IBI receipts and personal vigilance

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costa-brava
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IBI receipts and personal vigilance

Post by costa-brava »

Let's start with a "not-so-funny" case of an elderly couple in the UK. It's from the Independent newspaper.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 21311.html
And now I will explain four separate occasions where I had problems with the Spanish land registry and how the solution came from my own vigilance of the IBI receipts.
FIRST CASE 1997: We sold our house of ten years in the town of Calonge (Girona) and bought an old (out of business) hostal in nearby Palamos. At the same time I got a registered letter from Calonge Ayuntamiento saying that they were initiating legal procedings to recover unpaid IBI. I had all my receipts and trotted off indignantly to the Town Hall. I was getting nowhere; they insisted it was unpaid. Eventually I was directed to the department of territory. A very helpful girl brought our house and street up on the computer screen. The solution hit me immediately. Our house was number 27 (the last in the street) and they had 28. Further investigation showed two houses in our names, one of which didn't exist. The developer had submitted plans for 28 houses but the Council only granted 27. It was easily sorted and cost me nothing but didn't come off the property registers till the next year.
CASE 2: After a few years in the "new" house in Palamos the IBI payments jumped up. I took the "numero catastral" from the IBI receipt and popped it into the "sede electronica de catastro" online. We were the proud owners of our neighbour's patio and kitchen plus we had about 50 square metres too much in the register and they had classified a part as living space that was just a wash-house on the roof. I took photos and went with my neighbour to the Town Hall. The official took the photos, made a wee sketch and sent it off to the office of "catastro" in Girona. Once again it was fixed by the next year. It cost €80 admin but it took €500 a year off our IBI.
CASE 3: For a flat we bought from our son I noticed that the total IBI bills were in my name. It was bought jointly with my wife so the bills should have come 50-50. This would mean that further down the line she could be charged inheritance tax if I popped it first. Fortunately Catalunya has a 99% discount for spouses on inheritance tax but I still felt it was needing fixed. Just a simple form to fill in at the town hall and again all fixed.
CASE 4: A little house we had in Platja d'Aro 5 miles down the coast. It was tiny with just 30 sq/m downstairs and 20 upstairs. We had a big snowstorm which smashed a lot of trees so I cleared ours up and did some repairs to the patio. Then suddenly our IBI jumped up. Into the "Sede" again I found that the patio had been mistaken for an extention in aerial photos so they arbitrarily decided our house had got bigger. For this one they asked for a surveyor's report (arquitecto tecnico). So it cost about €200 but easily fixed.
The couple in the UK story will have to pay £1500 to get their problem fixed.
BUT and here is the big but. If you try to find the land registry in Spain, most agencies will direct you to the "Registro de Propiedad" and although it's an essential element in the equation it is not the main office of land registry.
This post is too long so I'll do some details of how land registry works in another post.