Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

If you are not sure how to fill in the form. Take it along with all your details to a Gestoría. They will fill it in for you, supply copies for the hacienda and the bank and should not charge more than around €30 for the service.

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

We did something pretty similar on our recent visit. Again, can't quite remember exactly how much she charged, but the very switched-on and efficient Alex Mendonca (at least, that is how she impresses us) charged us a lot less than the 200 Eur some of you have been quoted. This covered our wealth & income tax retur, sorting out our Council tax (not straightforward as our apartment was still registered in Fadesa's name at the Town Hall - fairly common, Alex told us), arranging for the Council tax to be done by direct debit in the future, and applying for us to be registered at the Town Hall.

(It is recommended that you do this, as the more CE owners are registered at the Town Hall, the more the Council has to spend on CE. Alex told us that you also need to do this if you ever need to do anything like register your children for school, buy a car etc. it means that youre existence is officially recognised).

Detailed discussin of the wealth tax with Alex made us realise thatw e needed expert guidance. She stresse the importance of weighing up two options (well, there may have been more, but I can only remember two): (1) You can deduct your mortgage from your property value for the purpose of calculating wealth tax, but then you have to start from a higher valuation than if you use the cadastral value (rateable value) or (2) you can simply use the cadastral value, but then you can't deduct your mortgage.

We took Alex's advice on the appropriate route for us and were extremely pleasantly surprised by the amount of tax payable.

Money well spent from our perspective, and at the cost in time to ourselves (on an all-too-short holiday) of no more than 20 - 30 min.

I suppose I should add the usual disclaimer that we have no connection with ADA; we simply thought that in the interests of information exchange, others might be interested in what we found to be a very positive and helpful experience.

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

You could try the Neil Warnock method and simply quote what someone else would say. It seems to keep him out of trouble whilst also getting the point across.

If your lawyer is based in the UK rather than Spain, then I rather suspect that there are many people that had similar issues to you and went through the same process. I did hear that the people concerned would have probably have considered taking legal action against them had they been working within the UK system instead of hiding behind Spanish law.

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

What a lovely lot you all are!! I couldn't have dreamt of receiving such a set of comprehensive, wide ranging, and informative responses to my tax query, and in particular the responses from John & Cath and A & M (in the latter, it was great hearing someone praising ADOA for a change; I believe that they have been the subject to too much criticism on this blog in my past). Carol and I will be visiting CE again next week for 10 days or so, and I now have every confidence that I will be able to sort out all my taxes very cheaply. Thank you all very much; you have totally confirmed my view at to what a super medium this blog is.

I have yet another query. I have an old car, surplus to requirement in the UK, which although not worth much is still a very good goer, and I'm thinking of driving it to CE, with the aim of keeping it there for use when there. I would want to do this legally. What is involved in doing this? How easy is it to register a foreign used car in Spain? What are the minimum legal insurance requirements, and can this be arranged for a used RH drive car relatively cheaply in Spain? On the other hand, would be more cost effective to by a old banger cheaply in Spain?

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

Re the car, at the top of the Spain forum do a search on UK cars in Spain, there have been over 200 threads about it. ;-))

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

You'll be pleased to know that the wealth tax/assumed rental tax is no longer payable (unless, of course, you do have rental income in which case you will have to declare it as normal income for taxation) according to my abrogado - this year is the last year. (Unless I completely misunderstood:confused: )

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

We were told that the tax due this year, payable by 31 Dec 08, is for the calendar year 2007. We only paid a proportion, as we completed in August 07. The information we were given was that the Government intend to abolish the wealth tax (patrimonio) for calendar year 2008, payable 31 Dec 09, but that it hasn't happened yet. But we hadn't heard that the tax on deemed rental that non-residents have to pay is going to be abolished too - has anyone else heard anything about this?

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

This should address most of your concerns.

http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.co...ax-eliminated/

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

Also read the comments below the story. ;-)) I still don`t think it is official yet.

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

Not contributed to this site before but thought I would warn Esurians about a potential problem with the blue IBI (Council Tax) bill. Although we don't live on CE we are not very far away and occasionally visit friends there. Our IBI tax bills are issued by the Servicio de Gestion Tributaria (SGT) near Plaza Laguna in Ayamonte.

We completed on our new property in Autumn 2006 and received our 1st IBI bill in mid-2007, as expected. The bill was addressed to our builder, even though it was 9 months since our notary notified change of ownership to the Spanish authorities. We visited the SGT office to query this. The seemingly helpful chap in the office entered our property reference number in his computer and showed us their record had indeed been correctly updated since the 2007 IBI bill was sent out to us. He printed a sheet with the new updated details on it for our records and advised us to pay the bill we had received, even though it was not issued in our name. This we did, on time during September 2007, thinking we had done all that was required of us.

This year no bill arrived in the post so we visited the SGT office again and they printed one for us. The name was now correct but the address showed no village name nor postcode so it is no surprise we did not receive it. No matter, paid that bill on time in September 2008.

Two weeks ago we received a penalty notice in the post for the 2007 IBI bill. The penalty amount was for the full amount of the 2007 bill, plus a 20 per cent fine plus daily interest. This arrived 14 months after we had paid the 2007 bill. A fast car journey to interview Carlos Sera Hierro, the SGT office director in Ayamonte, ensued. This geezer sits out of sight in the back office, furthest from the door. He signed the penalty notice.

