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.