07 Apr 2020 09:35:

I was wondering what happened to the four people who wanted to travel to Gib airport and were told they'd need four cars...and asked would they be able to return to their accomodation if flight cancelled. The post was around a week or so ago but the entire thread has disappeared....as if it never happened.

 

Thread: Gib. Airport

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08 Mar 2020 18:47:

Does anyone have any recommendations for private health care for would-be Spanish residents?

Thread: True immigration control in Spain

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21 Feb 2020 16:36:

I would take the RHD car to Spain....they can fill it with their stuff for the trip and will have no problem driving it around Spain until the end of this year. Once here, I would buy a LHD Spanish plated car. Then I would drive the RHD car back to UK and flog it before Christmas.

Thread: 2020 Situation re UK plated car in Spain and selling RH drive car in Spain

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15 Feb 2020 21:10:

A lot of the "proof" spoken about is irrelevant these days. If Spanish, or any other authority, wants to know where your vehicle was on such and such a date, they can easily interrogate camera and internet data bases. 

eg. a few years ago I was pulled over by a French gendarme at a toll booth in France. He greeted me by my first name. He wanted to examine my pickup. Over the course of the next half hour he explained that my pickup had been logged in Berlin, Cardiff, Lisbon, Genoa, etc during the previous year and had triggered an algorithm suggesting I might be a smuggler or illicit courier of some kind. So they keep all sorts of records of every vehicle in the EU.

Now for a more scary one: A year ago I bought five Krugerrands (about £4 500 at the time) from a dealer who is also a friend in UK. He agreed to keep them for me until I was next in UK and would collect them. While driving to UK I overnighted in Orleans and using the wifi at the hotel sent him a one line email "Will collect the gold within next 48 hours, have cash"._

The following day, driving along the motorway I saw this convoy approaching in my rear view mirror with lights flashing. Two police motor cyclists aggressively forced me off the road. Five more cars joined them, gendarmes, police & customs. Male and female agents. Fifteen in total. Again, they addressed me by name and asked if I "had anything to declare". I laughed, they laughed and then they asked "where's the gold or where's the cash?". Cut a long story short, they went through everything..measured my vehicle with gadgets looking for secret panels, etc. It took an hour...they made no secret they were looking either for gold or cash to pay for gold. My email had obviously been scanned and presumably the words gold and cash had triggered an alarm. They had obviously hoped they'd nabbed some big time smuggler.  Real tin foil hat stuff. 

Moral of story: you don't need to keep petrol receipts. If they want to know where and where you were.....they already know, lol.

 

Thread: Registering as EU citizen

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13 Feb 2020 13:37:

Dog's breakfast indeed.

And assuming one flew or took a ferry from UK directly to Spain, one's passport wouldn't be stamped on arrival...what would be the point?

As John points out, his wife has free movement but is not entitled to spend more than three months in another EU country. Which is practically impossible to enforce as there are no frontier checks. It's a recognised loophole.

I think that some similar loophole will be fudged for Brits with holiday homes in Spain. Properties in Spain will be much less desirable if one is told "if you spend March, April & May in your Spanish property.....you can't visit it again until September.....and you can't meanwhile spend a weekend in Paris because you've used up your allocation."

It's probably easiest to register for Spanish residency.

 

 

Thread: EU registration

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