- Rosario Visit

[Tamkid]

I visited the Rosario Tax Office on Monday and was pleasantly surprised to have been given excellent customer service. They could not have been nicer, from the guard on the door waving us past the que and presenting us to a clerk, through to him fetching an English speaking lady who completed a form on my behalf to send to the head office in Las Palmas. How times have changed. I believe the form was to chase up my refund and for Las Palmas to contact me as to why it has not happened as yet.

The funny part of it happened at the very end, I asked the question when she thought I would get my refund, she looked at me as if I was mad and stated We have much trouble with Las Palmas, they are not given refunds as they should, it is very difficult to know when you will get a refund, I am sorry I cannot help more” . Happy Days

[emmi]

Are you sure you are applying for a refund of Non Residents Tax? Never heard of that.  Maybe you mean a refund of the tax retained upon the sale of a property ( cannot remember the name of it).?

[Tamkid]

Sorry Emmi, your right, my error, it was for the refund of the 3% rerention

[Tamkid]

Should read retention

[Charlie dont surf]

When you sold your property didn't you pay the Lawyer to get this money back for you? They don't charge an arm and a leg for this service and it would save you both time and effort running around on a wild goose chase.

[Tamkid]

My experience in selling my property wasn't a good one, I would not trust my lawyer or any estate agent come to that, as far as I could throw them. I did pay her 150 euros to process Form 210 for the reclaim, I found out later the paperwork had been completed incorrectly and the accompanying paperwork didn't happen.

We are all different, you do things your way, I'll do them mine, my nature is what it is and I'm to old to change.

[spitfire58]

My experience in selling my property wasn't a good one, I would not trust my lawyer or any estate agent come to that, as far as I could throw them. I did pay her 150 euros to process Form 210 for the reclaim, I found out later the paperwork had been completed incorrectly and the accompanying paperwork didn't happen.

We are all different, you do things your way, I'll do them mine, my nature is what it is and I'm to old to change.

Shame about your experience Tamkid. Unfortunately lawyer types can`t be avoided in property matters. I think your description sounds typical though. Our lawyer although did everything right in the purchase (I hope 🤞🤞) still managed to get our bank details wrong in setting up our DD`s for IBI, water etc

[Johnrgby2]

My experience in selling my property wasn't a good one, I would not trust my lawyer or any estate agent come to that, as far as I could throw them. I did pay her 150 euros to process Form 210 for the reclaim, I found out later the paperwork had been completed incorrectly and the accompanying paperwork didn't happen.

We are all different, you do things your way, I'll do them mine, my nature is what it is and I'm to old to change.

I think that is a bit of a generalisation Tam  being honest, Our lawyer was superb despite me at the time thinking she was very very slow, never missed a deadline, completed on the property, set up all the DD obtained our NIE,s residency, and Social security numbers all within 8 weeks of us first viewing the property, And Nic Tan of Goldacre's was frighteningly honest, to the extent that you start to doubt him, but not at all.

[Tamkid]

I understand what you are saying about generalisation and I am glad you had a positive experience, I like Nick a lot, really good guy.  I personally did not have a good experience either buying or selling, ripped off at both ends, so I can only go by personal experience.

[Charlie dont surf]

We are all different, you do things your way, I'll do them mine, my nature is what it is and I'm to old to change.

It was just a suggestion as you seem to be getting nowhere fast. Perhaps you should have sought some lawyer recommendations when you sold as there are a few honest ones on the island. Then again, some people just choose the hard way every time. It's in their nature.

[Tamkid]

Thank you for your suggestion, its appreciated, and I am sure there is a number honest Solicitors and Estate Agents on the Island, it was all my fault for not doing my research and finding them.

