February 8, 2021 by elegsabiff

Talking SLOWER and LOUDER worth a try, guys . . . #LivinginSpain

Last week was a very Spanish week, testing my shrunken vocabulary well past its limits. Monday I knew I could no longer ignore my high temperature, complete loss of appetite, and other slightly alarming symptoms: definitely not covid, equally definitely needing antibiotics of some kind. Thanks to being registered as an autónoma, I have a “health card” (tarjeta sanitaria) but how to use it in these viral times? Turns out – write a note (in Spanish) describing your symptoms, go to the local clinic, hand in the note and card, they will hand back the card after checking they have all your contact details on computer, and a doctor will phone you at home for consultation / advice. Simple. The reality was they kept the card for ages, as they puzzled through what Google thought I wanted to say, but it was no hardship queueing at suitably-spaced intervals in the sunny street. They finally called me inside to provide a urine sample before handing the card back.

Colour me impressed, I got the phone call (in English) within 10 minutes of getting home, the sample had been tested, a UTI confirmed, antibiotics and painkillers prescribed. Colour me VERY impressed, I didn’t need to pick up the script, just go to the farmacia and hand in my card, all the details had been loaded on the card. I was in and out with my meds in 10 minutes and of course nothing to pay because the social may cost a lot but it covers everything. So much for Monday.

Tuesday morning woken at sparrows by a very voluble Spanish gent on the phone. The English system of talking to stupid furriners, Slower And Louder, may be mocked but I can’t see the Spanish way of dealing with stupid furriners, Use Different Words With Every Try and Talk Faster, really works either. After ten minutes of getting nowhere I scraped up enough Spanish to ask him to send a Whatsapp so I could translate it. Aha! He was an Inspector from the Tourist Department, and he was coming to inspect the place on Thursday morning. So much for a day or two recovering in bed with languid cups of tea. The house hasn’t seen a paying guest since October, thank you covid, and I’m not dedicated to immaculate when it is only me. When I applied for my temporary hosting licence back in 2018 I was told I’d have an inspection within the month and then I’d get my permanent licence. Instead I got the permanent licence by post and now, finally, the place was to be checked. WHIRLWIND of activity! He was in fact very nice, very quick and efficient, and with us both using our phone translators I could show him not only the rooms but the laundry and the first aid facilities. However I couldn’t show him my Vivienda Rural signboard, because I didn’t have one, and I couldn’t show him official complaint forms, those had to be acquired. I’m still waiting for his official email re ‘deficiencies’ but it seems those are the only problems, phew. He did purse his lips at the low doorway to the sunroom but hey, it is an old house, that’s part of its eccentricities. Hope I don’t have to rebuild.

I do have contacts in Velez also newly in the holiday accommodation side who were agog for news about the inspection and the wife, oh thank you, speaks good Spanish after 17 years living here. We found a local guy licenced to issue our official signboards, and that was sorted in another flurry of Spanish.

Another requirement of Turismo is that hosts keep records of every guest, and routinely register them on the police website as soon as they check in. I’ve kept scrupulous records but access to the website has been an ongoing frustration – it won’t let you in without a password, and the password can only be got in person from the policia. The Policia Local said not them. I went through to the Policia Nacional in Motril and they said not them. My efficient friend took me off to the Guardia Civil (I didn’t even know we had a branch in Velez) and translated like a whizz and the next day, Friday, I could nip back and pick up my certificado with official password.

Velez municipality is once again off the lockdown list (when the lockdown trigger is 500 sick in a hundred thousand, and the population is under 3000 people, it only takes one or two either way) so I also shot through to Salobreña to stock up at Mercadona, as Motril is still closed off to the outside world. So there we were, Friday, time at last after school to take to my bed with those languid cups of tea but it all felt a bit pointless by then so I got up again to admire my lovely immaculate house. Life in Spain. Never dull.

For those who read the blogs because of my podenco Purdey, oops, I had to lock her away during the inspection as she’s a bit nippy around men. There’ll be a blog coming up about that as she (hopefully) responds to therapy but she remains in every other way a delight and a joy.

June 29, 2019 by elegsabiff

Pull up a chair, grab a beer from the fridge, chill #hotinSpaintoo

Tourists shift like shoals of fish and many are currently aiming at Turkey and Egypt, despite pan-European strenuous efforts to offset the stronger euro by offering incredible deals on flights, car rentals, and accommodation. The braver traveller is also whizzing off to Vietnam and Cambodia for something completely different: even within Spain itself some coasts are booming and some are having a quieter year than usual, and who knows why? I swap notes with a friend in Tenerife who says his boutique hotel has been ludicrously quiet. So I’m grateful to have had a few scattered bookings . . . guest income is earmarked for ongoing spiffication, so every little helps.

