Like many readers of the Gazette, I am a part time resident of Almuñécar, preferring the balmy “winter” season at our Costa Tropical, and spending the summer at my primary residence in Germany or travelling. One of the advantages of this nomad existence is that every time you return to these blessed shores, you are again stunned by beauty and serenity of it all. There is only one snag: who attends the postal mailbox in your absence? I thought I had it solved, all the greedy utilities – Aguas y Servicios, Endesa and Telefónica, the Ayuntamiento with their property rates IBI, etcetera are collecting their bills via direct bank debit and send me their facturas per internet. And a kind neighbour transfers all unsolicited publicity trash from my mailbox into the bin.

No problema, until, half a year ago, during a hibernating spell in my Andalucian home, when a messenger handed me an official looking envelope, asking me to sign the receipt. It turned out to be the announcement from the tax office in Motril (Hacienda) that my bank account would be reduced by some 700€ plus surcharges, for having failed to pay a multa “voluntarily”. The document did not specify the cause or the date of the presumed violation of the law, and I was not aware of any misdemeanour that might have been the origin of this curious matter.

So I went visited Hacienda in their posh new offices in Motril, to find out. The only document they discovered in their computer, beside the notificación of the imminent embargo of my bank account, was a request by the Government of Cataluña to collect the amount mentioned on their behalf, with the tiny clue of a the figures of a Spanish car licence plate. Following this hint, it then turned out that the buyer of a car I had sold two years ago had apparently committed an (undisclosed to this day) traffic offense in Cataluña, about two months after the sale and registration of the car in his name in Granada. The notificación gave me two weeks to express my disagreement with Hacienda draining my bank account, and I explained the situation. The answer came from the Generalitat de Catalunya, curt but polite: since I had not paid the fine within the specified period, it had become firme. But they gave me another chance: I could challenge this rebuttal by launching another formal protest (recurso). Which I did, enclosing the pertaining papers which I had saved.

This time I received an impressive 4-pages document, citing all sorts of legal gibberish, but – for the first time – revealing that, before asking the Granada tax people to get tough – they had twice tried to notify me by registered mail about the multa for the – still undisclosed – traffic offence with “my car”. Since I had not been at my temporary residence in Almuñécar, these notificaciones had been returned to the sender. Their next step had been to publish my name and the debt in their BOP (boletín official de Catalunya, admittedly not my daily fare) and with no reaction coming from me, the multa had become firme, i.e. I had to pay, regardless. However, the document concluded that if I were not satisfied with this result, I could take the case to court in Cataluña, for which they generously conceded me two months.

Now this obviously called for professional help and, with my Automobile Association (which is also picking up the tab) put me in contact with a Barcelona solicitor specializing in multa cases for foreigners. The first thing he did was getting an extract from the central car registry in Madrid, which confirmed that my old car had been registered in the buyer’s name before the supposed traffic offence. With this in hand, he tried to argue with the officials at the Tráfico office. To no avail, the law must be observed, they told him, the multa was firme.

To round up the picture, the solicitor then asked me to send him a proxy, signed and confirmed before a notary public, which he would need to represent me at court. I complied and am now awaiting with interest the further development of this case, worthy of the experiences of Cervante’s hero Don Quijote.

Incidentally, the Barcelona solicitor told me that he had just saved another client from having his property in a small town in the north of Spain from being auctioned off. The man had not visited his house for two years nor replenished his Spanish bank account, so the local Ayuntamiento had not been able to collect his IBI. They had “notified” him by by registered letters which never landed with the addressee, then published his name in the BOP. The lawyer was proud at having succeeded in persuading the local mayor to call off the auction, just in the nick of time.

Lesson learnt: if you own or ever had owned any property, mobile or immobile, and registered under your Spanish (albeit only temporary) address, make sure that possible registered letters get into your hands in time. One way to achieve this is to fill out a form at your local Correos office and present your DNI or passport. They will redirect any incoming mail to the new address, within Spain or to another country. This service (Reenvio Postal) can be booked for 1, 2 or 6 months and has to be renewed once the booked time has elapsed. As for the costs, check out

http://correos.es/comun/tarifas/05P0401b-CambioDireccionTarifas.asp.

Unfortunately, this service only includes notificaciones sent through the postal service. It does not apply to the taxman, Hacienda, who use their own notification system. But maybe this will change, after someone explains the problem to them.

Regards
Otto Schulz