[moonraker]

Has anyone on this forum sold a property and had their 3% retention tax refunded to them and if so how long did it take to receive the refund?? How did you manage to get the tax back?? We have been two and half years trying to get ours back and still nowhere near receiving it even though we went to the tax office in Rosario in Feb 2016 and was told that the paper work had all been processed and the refund would be in our account over the next few weeks. We are still waiting....... All our solicitor say's is that she cannot change the way the country works!!!!
A question that maybe someone can answer.......if we sell our 2nd property in Fuerteventura can we have the tax that we have already paid from our first sale off set against the tax that would be owing against this sale??

[spitfire58]

Hi moonraker, much as your idea would seem to make “logical” sense you are dealing with the Spanish system & I don`t think they will miss the opportunity to insist that it is dealt with separately, they are not going to lose out on their pound of flesh !!
I have seen various people say they have got it back, eventually but not many I think !!
Good luck with it anyway 🙂🙂

[Tamkid]

Interesting that the Tax Office informed you the paperwork had been processed, they basically informed me that it was nothing to do with them regarding the refund, it was all in the hands of their main office in Las Palmas. They did put in an enquiry on my behalf, and I did receive a copy of an official acknowledgment via email that the enquiry had been officially processed??? whatever that means.

I did take copies of every single piece of paperwork associated with the sale of my property and all of the 210 forms going back the previous four years, the Tax Office was not interested in viewing it or taking copies, I had been informed by a solicitor thats what was needed?? The Rosario Office did not fill me full of confidence that I would ever recieve a refund,time will tell but I am not holding my breath.

[Lexeus]

Tamkid, I have a stack of about 10 very official looking pieces of paperwork all stamped and signed (usually with the associated cost) for requests for information that I have made to both Pajara and Tuineje ayuntamientos. I have only every received one response, which wasn't the information I had asked for. Legally they need to reply within a certain time frame to each "solicitud" but unless you feel like taking them to court, what's the point?

In fact, last year I even had a meeting with the Alcaide because I was sick of the appalling service, he was understanding and assured me a phone call in the next week or so with some action. I didn't hear anything. I thought I would leave it a month or two to see if I finally got some response, maybe he just forgot to call. Next I heard was the Alcaide was in prison for corruption, I lost the will to complain at that point... https://www.laprovincia.es/fuerteventura/2017/12/19/alcalde-tuineje-inhabilitado-ocho-anos/1009632.html


EDIT: By the way, I completely agree with you with regards to the "professionals" who help you, they are not worth paying for, you have less money and a badly done transaction at the end of it. I really would look into the idea that the lawyer has the money, it makes no difference what the helpful people submitting requests for progress say to you, they are just busy bodies who give opinions on things that they no nothing about.

[erik_tonny]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wtbQUaC9mE

[moonraker]

Tamkid, we took all our paper work with us, the 210 form's, all the paperwork for the sale of the apt etc, the guy in the tax office checked all our paperwork on his computer, plus we had a translator with us to make things easier. We actually believed him when he said we would be getting our refund shortly. It's so hard to believe that they get away with this. It basically amounts to theft!!!!

[Tamkid]

I totally agree, its an absolute scandal. I laugh when people go on about being part of the European Community, Spain never really "was or is", as with Italy and Greece, take, take, take without any real intention of complying with the rules or given anything back.

[MalT]

If you are selling to buy another property in fuerteventura, does the retention still apply ? I also found nic tan to be good, but didn`t buy with Goldacres.

[Ivemovedon]

2 years for us and counting...

[moonraker]

So if none of us are getting our tax back (at the moment, I am an optimist sometimes!!), and I suppose we can assume that there are plenty more people out there who haven't received their tax back, then there must be millions owed. I wonder if the Spanish get their tax refunded?

[Deso]

If you are selling to buy another property in fuerteventura, does the retention still apply ? I also found nic tan to be good, but didn`t buy with Goldacres.

Yes, and if you made any profit on the first property, unless that and your next purchase are your permanent residence, you will be liable for Capital Gains Tax on any profit.

