spanish bank charges

we have just transferred money to our spanish bank via swiftbic transfer. we have received a statement from our spanish bank who have taken 3% of the full amount as "FEES". is this normal  practice or are we being "RIPPED OFF".      

Hi,

I transferred money in November to our Spanish Bank account - Bankinter.

They did not take any commission.

I do however, pay a yearly account charge of €22.50 and every 2 years there is an amount taken for administration tax for non residents.

I would question this 3% charge with your bank.

Sometimes, if you complain, you get a refund, just like the UK banks.

Give it a go!

I think most banks charge a fee to receive a transfer but 3% sounds a bit extortionate to me.  I would certainly talk to them about it.

Hi, Yes we transferred quite a bit of money for our last payment with HIFX and did not get charged anything from the Bank of Valencia, but I did ask the question before we transferred.  I do know you get charged an annual fee as Fibby says. But I would query it with the Bank good luck Pat 

Hi,

We use Moneycorp.  They charge a flat transfer fee of £15 I think and you dont get any charges in Spain because it goes via ?Madrid.  You get a slightly higher Euro rate than a bank, depending on how much you are transferring.

There are probably much better ways of doing this but we have found them to be very good.

Karen

Question the 3%, that does not sound correct, ask to see the contract you have made when the account was first set up and let them prove to you it has a 3% fee for putting money in your account.

 I use Currencies Direct they charge £15 on minimum £2500 to £4999 and £5000 upwards no fee. I think the rate for £5000 + is better as well. I was getting 1.47 ish when the interbank rate was 1.48 ish and the turist rate was 1.43 ish. This was on Dec. 14th this year.

We used Currencies Direct as well & found them to be excellent - as manilvajl said no fee for transfers over £5000 & a better rate of interest (& service) than from our UK bank

We currently use Cajamurcia (changing to the Halifax shortly) - thank god they didn't charge 3% when we sent a shed load of money over to buy our house - would have had a heart attack! Doesn't sound right at all but have found spanish banks do charge for every little thing, hence going to the Halifax.

thank you everyone who replied to my query, i will now contact my bank[bankinter} and query the charge. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.will let you all know the outcome.

Formentora Costa while 3% is extortion it is not without precedence I have a friend who got stung for 4% by a branch of CAM Bank last year when he transferred 300,000 to Spain. Got stung on the exchange rate by his bank in the Channel Islands as well. He now uses a currency broker on recommendation and saves a fortune.

I THINK (not sure on this one so you need to confirm) it has been made illegal to incure landing charges subject to certain constraints. I had a Branch Director of CAM Bank tell me this a couple of months back but it was in passing and something was lost in the translation - I think it relates to amounts either in excess of 6000€ or less than 6000€ so a great deal depends on how much you transferred. Sorry to sound vague and I will see if I can get some clarification for you.

Rgds 

Hi.Just transferred 152000 Euros via Currencies Direct to Cambank.Spoke to bank who told me a % of 0.2would be charged. However if i instructed C.D to transfer in 4lots of under 50000 there wuold be no charge.This charge is only applied on amounts of 50000 & over .C.D agreed to do this with written instructions.Hope this is useful as it is not hearsay ,but i did it today

Best wishes Haydn & Judy (leaving on Jan2 to await completion wheneveron Los Olivos Huerta Nueva)

Hi Haydn well done you have asked the question first before doing the deal. So many people do first and ask afterwards when they find some discrepancy when it is hard to do anything about it. At the end of the day you cannot undo the transaction. I still need to find out whether this 6000€ ruling is illegal or not but hopefully your advice will reinforce the recommendation to ask first.

Rgds

Re the 3% charge from Bankinter are you sure it was 3% & not 0.3%. I did not open an a/c with them, but I did have some details including a tarrif sheet from them 12m ago. They list 0.3% as the charge for receiving funds into the account & not 3%. An error somewhere!!!!!

hi john, you are perfectly right, we contacted the bank and they have rectified the problem. the charge should have been 0.3% and not 3%. thank you all for your help and advice.      

