Is living in Spain really that bad now???

Hi Ads,

deep in mysery and just to prove me wrong, the sun came out strongly and stayed out all afternoon.

Regards

Norman

The 'rates' or 'contribuciones' or IBI or what you will are supposed to be fixed and only increase by a fixed percentage every year....EXCEPT when the catastro comes round and re-values your town / borough - about every five years.  You will be sent letters to this effect to which you can complain (ha ha). 

At the end of the day, rates in Spain are very reasonable compared to the UK.  In the village where I lived, they came to about 80€ per year.

Max Kite,

IBI has apparently more or less doubled in the space of 12 months in Manilva.  I'm sure Justin can confirm this (I rent so don't pay IBI). 

Dear Max,

for what size property please?

and is this artificially low for village or agricultural reasons?

it makes my £2k seem rather too much.

Regards

Norman

Sanchez1, our IBI for 2009 was only about 20 euros more than it was for 2008 if I recall correctly.   It certainly hadn't doubled!!

Hi Norman

If you are talking  about Kent, you have to appreciate that you are having to pay for gay/lesbian/crossgender rights outreach advisors, smoking cessation managers, five a day enforcement officers...etc. etc.

Seriously, these are properties in inland Spain, and I'm talking about a 300m2 property.  Yes, 3,000sq ft.

I suspect it's a bit more on the coast.

Mines better than that Max. this year I paid 15,92 e for a 150m2 property. When I first came it was 24 e & has gone down since the revaluation in 2005. The % also used to be 0,75% & has reduced to 0,67%. But then again my property is in excess of 120 yrs old and the valor catastral is now 2678e down from 3000e after the revaluation.Still I suppose it will start to go up sometime. When it first started going down ,after a couple of years I went in to check & was told it was correct.

Has the situation re increased IBI in Manilva arisen becasue of the old El Hacho problem (where monies were supposed to have been deposited by developers in the region to pay for infrastructure/local upgrades as part of their original agreements when granted planning permission, and did some monies go missing???) Whatever happened to the El Hacho scenario? Did the new Mayor sort out the problems?

If Pitby reports only a small increase, is that not acceptable

I think my UK council tax has also gone up!!

Guess that happens in all countries? It's not always corrupt and fraudulent activities!!

PS :Not sure how  Normans weather reports fit in to this thread ??

Hi Gus

One thing to look out for though is that in some areas the IBI is being funded centrally.  Check with your ayuntamiento as some areas are slowly having these grants removed (over 10 years or so - called "boiling the frog") and thus rates will slowly go up..

Dear All,

how can veritable peanuts contributions buy all the services, or are they funded differently to UK?

Regards

Norman

Manilva town hall is relying on hand outs from La Junta de Andalucia to pay it's 600 members of staff.

Ads, as far as I'm aware the El Hacho EUC was to be dissolved - although I'm not sure of the current situation.  It has made no difference to our IBI (and we are in the El Hacho community) as I just remembered that I paid our IBI late, so was subject to a penalty - hence the extra 20 odd euros!  So, effectively, our IBI hasn't really increased!

Normansands....

Hi.  In reality, it doesn't cost THAT much to run a small village.  Some street cleaning, rubbish collection, a few office staff etc.  2 policía local.  Roads and street furniture can be repaired when needed. 

Fiestas and other expenses are generally self funding or profitable.  Our town hall used to fund the August fiesta but made it back many times over in bar and fair receipts.

It is the UK that has made a vice out of running town halls with vast infrastructures of overremunerated desk jockeys creating their own "5-a-day" empires. 

If you are interested, go to your local town hall and ask to see last year's accounts.  How much is essential and how much is creating a client voter base for our Gord?...sorry...your Gord.

Having said all that, I see that the town halls of Murcia owe 630,000,000€ to the banks.

I think i remember being exceedingly wound up by the percent of our UK Council Tax that funds former council staff's current pension payments.

I cant remember the exact figure but it was a hell of a percentage on the Council Tax bill.   This is a joke when Council Tax / Poll Tax / Rates whatever incarnation it was, was only supposed to fund local services.  Not the pensions of all and sundry.

Bah Humbug!   Hmmm definately 1-0 to Spain on this one ... imho.

Dear All,

Ouch!!!!!!!!

are you telling me that the difference between the £50 I should be paying and the £2k I am paying is keeping ex-council expats in good supply of cooked chickens to go with their sunny life over there.

That is cruel in the extreme

Ouch again!

Regards

Norman

PS David doesn't want you to know that the sun was short-lived and the snow has returned with a vengeance here
 

My rubbish payment is seperate & is collected with the water bill every 2 mths @ 12,10 E. We don't have street lights, obviously none of the Mayors relatives live down my road ! Yes, the council tax in the UK funds local authority pensions just as individual police authority budgets pay police pensions.

But your council tax in UK also funds the police.

What annoys me ... and i am no expert here ... but it appears that our UK Council Tax is also funding all the retired public service personnel  on an ongoing year on year basis. 

It does not appear that any money was invested, whilst these people preformed their 'public service', into a pension pot as per the private sector.  Thus, we are all now being stiched up for a stonking great Council Tax bill to fund the ever increasing number of retired ex public sector workers.

Yet another reason why i want out

Dear All,

it is a difficult and serious subject but once you involve the police you get a scenario where young men with a life expectancy of perhaps 50 years are retired with good pensions (perhaps the best), re-employed as consultants etc or even council workers and perhaps earn yet another good pension??????????

it seems that there is a bottomless pit to be filled and perhaps the 20% EU budget payment we are making isn't half enough???

we should be paying a bit more to save Greece, Italy and Spain as I expect will be decided today.

trouble is we are skint, thanks to the banks, once they are all saved the £ will be worth 60c.

Oh well it wont worry me for too long.

Regards

Norman