And I thought I'd finished paying for the car

Second-hand car prices being what they are in Spain, and because I could, I bought a car from new. I was actually in a situation where I could have paid outright (pension lump sum), but the dealer offered a better price, even with all the interest, on a finance package. The finance period had to be 48 months or more.

When the last instalment left my bank account on September 14 this year I grinned. The car was mine. Or so I thought.

I have an application on my phone called Mi DGT or My DGT (DGT is Dirección General de Transporte - something like The Ministry of Transport ). Apart from being a bit on the clunky side, the phone app's OK. It holds my driving licence and most of the official documentation on the car. At the top of the details about the car, there is a red band and a warning sign. Basically, it says I'm not the owner of the car, VW Finance is. I've been waiting for the red notice to go away since I paid the last instalment, but today, for the first time, I bothered to read the whole of the explanatory note against the warning and not just the first sentence. It said that, once I'd paid for the car, I would need to register it on the Registro de Bienes Muebles. Before I did that, the title of the car would remain with the finance company as they have something called reserva de dominio, and it could "impede" the transfer or sale of the vehicle. The note said that the finance company would give me the certificate so I could go through the process.

I'd never heard of this, I didn't know what it was, and for once, I didn't go to Google for the answer. I was going into Pinoso anyway, so I went to the office of the gestor (sort of half accountant half official paperwork handler) that does my tax return. 

At first, the woman I talked to had no idea what I was talking about but, after a bit of goading, she phoned someone else. He knew. After the call, she said they could process the paperwork for me. Normally, I'd do these things myself. The digital signature, a sort of certificate of identity on my computer, makes carrying out lots of official things pretty easy, but I'd heard about the huge delays in getting a person-to-person appointment with the DGT, and I'd rather dropped myself in it by asking in the office first. It was a case of "sod it", alright then, you do it. Oh, by the way, how much is it? The 100€ answer was a bit of a shock but, in for a penny. I handed over the certificate from the finance company, I handed over copies of the ficha técnica and the permiso de circulación (car logbook and registration type documents), a copy of my personal ID and two crisp 50€ notes. The gestor prefers cash!

Now, I suppose I just wait till either the little warning note goes from the app or the gestor phones me up.

A new driving licence

I was wearing green flares and a pink shirt with a big collar when I took my first driving test. I was a callow youth of 16. That first licence only allowed me to drive a three wheeler (and probably ride a moped) but, when I turned 17, I passed the car driving test and got a bunch of other classes of vehicles added to my little red driving licence booklet. So I've had a licence for well over 50 years now. That original "full" driving licence included specific classes for vehicles such as invalid carriages, road rollers and trolley vehicles. Later, probably when I got one of those folding green and pink two part driving licences, the classes changed to the ones that have been stable now for years. - two wheelers in class A, cars and light vans as class B, goods vehicles class C and class D for buses and the like. British photocard licences were introduced a couple of years before the new millennium and I think the design has remained basically the same till the present day though I don't actually know because I changed my British licence for a Spanish one in 2012. If the UK licence is still the same I'm sure that plans are well in hand to change it to an English, Welsh, Scottish or Northern Ireland licence, one that has nothing to do with Johnny Foreigner, a licence that will properly reflect BRITISH traditions and attitudes; something to safeguard our national heritages.

Anyway I live in Spain and I have a DGT app, the DGT is the Dirección General de Tráfico (which I bet you can both translate and get the gist of their remit just from the name), and the other day that application sent me a little message to tell me that I could now renew the light lorry/big van class on my driving licence which was due to run out in February of next year. Generally Spanish licences for motorbikes and cars last for 10 years but, after age 65, that becomes five years. For the "professional" licence classes like big vans, buses etc., licences have to be replaced every five years up to age 65 and every three years after that. The chances of me driving something like a motorhome or a three and a half tonne van in the next few years are pretty low but I decided I didn't want to lose the right and in asking how I made an appointment I ended up renewing my licence today.

Replacing or renewing a licence is simple enough, there's some form to be filled in and a fee to be paid. I think it's 24.10€ for an updated licence (new photo, address change etc.) and 20.40€ for a duplicate of a lost licence. I don't really know how it's done because I've always paid someone to do it for me. That's because there is another part to renewing a licence which is called a psychotechnical test. This involves doing some exercises on a computer type screen that always remind me of the 80s arcade game, Space Invaders, or maybe that ping pong one. The graphics are simple, to say the least, and the whole thing seems a bit steam driven. The tests are to check co-ordination and reactions. There are also a couple of questions as to whether you have any illnesses, whether you're a drunk or a druggie and if you can see and hear. Different centres take the question and answer parts more or less seriously. A clinic in Monóvar actually had me doing hearing and sight tests but the place I've been to the last couple of times seems less strict!