I'm reading this thread because I've just logged onto my account with unicaja which I set up in December with 50 euros.

To my great shock I found that I have a balance of only 14 euros despite never actually touching it. I got a 30 euro initial fee and 6 euro initial fee. It appears that this is quite normal and I am amazed! OK, I must be a bit green but surely the bank should have explain these charges. In another few months I would have been overdrawn! Do you all pay these charges or is there a bank which doesn't charge you for lending them your money?

Also, what is the best way of depositing house buying sized sums and who has had good and bad experiences of particular companies?

Regards

Try the Halifax Spain. They do not make these charges and if you have a minimum amount in your account there are no transaction charges. Free transfers from the Halifax UK are also available.

Whilst the Halifax looks to be a good account, don't forget you need to open it with a 600€.

Mark

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Hi

When we were buying our property we transferred the large amounts using Moneycorp. We have Halifax accounts in the UK and Spain but find that the exchange rate isn't as good as with Moneycorp. It'll cost you nothing to check them out.

Regards

Irene

We can recommend Moneycorp, (after reading about on EOS).  They were really helpful.  We emailed them, state when you want to be contacted to discussand they called exactly on time!   We purchased a large amount of Euros at a better rate than we could get anywhere else (even other brokers) and the money was in our account in Spain in 24hours.  Excellent service.  Have a look on their website www.moneycorp.com

Hi Very new to this as just completing purchase of house. Lyndonthompson mentions Unicaja they have told us as long as we don't transfer more than €50000 at a time there will not be any charges. However to open the account there is a charge of €15 per account holder to check we are not money laundering and a small charge for account running can't remember how much. Hope this helps. bye

It's been mentioned before, but just to remind anyone who is going to completion soon, Spanish banks charge (usually a totally unreasonable percentage of the amount withdrawn) for bankers cheques. They are also unlikely to mention this to you beforehand, but obviously it can be a significant amount, so beware! In my experience, this charge is negotiable (they won't tell you that, either!) so lay it on a bit, tell the bank you will be transferring more money later from UK (even if you're not), tell them you will only ever use them, will never be unfaithful and go to their competitors etc. etc.

I have been with the same bank for several years now and they know me pretty well (as in, "oh dear, here comes Roberto again, now what does he want?") and I have an agreement with them to deposit or withdraw bankers cheques with no charge at all. And they keep giving me baseball caps and pens etc.! I passed another bank today, with an offer in the window, showing a set of saucepans available to customers opening new accounts, and the slogan "This pan could be yours!" I was mighty tempted, but resisted. Offers of gifts like this are made in lieu of interest, and as such are taxable!! Imagine my surprise a couple of years ago when I brought home a nice shiny new pressure cooker from the bank, only to discover tax deducted from my account on the value of the cooker?!

Forewarned is forearmed. I had been told the same fact about bankers cheques costing a large amount. When I completed on my plot the developer would not take payment in any other form so I went in to negociate with my branch of the Banco Andalucia in Ayamonte and was amazed to be told it would be €18 for a BC for €74K but they did explain that this would include the necessary certificates for the Hacienda which the notary would demand to send off to the tax man and the Land Register!

As far as I know, bankers cheques are the only form of acceptable payment at the notary, apart from cash, which would have to be explained somehow. And what certificates?

Proof that the money had been imported legally and was not black money or laundered money.

Never heard of it, but doesn't surprise me since it's getting harder and harder to prove innocence of any crime these days. Presumably a requirement for non-residents, then? But why would your Spanish bank need to produce a certificate (and charge for it)? Surely if the funds came from overseas, the sending bank (UK) would have to certify to the receiving bank (Spain) that the funds are legal? Sounds a bit of a scam to me, and another excuse for Spansh banks to charge for pointless pieces of paper. Ho hum.