Green Card - Post Brexit

[carolinet]

Hello Everyone - apologies if this topic has already been covered but I haven't been on the Forum for a while.....

My husband and I have owned a property here on Fuerteventura for 20 years but chose not to take out full spanish residency after Brexit as we still need to travel between Fuerte and England for work on a regular basis so the new 90 day travel limits actually work quite well for us.

However, we used to get local discounts for example, local residencia rates at the golf clubs or Oasis Park Zoo on the island but I am now told that our paper NIE documents are no longer sufficient to prove our residency and we need to have green cards to prove we own our property and to get discount.

I asked my lawyer and she said we need to get in touch with Spanish Consul in England and ask for Residencia no Lucrativa for a new NIE.

Any help / thoughts would be most welcome please....

Regards
C.

[Cotillo_Tom]

Hi Carol,

Good to see you on the forum. I don't bring any good news.

Owning a property is not the same as being a resident and the gap between the two has widened very much since the dreadful Brexit!! Having an NIE is not residency but it is essential for any transactions out here (ie buying a property, getting water or electricity supplies etc). Many non-resident owners applied to go onto the Padron (the Town Hall list of residents and voters).

In the 'good old days' (before Brexit), having an NIE and being on the Padron was enough to be treated as a resident, gaining various discounts etc. Post Brexit, only changing the 'Green Card' to a TIE counts. That was possible in the short period of transition between EU Members and not being EU Citizens.

Now Brexit is fully operational, residency can only be gained by an application to the Spanish Embassy or Consul in your country of residence (I'm assuming that's the UK for you), so London or Edinburgh is where you start.

There are various types of visa to get residency, and I'm not going to detail them all here, but Google Spanish Residency Visa and you will see a whole page full! In short, they are expensive and take ages to obtain, unless you have about a million euros to invest in a new property or business.

Sorry to say, you missed the boat to move from green card to TIE.

Best wishes,

Tom.

[Talinc]

Hi there,

It sounds like you'll need to upgrade to the green residency card to access local discounts... Contacting the Spanish Consul in England for a Residencia No Lucrativa to get a new NIE is the right approach. I hope this helps!