Debtors without a Budget

This request has probably already been covered on another thread but here goes

We have  just received our completion date of 14th July and are starting to panic  (jardine 10) ....... still have loads to do including opening a spanish bank account but we don't need a spanish mortgage.  Can anyone out there recommend one of the banks where you don't pay a fortune in fees for every transaction.  We have emailed Parador rep for info on bank accounts, but we are still waiting for  their reply.  (What  do we pay them for???)

Jackie & Robbie

Hi,
I am using Halifax Espana.
As long as you have a minimum balance of 600 Euro transactions from halifax UK are free.

Davell

We decided to go with the Banco Halifax based in Mazarron.

If you have an English Halifax Bank Account and you set up a Banco Halifax Account transfers are free. 

As we complete in a few weeks, we decided to transfer some money over to cover the cost of our holiday whilst we are out there.  Eventually they hope to have internet banking up an running between accounts, but for the time being you have to transfer using telephone banking.  We transferred £500 over to our Banco Halifax Account very easily.  The person we spoke to was English and we got the exchange rate of 1.235 when our nephew, who collected currency from the post office the same day, got 1.2 tourist rate. 

There is no charge for the account as long as you kept an average of 600€ in but we decided to upgrade to the xtra account for 25€ per year charge.  (no minimum balance, assistance with plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, translation service, card cancellation services, medical advice, legal advice, utility registration service (although sticking with polaris) and home help.

The account was all set up from England. 

Thanks for the information on the Halifax account - the extra account looks like it might be the best option for us as the way things are going we may not have €6oo to leave in our account!!!

We don't have a Halifax account at home but I will pop in our local branch in my lunch hour tomorrow for some details.


Thanks again.

Jackie

Just a note - when asking Halifax in england about Hispania Halifax, the smaller branches don't seem to know much! If you go to th decent size ones they may be able to help.
All I got was the telephone number to ring. It is on here on another thread under Condado. I hve used Halifax too and they have been great so far!

We are with LloydsTSB in England but set up a Halifax English current account just for using with the Spanish account, TSB were charging about £20 every time we wanted to send money across. 

Off memory I think we originally phoned the UK customer services team (the no. our local banch gave us) they then sent out an info pack with application forms in. We filled it in, got our passports certified at our local branch and then sent the opening balance across to a holding account while everything was getting processed.

We can access both accounts on-line.