Sur in English

NEW REGULATIONS TO OBTAIN THE FISCAL IDENTITY NUMBER (N.I.E.)
Spanish authorities have changed the procedure to obtain the NIE for foreigners again. The new regulations came into force on the 3rd January 2012 and as a result, the new NIE will be turned into a card which involves a more complicated administrative process, something that seemed almost impossible.
A Power of Attorney to apply for a NIE on behalf of the applicant cannot be used anymore and people must attend to the police station and apply directly for the NIE.
How you have to deal with the application for a NIE is a process that involves the following steps:
• You have to be at the Police Station as early as possible in order to be to collect a ticket with a number. Then you would wait a few hours until it is your turn.
• You may anticipate the payment of the fee in a bank in order to save a few hours more queuing up.
• You will have to show a proof which justifies the need for the NIE.
• Depending on the different places that you go within Spain, you may have to provide some specific documents. In certain places, the officer would refuse to accept a reservation contract or a rental agreement and would require something “more official”.
• If you achieve to pass all the obstacles, you will finally obtain the NIE in a few days.
All the above procedure will now have to be suffered directly by the potential property buyers and this may have a very negative effect into our property industry.
Real estate buyers or those who wish to set up business in Spain, rent a property, find a job, buy a car, etc……will have to remember to go through this application process.
Spanish consulates and Embassies are also commissioned to receive applications as regulated in the RD 557/2011). We shall see the agony of the Consulate officers very soon.
A few questions:
1. Why passports or national identity cards are not valid in Spain, as in the rest of the world?
2. Provided that the NIE number is necessary for many transactions, why the Spanish authorities do not issue it immediately and automatically.
3. When we can do most of the transactions through internet, why a NIE cannot be obtained on line?
4. If it is (and IT IS) a fiscal tool, why do you have to queue up for hours and hours and even pay a fee to the government.
The Bar Association of Malaga reacted as a result of the great number of complaints received in its office and has been in conversations with the Foreigners department of the Police Station in Malaga.
As a negative answer arrived from the Secretaria de Estado de Extranjería on the 13 December 2011, the Bar Association has taken this relevant and negative matter to the National Consejo General de la Abogacía (the central office for the Spanish Bar Association)
The process and the requirements are regulated in the article 206 of the LAW published on the 20 April 2011, art 206 (Reglamento de Extranjeria)

Belen Cepero
January 2012