So I played Pong, answered the questions, had my photo taken, signed the forms and handed over 79.34€. As the renewal fee is 24.10€ that must mean that the testing and form filling cost me 55.24€. It may be that that's something plus VAT because it seems like an odd price. Mind you, the last time I put a car through an MOT type test it cost 53.69€. Worse, I've just noticed that the other place that does psicotécnico tests in Pinoso is offering them for 40€ at the moment. I wouldn't have found that out if I'd been sure how to spell psicotécnico!

I was given a temporary cover note for the licence, even though I still have the, in date, original, and told that the new licence will be sent to me by post. I've just noticed though that on the DGT application, on my phone, the dates have already been extended and I'm OK on the car licence till 2027 (well into my dotage) and for the big vans till 2025. Cool.

These things are sent to try us: two

If you need to go to a bank in Spain think about it taking a good part of your morning. You may be lucky. Correct desk. Person not at breakfast. No wait. No complications. I'm sure it will happen one day but even when it's been a relatively problem free run it has seldom taken me less than twenty to thirty minutes. It doesn't matter where it is, as soon as there's a physical or virtual queue it's going to take time.

Obviously the Post Office falls into this category. Yesterday I had a package to post. I went to the Post Office. Because the number of people who can be inside the office is limited the queue was in the street. I stayed for a while but after 20 minutes nobody had gone in and nobody had come out. My mask was getting tacky; I gave up. I popped back twice more in the next two hours. The queue was going nowhere. The main man in our post office isn't the sort of person to get flustered. He doesn't hurry. I thought I may be able to sidestep the queue and went to get the price from a private carrier but 20€ to send a 1 kilo packet seemed a bit steep. 

I went back to the Post office before 9am this morning when I reckoned there wouldn't be much of a queue. I was right; there was just one person in front of me. I was in and out in about 25 minutes.

Actually whilst I was there I got one of the DGT (Transport Directorate) stickers for Maggie's car. There are four stickers related to emissions - one for things like electric cars, another for the hybrids and then a couple more for modern and modernish diesels and petrol engined cars. The stickers come with new cars but Maggie's Ford Fiesta didn't have one. They are used in some cities as a way of identifying cars that are welcome or not welcome under certain conditions and in certain areas. You can get the stickers online but you can also get them at the Post Office and as I'd anticipated there would be no queue I'd taken the vehicle paperwork. I handed over the 5€ fee and came out with one of the C stickers as well as having left the parcel to their tender care.

Putting two and two together

I was in the UK for a couple of days a little while ago. I noticed the car number plates. Actually I notice car number plates as a matter of course. No idea why but I do. I particularly noticed that Britons still have a liking for those personalised plates. I can understand that to a point. If you're called Simon and you have money to burn and you buy 51 MON then that's pretty good but, for the life of me, I couldn't work out why people had paid (presumably) good money for the strange letter number combinations. Why is LFC 24V in an auction with a buy now price of £1750 and a bid of £750?

Anyway, in Spain, you have no choice. You get the next number and letter combination in the sequence. You can't buy and sell number plates. Up to the year 2000 the plates used to indicate where the car was registered with one or two letters to identify the province. Not any more though; now it's just a sequence of three letters and four numbers.

I thought the sequence was AAA 0000 then AAA 0001 etc. till AAA 9999 when it would become ABA 0000 and so on. But I was mistaken. There are no vowels in Spanish number plates and, as soon as someone told me, I realised it was true. And the reason? Well a bit of prudishness maybe. Apparently the Dirección General de Tráfico (look at that you understand Spanish) isn't keen on words like ANO (anus) PIS and GAY (crikey you really understand lots of Spanish) on number plates but also they were against the idea of personalisation; so no EVA (Eva is the equivalent of the name Eve), or LUZ or TEO or POL (all normalish names) as well. There are a couple of other letters that don't get used for their potential confusion - Ñ and Q - and the combinations LL and CH because of their former linguistic use.

Oh, and whilst I'm on number plates I pointed out one of the blue plates with white numbers on the back of a car the other day to Maggie. They are used to identify taxis and the VTCs (Cars with a driver) like Cabify and Uber. I suppose they were introduced as an identifier for the restricted zones of cities, for bus lanes and the like but they also make it easier for taxi drivers and the police to spot the "illegal" taxis of the airport run.