Everyone seems to have a moan about Spanish bureaucracy. Read any ex-pat magazine or website and you’ll find Brits moaning about the Spanish systems. Some magazines manage to have an article about it in every edition!
I’m sure people who are new to the UK find it equally frustrating living there and moan about British bureaucracy but I think the real difference in Lanzarote is that Spanish government is highly devolved, meaning that each region does things slightly differently. Don’t get caught out by reading something about Spain on the internet and thinking it applies to Lanzarote – because it may not!
A friend of ours described the system adopted by local government services here as ‘incremental disclosure’. This means that they never tell you everything you need to know (or to have with you) at the beginning. You go with one document and they tell you that you need something else. When you go back with that, they say you also need this.
I think it’s like that old song ‘Soldier, soldier’. As soon as you go in with your ‘shoes to put on’ or NIE number, they say they ‘can’t marry you’ (deal with your request) until you fetch a ‘coat to put on’ (or residencia) and so on. Whether or not you get to marry your solider at the end of this is up to you, your grasp of Spanish and a bit of luck. The soldier may have a wife of his own…….. I realise I’ve now confused you further, especially if you don’t know the song ‘Solider, Soldier, won’t you marry me?’
Let’s go back to incremental disclosure. Most people know you need an NIE number first. It’s your official tax number and it registers you as a foreigner. You need an NIE to set up a bank account here so it’s normally the first official document people apply for. You can buy a house with just an NIE number but you can’t buy a car! You collect an NIE from the Police station in Arrecife because some of the devolved government is operated through the police here. This involves an early morning visit to Arrecife to get an appointment and you are greeted by seriously grumpy officials who pretend that giving you an NIE is the hardest job in the world. They treat you as if you have just asked if you can spit-roast a puppy. Just smile lots, say ‘por favor’ and ‘gracias’ as many times as possible and always call them ‘señor’ or señora’. A degree of grovelling helps your case.
Once you have your NIE, make several photocopies of it and of your passport as lots of your adventures will require handing over a photocopy of these documents.
You also need to register yourself at your home address on the local electoral roll. This is called the ‘padron’ and you have to present yourself at your local ayuntamiento or local office with your passport, your NIE and proof of where you live. This can either be a rental agreement, a mortgage agreement or property deeds. We got this far, feeling really proud of ourselves as we asked in Spanish to be registered. The process took only a few minutes and you learn that in Lanzarote they love stamping things. If you want to set up a business in Lanzarote, my suggestion is make rubber stamps in different colours as everyone uses them – for everything – all the time. Our certificate for the padron was stamped 3 times with 3 different coloured stamps! At the end of all the stamping, the young man asked us for 130 euros. We gulped but he soon corrected our understanding – it was 1 euro 30 cents or 65 cents per form! Someone has to pay for all those stamps!
I know this is not really relevant but I’m fascinated by the fact that everyone - from the doctors at the health centre, to the bank manager and the town hall officials - wears jeans to work. It is no doubt due to coping with the hot climate but it seems strange to see how casually dressed people are at the office.
You may well marvel at the Spanish way of doing things and their lengthy processes and stamping fixation but it is worth the bother. One of my friends commented that it can be so difficult, it’s not surprising some people don’t register to be legal residents. Perhaps on an island where only 75% of the inhabitants are Canarian and the other quarter are from many different countries, it has become a complicated process to deal with everyone. The language difficulties don’t help which is why we recommend getting expert help when you need it.
Later in my blog, I’ll recount the story of getting our residencia and empadronomiento. But I just need to go and get something stamped…….
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