[cockney]

So if none of us are getting our tax back (at the moment, I am an optimist sometimes!!), and I suppose we can assume that there are plenty more people out there who haven't received their tax back, then there must be millions owed. I wonder if the Spanish get their tax refunded?

But of course the Spanish don't pay this tax and I doubt that they pay the 3% retention either, does anybody know? Those of you who make a claim, if you have more than one name on the escritura do you each make a claim? When you pay your tax every year it is sent to the central tax office in Spain but can you imagine how they then identify where it comes from. Many people never pay it or pay it late, I have never met anybody who has been fined for this. The tax office, as far as I know, does not have a record of who owns what, or how many names are on the escritora.We are told that if their are two people named then you should each pay a share of the tax but if you pay to have the form 210 filled in then you are paying for that service twice. I had my property for 32 years and have receipts for every year and although my name and my wife's were named only my wife paid the tax in full and  nobody ever queried this. When I passed my property over to my grand-daughter I showed the 32 year of tax receipts to my solicitor and mentioned claiming back the 3%, she laughed. Now there are 3 names on my escritura but only one of us is paying the tax so I am waiting for a letter from the tax office. I will let you all know when it arrives.;-) This tax along with the 3% retention must be the biggest con trick in history.

[Lexeus]

If you are a permanent resident in Spain, then there is no withholding at 3% of the sale price. It is the duty of the buyer to pass on 3% of the purchase to the taxman when they are buying from a seller that is not tax resident in Spain. Lets face it, there are plenty of foreigners who would be happy to not pay the tax they should when they sell an investment in Spain, and with the taxman always living siesta to siesta it's unlikely they catch people very often. Therefore they need such a system to make sure you are proven to not owe Capital gains tax or alike from the sale, before they return the withholding funds to you.

They question is, have you made a profit and have you already paid all the tax? If so, then you have a right to be angry, but unfortunately many people don't so they do need to check, and they aren't going to be in a hurry about it....

Cockney, with regards to IBI Spaniards definitely do pay this tax. How exactly do you think the country would function if no one paid council tax? It is true that they may not pay it on time, but it isn't that no one pays it. The same goes for car tax too, they may pay it every couple of years, i.e. this year and last years all at once, but no one takes it so seriously as the UK where you can end up in prison for missing it by a month.

When it comes to having joint ownership of a property, it makes no difference to the taxman who pays the IBI that is due, they just want the cash. The debt is incurred by the actual property, not by the owner, so for them there is no need for a record of who is settling the debts.
When you refer to it costing more to pay the tax in halves because you have to file the paperwork twice, well that is just a good demonstration of Spanish bureaucracy and a lesson in being pragmatic about navigating the system; Essentially, if that is the case, then why file it twice?

EDIT: Additionally, the tax office are not interested in the names of the property owner, it's the property it self that incurs a debt. The Land registry are responsible for then registering any debts that have been ruled outstanding against a property, just as a mortgage is registered in the land registry.

[Lexeus]

A question that maybe someone can answer.......if we sell our 2nd property in Fuerteventura can we have the tax that we have already paid from our first sale off set against the tax that would be owing against this sale??

By Tax, I understand you to be referring tot he 3% withholding mmount that you have yet to be refunded?

If you are a non-resident seller then really it all amounts to whether or not you can convince the buyer of the 2nd sale to hand over the 3% that he is legally required to hand straight to the taxman. As a buyer you would be unwilling to do this as you are taking on the liability, whether or not the seller is entitled to the amount or not is really irrelevant to the buyer.

On the other hand, are you referring to a Capital gains tax amount that will be due on the profit you expect to make on the sale of the 2nd property? In that case it really comes down to whether you want to take the risk. If you are liable to pay a Capital gains tax, then there is no way you are going to get the stamped paperwork that says you have paid your liability without handing over the cash. On the other hand, if you aren't worried about the Spanish tax man coming after you (perhaps you never plan on returning to Spain and have sold all your assets?) then in that case it would be your choice if you wanted to risk going down the route of it eventually being ruled that you were owed a refund of the original 3% withholding amount and that would be greater than any debt you had outstanding for unpaid CGT.

