Advice on importing household goods

Hi, just wondered if anybody has had any experience of importing their household/personal effects from outside the EU?

We've just been informed that, because our NIE numbers were issued in 2006 (prior to us completing on our purchase) and as we have paid our local IBI tax for our apartment in Spain, we may be classed as resident and that we may have to pay import duty on our household goods we are shipping from Dubai (which are going into storage for about ten months).

I have explained that we are registered as non-resident (the bank file the forms each year), we have resident visas in the UAE (which we can show we have had for years) and that all our household goods are well over a year old.  I don't know what else to tell them!  Even if I get a certificate from the British Embassy here in the UAE, they say that as we have paid the IBI tax, we may be classed as resident and they will charge import duty on our goods!!

Any advice????

Hi.

Not a real answer for you, but we as well like to know more about this subject. We will be moving from New Zealand to Spain, but we have the option to do this via Holland. Being Dutch nationals we might be able to avoid to be taxed on our household goods and than we just move our stuff overland to Spain. Let me know if you have any more info on this... Cheers from a very warm Napier, New Zealand...

Hi.

Not a real answer for you, but we as well like to know more about this subject. We will be moving from New Zealand to Spain, but we have the option to do this via Holland. Being Dutch nationals we might be able to avoid to be taxed on our household goods and than we just move our stuff overland to Spain. Let me know if you have any more info on this... Cheers from a very warm Napier, New Zealand...

As it happens, I don't think we were advised very well!  In the event, we had no problems whatsoever.  So long as you have  a letter from your consultate that you have been resident outside Spain for over over a year (or possibly six months?), have NIE numbers and are registered on the padron (the person in whose name the shipment is - this was a definite requirement from the shipping company), and have a full inventory of the goods (they just used the packing inventory) there should be no problem.  You have to sign a couple of forms for the authorities confirming that you the goods are more than six months old and that you will not sell them before a certain time, etc.

I must say, Crown Relocations dealt with the whole process, from Dubai to delivery in Estepona, including Customs clearance, etc., and everything went smoothly.  I only showed up at the storage facility when the container arrived from Algeciras. 

Didn't have to pay one euro at this end and just had to oversee the offloading into the storage premises!