HBG

I’m involved in a dispute with my local council about a tax they want me to pay to drive across the pavement to park my car on my premises, I’ve forgotten what it’s called and it’s intended for busy city streets to stop people blocking your driveway.

I don’t have that problem, there are no houses on the other side and nobody parks in the street – your car wouldn’t be there the next day.

I usually just pay up for anything the authorities send to me, but this one has got me annoyed and I’m digging my heels in.

Can I win? No chance, I suppose I’ll be embargoed soon.

megmet

We paid our bill in July even though we could have waited until September. Unfortunately they had made a mistake and had billed us for the house next door, we hadn't noticed that the invoice number was wrong.
When we went to sort it out we had as you can imagine left the one paper they wanted, namely the escatura. I pointed out that they already had a copy, the young lady said.... "yes but it's in the office down the hall", so in the end we had to go home and get another copy.

To cut a long story short, the man next door refuses to pay because the bill isn't in his name, this means we then had to pay "our bill" and send a claim to Malaga for a refund for the payment we shouldn't have paid......
Still with me?
It sounds quite easy, but....we have to wait twelve months before they give us the refund, if of course this being Spain it ever materialises. :curse:

rugbymatt

Can we please stay on topic people... Fred, Mitzy, at your two ages you should both know better... pfft....

Mitzyboy

Thats not encouraging I noticed the villa number on my invoice is actually incorrect (refers to a villa number that doesnt exist) although it does have my name on it.

noelrosie

When we first bought our villa, being new to things work in Spain, we recieived two bills from Suma, one addressed to my husband with the correct plot number & NIE on it, and one addressed to me with a completely random plot number on it (about 2 miles away) and my name was misspelt - no NIE either...
7 years later, after a break of a few years, and many letters, intervention by gestors, abogados etc., SUMA are once again sending me (or someone whose name is very similar to mine) a bill for that plot - since the name is incorrect and it doesn't have an NIE number on it I have been advised to ignore it, but it is very annoying.
The reason why it ends up in our mailbox is that the girl in the postroom at our urbanization doesn't know what else to do with it!

HBG

We get a visit once a year from a special postman, not the usual one. This one only delivers registered letters from the tax people. For the past 12 years he has handed me a letter and his clipboard for my signature and every year I’ve pointed out that it’s in the name of the previous owner.

He knows some English and always says,’You must sign’, and I always refuse.

We sometimes see each other in town and wave, but he will still come back once a year with the tax letter for the previous owner. It will only stop when one of us dies.

jdr

megmet

My advise would be to sort it out soon, if not you could end up paying a fine because you haven't paid yours...even though you paid for the none existent villa.

Only in Spain.....

steviedeluxe

I wish they'd allow council tax to rise again in the UK, so they didn't have to close down the libraries. That was one thing the UK should have been proud of, and now they're getting rid of them.

rugbymatt

... and if people don't actually use them? Do we still keep them open just so that once a week they get to rent out "The Joy of Sex" to some pre pubescent teen who hasn't got access to the internet or some old git who is researching Late Victorian stamps from Solihull?

agoreira

I use to be an avid library user, but like many find a lot of what I want on the internet. However, I went recently, and it was heaving, and out of about 20. computers, there didn´t seem to be any free. It all looked well used to me. Not sure whether it´s true or not, (no figures) but I was reading it´s mainly Labour controlled councils that are closing the libraries. Ours, probably for the first time ever, is now Conservative, and no plans announced yet to close any.

megmet

But sadly though I agree with what you are saying books will soon be a thing of the past! They take up so much room and are easily damaged, and the cost of running libraries must be astronomical.
The youth of today are growing up reading books online or downloading them onto a Kindle or whatever it's called.
While our generation still cherish opening a book to read we can't expect life to stand still, it's no different to when TV took over from radio after all.

jonboy

The answer is yes, so all the old gits and Teens can continue to educate themselves, otherwise why have libraries at all?

Bri and Katee

We've had our house for going on 5 years now. We have still to pay any IBI at all.

This is despite numerous requests to the town hall by oursleves and our solicitor, nothing materialises. It seems if you want to be law abiding and pay up they have no interest in you!

One good thing is that the solicitor tells us they can only back date the collection 4 years, once they get themselves into collection mode

Dick Dasterdly

Quite agree.
There's been few greater users or fans of libraries over the years than myself. However I can't recall the last time I used my local one as there are so many easily accessible alternative options now available.
Whilst the cost of maintaining the present services can no longer be justified, hopefully the books will find a good home or still be available, possibly through a single bigger library to cover a much larger area or county.