When it comes down to it, there is often the situation that us Brits, with our letter of the law approach, start trying to get a stamped certified piece of paper that says you did this wrong so now I am going to do something else wrong and I just want a legally binding stamped document that says, two wrongs do make a right! 

[Tamkid]

Interesting Lexeus. I think I fully understood the situation when the TAX CLERK in the Rosario office looked at me with a incredulous expression when I asked point blank when I would be getting my
3% retention refunded, she replied (very nicely I might add) in ENGLISH not SPANISH "We are having serious problems getting refunds, we have a lot of people in your situation enquiring at this office, it is out of our hands, this office is not responsible, I will send a notification to Las Palmas on your behalf". Cockney is 100% correct, they are a basically a bunch of crooks.

I only wish I had never paid a cent regarding Non Residents Tax or any other Tax that didnt affect the sale of my property.I dont believe anyone is being refunded, even more so now that we are pulling out
of the "wonderful highly effient upstanding honest European Union", its the biggest joke of all the corrupt instituitons.

[moonraker]

We agree with you Tamkid, we wish now we hadn't paid our Non Residents tax. We were informed that because we had paid all the tax up to date and didn't owe anything that we would get the 3% retention tax back within the 6 month period. We totally despair of the Spanish way, we are even having problems with the plus valia from when we sold the apt, when we sold it we went to the bank to pay the plus valia, what we didn't realise was that the girl in the bank put both the amounts through in my name and not one in my wifes name. Bearing in mind this was two and a half years ago, then with no warning what so ever a further â,¬500 was taken from our bank account. Having investigated the matter we found out that both the payments were put through in my name. The Auyuntamiento have managed to keep the wrong payment for all this time without putting two and two together and have now taken a further payment with interest for my wifes share!!!!!! I am now trying to get a refund from when the original error occurred........ So at the moment we are well over â,¬3000 out of pocket with no time scale of ever getting it back, which is theft, no matter which way you look at it.         

[Lexeus]

You could probably go down the legal route after this amount of time? In fact I have no idea about this part, but maybe you should be worried about your right to reclaim the money expiring at some point, perhaps after 4 or 6 years?

I have seen comments on the internet from people in other parts of Spain who say they have received their 3% withholding refunds, so maybe there is a real problem in Las Palmas, I couldn't say, but if you are told 6 months then after this amount of time it would seem reasonable to be able to get a court order to have the money returned within 30days or similar. Who knows if that will help though? 

The only bit of advice I may be able to offer is that you need to speak to the right person, and don't expect there to be an obvious way of finding out who that is. There are countless busy bodies hiding in this bureaucratic system and, as you say, they can't even put the right name on a form. I have had very pessimistic outlooks on resolving a problem given by people who are no more than just an office administrator with no real basis for giving advice, then one floor up there is an expert who can have you sorted in 5 mins.

So, if they say it's Las Palmas who is dealing with it, then probably you just have to start phoning Las Palmas, or go there?

[Ivemovedon]

Never paid a single euro in non residents tax in 15 years after being advised not to early on by a well respected forum member who dealt with Spanish tax cases. In his opinion it was wasted money, would never be recovered and was not enforceable. Not sure of the pros and cons now but it was never a problem that cropped up during the sale of my property a couple of years ago.

One thing to remember... once you have paid any money to the Spanish taxman you can generally kiss it goodbye. It's hard enough getting money back off the inland revenue at home. Rule number 1 ..let them chase you for the money, not the other way around.

Only my opinion of course.

[Tamkid]

Moonraker, you might not have the Rosario Tax Office email address, they sent me a copy of my notification using this address agenciatributaria@correo.aeat.es , you might find it useful in the future.


Does anyone have the email address of the Las Palmas Tax Office? would appreciate a copy.