Thankfully my wife speaks passable Spanish but it still took over an hour of raised voices and refusal to budge before he finally conceded and cancelled the additional charges. He came out with all sorts of nonsense to try and convince us that we were in the wrong. This guy was not going to give in if he could possibly get away with it. In the end he told us we were still wrong but he would after all cancel the penalty payment because we had paid the original bill in good faith. He had by then realised we were not going to leave his office for several hours if he stuck it out. He didn't seem to like threats of denouncement nor our opinion of his department's administration!

The lesson is do not pay a blue IBI bill unless it has your name on it. If you receive a bill in the previous owners name go to the office with your deeds and ID and make them update their records and print a correct bill for you. Don't set up a direct debit for payment in case they invent a penalty for you and then help themselves. It's much easier to challenge them when you hold the funds! Don't run up a big bill and long delay by involving a solicitor though.

We received a further penalty notice with increased interest charges in the post this morning. Hopefully this is just another symptom of the slow to react SGT admin but it warrants another visit to my mate Carlos tomorrow morning, just in case he has had second thoughts about his decision.......

Phew, glad that's off me chest. Anyway, off to Ayamonte indoor pool for a swim after visiting Carlos tomorrow. Not sure if it's been mentioned before but swimming caps are compulsory there (no photographs). Also, you need your own padlock for the locker. One size up from suitcase padlock size is best. If you have a combination lock there's no worries about where to put the padlock key while you swim.

Lunch tomorrow at Mestre Romulo. Respect to Jon-Bxl for the tip (see post #4411). Went there last week and had the best value menu del dia ever! The meal was excellent quality and plentiful; bread & butter, beer or wine, starter, main, extra side dishes, pudding AND coffee, all for 7,50€. The main courses were mixed grill or mixed fried fish and were full raciones in themselves. We have absolutely no connection to the guvnor Luis, although we recognise him from La Lota days.

TTFN

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

Thanks for the info... great post by the way.

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

You must have the same abogado as us - we too have been offered this service for €522.

Me thinks I will have a go myself, or cop out and use a gestoria?

Steve y Pat

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

Buenos dias, mes amigos

Been back from Esuri for about a week now, but been catching up with all the posts since. Afew snippets that might be of interest

We can confirm the hold up at the shop, and the changed opening times. He is not open nearly as much now as he was. Still tried to use the facility as much as possible though

Another cautionary tale about Council Tax. When we were out in February we tried to pay for both 2007 and 2008. As most of you will know, that for 2008 could only be paid between July and September (which we did in September), but we were assured by the chap in the office near Laguna Square, that we had nothing to pay for 2007. Although I thought that a bit odd, since we completed in autumn 2006, he was most insistent, and even printed out our 'recorded' details to confirm. :unsure:
However, when out this month we had one of those 'failure to deliver' notices from the correros. A trip to the oficina de correros in Ayamonte only confirmed the letter had been held for just 7 days, and had been returned to sender. In this case the council tax office in Huelva. Recognising the first word of that address, we returned to the Laguna Sq office - where the same chap happily confirmed that the letter had been a penalty notice chasing up our dues for 2007. So much for his assurances in February! We were, however, able to pay the bill and clear the debt, albeit he would only accept cash. Bit of frantic searching of pockets and handbags, but we paid. Just be aware. :thumbsup:

Looks like I'll be moving on the the Wealth/Income Tax next. :confused:

Also had all our doors and windows varnished by Benny, who managed to source some German materials from a supplier in Portugal, exactly matching the existing colour. Have to say the result was absolutely great; it looks so much better, withn a deeper colour. Really good.

More on another day.

Steve y Pat

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

Hi All

Further reflections on our recent visit to Esuri

Everywhere was very empty, including Ayamonte. Sometimes difficult to find restaurants open. Had another wonderful curry at Jag's though - actually, Jag's was often the busiest place in town. Says something, perhaps.

Played golf at Islantila, Bellavista and Esuir. The first was so busy, it took them half an hour to decide (after reference to an off site manager who had to ring back) whether they could fit me in the following day. They did so; and yes the course was packed - although it could have been due to rumours of my lack of golfing prowess. Had a similar problem at Bellavista, although they too did fit me in. Esuri, on the other hand, was empty and I could pick a time. It seems they really do need the hotel to make the course viable; although the greens at Esuro were far better than those at Islantila, in particular.

Spent a couple of days in Seville - while Benny was working his magic on my varnishing. Driving and parking was a nightmare. Having arrived about Sunday lunchtime without a map, we had to drive around until we encountered a free parking space, where we abandoned the car until we had walked around to establish our bearings. In future, we will probably deposit the car at the car park near the bus station. Does anyone know how much that costs per day, and whether you can leave a car there safely for a few days?

On return from Ayamonte one evening we encountered a donkey happily munching the vegetation on the building plot opposit the RVA4 townhouses. We looked at the donkey; the donkey looked back. Eventually both sides becoming bored, we went home and the donkey went back to browsing. (I winder if we are paying for its meal?) Later that night, we hear a slight commotion in the street. The local Maxima sheriff has arrived, and determined the donkey will have to go. After some initial postering, the donkey was last seen heading for the golf course, with the 'sheriff' in hot pursuit. My money was on the donkey!

Also took some pictures of John and Kath's place, which is looking ever better each time we visit. All I need to do now, and work out how to transfer those to this PC. Umm another day, I think.

Regards to all.

Steve S

Re: COSTA ESURI - AYAMONTE
 

Please figure it out and post soon, pretty please.