Adrian, we did NOT want to pay Sabadell's high charges after being used to paying Lloyd's nothing as long as we kept 600€ on average in the account. (All we'd paid to Lloyds was 9€ annually for one debit card).
We'd learnt about Caja Rural Central's lower charges from friends who, like us, are non residents & have property in Los Montesinos. We went to the Los Montesinos branch not realising there was a branch in Guardamar. (We'd searched for 'Caja Rural' & it went under 'Caja Rural Central'). They told us there was a Guardamar branch.
It was very simple to change banks as we are here in Guardamar currently & did the switch a few days before Lloyd's closed on 14/3.
(1) We opened an account with CRC's Guardamar branch, which is alongside the town hall, with 50€, to get an account number. You have to keep 50€ in the account. Take your passports & NIEs. They speak adequate English as did staff at the LM branch.
(2) Closing our Lloyd's account was free, no charges. We had to go together .. as it was a joint account .. & we had to take our passports & sign paperwork then the balance of our account was given to us.
(3) CRC had told us that we needed to go into the SUMA office to tell them we had changed banks as we pay IBI & our car tax to them by Direct Debit. SUMA changed the payment details on their computer but said, as our car tax was due around 25/3 we needed to go back to them on or just after 25/3 to be given the paperwork then we'd need to pay this year's payment ourselves at the bank as they hadn't time to change it this year.
(4) Back at CRC we gave them details of the contracts we had with the electric & water companies & they are sorting the changeover of those. We contacted our communities administrator ourselves to notify him that we'd changed banks ready for him to take the community fees in June & we rang our internet provider to notify them.
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Sabadell: With Sabadell there is a 15€ charge every three months for the account maintenance plus 9€ annually for each debit card. There is also a 25€ charge every two years per person named on the account for the non resident declaration.
We asked about charges to transfer monies as we use Xe.com currently, shortly we are going to use Transferwise, which is a better option. We were advised there was no charge to do that but if we wanted to transfer from Halifax bank there WAS a charge.
We were told there were no charges to use Servired ATMs, & no charges for Direct Debits.
You have to keep 150€ in the account otherwise there ARE other charges.
Caja Rural Central: Guardamar branch
They have a non resident account that charges 4.50€ maintenance fee every three months, each debit card is 15€ annually, the non residents declaration every two years is free. Having declared our non residency status at Lloyd's in October 2012 which runs till October 2014 I asked if that was why there was no charge at CRC. She seemed bemused & said it was definitely free, there was NO charge! When we explained that we'd been advised there was a 17€ charge each at the LM branch only a few days before she said not at this branch! She even rang her boss asking for clarification & was told there wasn't any charge. This maybe depends where you have your Caja Rural Central account so something to check out if you prefer your account to be at the LM branch! There is a 0.50€ charge per currency transaction such as from XE.com or Transferwise. You only need to keep 50€ in the account. Your Debit card takes a week to be made,you have to collect it from the bank.