I’m now firmly and officially addicted to cycling guests, the last of the cooler weather brought a German cyclist who had booked a cycling tour and, not wanting to stay in a hostel or risk his bike (which he drove down) in communal parking, booked here for a week. Actually those priorities might be the other way round. He’d return late afternoon, do any running maintenance required on his cherished steed, then spruce up and re-join the group for an convivial evening on the town. He had an absolute ball, loved every minute of the gruelling daily outings, and will, he said, be back after summer when cycling tours start again.

He was followed, also in April, by my first real published writer, ooh! and her husband – they were mid-honeymoon, which was (a little unusually) a sponsored charity walk along the 500 mile Camino de Santiago trail. I’m nowhere near the Camino de Santiago, but Nan sprained her ankle and was ordered to rest it for 10 days before continuing. They turned misfortune into exploration and spent 4 of the 10 days checking out Granada province and the Costa Tropical from the front bedroom, in between writing writing writing – she’s doing a book about the honeymoon and has promised me a good write up. Even better, it seems back in the US she’s a well-known medium so it’s nice to know that old as this house is, there are no restless souls hanging about. There were times, during the renovations, when tools vanished from where they had been left, and doors and shutters banged back and forth in very little wind, that I did wonder . . .

May, a year from the end of the main refurbishments (how quickly that went!), saw a little refurbishment and sprucing, to have the house at its slightly ramshackle best in time for a family visit. It was wonderful taking a few days off to be a tourist!

That was followed by a fab French-Canadian couple for a week, my first guests to really, and finally, put the cooking facilities to the test. Wonderful mouth-watering smells drifted downstairs either side of their outings to the beaches and Granada, they appeared in the atrium waving pink wine and a spare glass of an evening, and even brought back the occasional goodie I had to try from various bakeries they’d found. French-Canadians, in my hotchpotch experience of Spanish, French, Belgian, Croation, Irish, Rumanian, Danish, Dutch, American, English and Polish guests, rank high, I find I adore being spoiled by guests.

My first Italians arrive next week, and it will also be my first full house since last year, both rooms booked at the same time, so things are kicking off again for the summer . . . I think the other guests are Spanish. The websites handle everything and merely tell me when to be ready, and for how long, and this time there were no clues to nationality in the surname. Handy if they too were Italian, eh? Watch this space.

Truly glad not to have guests during the current little heat wave, the Costa Tropical is sizzling gently but not record-breaking (we got off lightly) and it’s a luxury to be in the atrium with an icy glass of lemonade (or shandy) without having to be presentably dressed for visitors

May 13, 2019 by elegsabiff

Kiss Kiss, and I’m legal. #LivingInSpain – burocracia with kisses

kisses

If I had been jumping through UK bureaucratic hoops today I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have been kissed so often. Kiss kiss when I met my translator Chris, he who helped make the car legal a few months ago. I’ve given up waiting to see which way the Brexit farce will twist next, time to become legal.

Kiss kiss Alessandro who was going to register me as self employed (autonoma), kiss kiss Paco who was called in to sort out the knotty issue of how I should be classified. (Not to be confused with the Paco who knocked giant holes through my walls, it is a very common name, although I shy nervously every time I meet one). Kisses all round again of course when we parted.

xx xx

xx xx xx

For anyone more interested in the process than counting kisses, you need your passport, NIE, and Spanish bank details. Oh, and fluent Spanish, as some of the questions are extremely complex, hence Chris’s presence. By the time I got home the email confirming my registration was in my mailbox.

The authorities allow us self-employed types two years grace to get established which means for the next two years I will be paying 60 euros a month Social Security, with full health benefits and even unemployment benefits if awful things happen.
The full whack, because I am getting older, will be eye-wateringly high but after the 2 years grace I will get a 60% discount for 6 months, followed by a 30% discount for 6 months, and by then have to hope the house is fully booked on a frequent basis as it seems the entire house income (which goes into my Spanish bank account) will be needed to cover income taxes and my Social Security.
The tax-free window is small, 5500 euros a year, and full income tax is due on the whole amount once that is exceeded.

Next step will be talking to the tax authorities, since my complicated income is made up of teaching English as a second language (teaching is VAT, or IVA, exempt) letting holiday rooms, (IVA applies but since Airbnb, for example, has me registered with their Irish office I won’t need to pay if I give them an IVA número) and my royalties, which are unlikely to pour much into the Spanish tax coffers but who knows, maybe one day. The next book could be the charm . . . that’s the one teaching basic essential Spanish as a second language, and I was fairly chuffed this morning to find I could not only make myself understood before Chris and Alessandro arrived, but could follow , hmm, nearly a quarter of the rapid-fire Spanish of the meeting!

Then there is the residency to be sorted, but I’m assured that because I am autonoma, it will be virtually automático, as simple as uno dos tres. My driving licence has to be switched no later than October. So there is lots more bureaucracy to come, I look forward to the kisses. And by the by, x in Spanish is equis, pronounced eh·kiss.

Ever researching on your behalf

Elegsabiff