 4 there is food for 5, or 6 or 7 or whichever amount of people that decides to turn up.

• Chickens and rabbits are not pets, are food. So we eat them. If someone is breeding them is because they have full intention to eating them. And tasty they are boy.

• Pets are animals, not people. We love our pets to bits, do not get me wrong. But we believe they belong outdoors, because they are still animals, and they need freedom, space and love. It is not normal to find a dog sleeping in someone’s bed, or even in the bedroom, or even in the living room. And because they live outside you can hear them when they bark. We are used to the noise, so we don’t take notice of it. Animals do not need to be accompanied at all times, what they need is space to be. Different would be to have a dog locked inside an apartment barking all day. That is not good by anybody’s standards.

• Siestas are a myth. What we do is have a break between the morning and the afternoon shift. Which in my opinion is stupid. The majority of people will just rush home to cook lunch, eat as fast as possible, tidy up and wash the dishes and then rush back to work. Instead of resting it feels like a marathon. And it doesn’t make you any more productive in the afternoon. I am all for uninterrupted shifts! We wish we had the time for siesta …

• We like a party more than anything in the world. Any excuse is good for a party. If we have to adopt foreign festivities we are happy to do so, such as Halloween or St Patrick Day. Or maybe just because today is sunny, let’s get together and celebrate it!

• We do not say please and thank you 20 times in any given minute. This might make you think we are rude, which is very far from the truth. Once you start learning Spanish you will realize that please and thank you are implied on the tone of voice and the way that we say things. For example, when ordering something in a bar we do not say “Can I have…?”, we say “I want?” Why? Because the question asked by the waiter is not “What can I get you?” but “What do you want?”.  It is important to know Spanish is order to understand us, not the lingo but the culture.

And I am sure there are plenty more, but you will have to come here and discover them for yourself!