Brexit paperwork

There are lots of English language Facebook pages dedicated to living in Spain and aimed at Britons. There are Citizens Advice pages, Civil Guard authored pages, one from the British Consulate and subject specific pages like After Brexit and more. They are all alive with Brexit problems. Twitter is also aglow with similar stuff. Originally it was pros and cons but now it's practicalities. Apparently, since January 1st, British people who live in Spain, but are in the UK, have been bumping into problems getting home. Some of it seems to be the teething problems of new requirements at the border - the officials don't recognise the documentation and stuff written in Spanish makes no sense to them - but it has left people stranded.

One of the things that sometimes makes me snigger and sometimes exasperates me is the lack of understanding and failure to grasp the basics of the paperwork that most of us have here in Spain. I can't guarantee the accuracy of the rest of this post but, so far as I know, it's correct.

The Spaniards lived under two dictatorships in the 20th Century. The better known one had Franco as its Head of State. He introduced an identity card system and as a part of that Spaniards were issued with a unique identification number similar to the VIN on my car but shorter. The Spanish ID is called the DNI, Documento Nacional de Identidad and it has 8 digits and one verification letter which is generated by a mathematical formula. Spaniards older than 14 have to have an individual DNI, it's an offence not to have one. So the format is 12345678Z

Spaniards are identified by their DNI, it was originally a sort of tax identifier but now it's linked to everything from buying a mobile phone to passports. Because not everyone who wants to buy a property or a boat in Spain is Spanish there had to be something similar for foreigners. The similar document for foreigners is the NIE - the Foreigner's Identification Number, Número de identidad de extranjero. The NIE is really a tax identification number but, just like the DNI, it is now linked to so much more. The number is made up of an initial letter followed by seven digits and then a verification letter. The start letter is either an X or a Y. So the format is X1234567L or Y1234567X

Foreigners who want to live in Spain have to comply with a variety of conditions. Provided things are as they should be they are issued with an Identity Card or Residence Card and that card will carry their NIE. That's what happened to Maggie when she got a job here in the 1990s. She got the Residence Card because she had a job. The process included being fingerprinted and photographed. When we came house hunting in Spain, before we lived here, we went to a police station to get an NIE. I was issued with one but Maggie didn't need one because the number issued to her in the 1990s was still good. The NIE was just a piece of white A4 paper. 

Once we'd moved here we applied for Residence Cards. On the very day that I went to get my fingerprints done to get that card it was abolished for European Citizens.  I was literally in a queue to get the card and turned away. The reason the cards were abolished was because I was not a foreigner, I was a European citizen and we European citizens had rights in the member countries. Some European agreement, possibly Maastricht, said that the Spaniards couldn't demand that we Britons carry a Spanish ID card. The reasoning being that whatever our National Identity Document was (passport in our case) it was sufficient to move anywhere in Europe. The same would be true for French, Dutch, Belgians, Luxembourgians, Italians and so on. The new system would be  a register of European Citizens living in Spain. 

Maggie and I registered as soon as the new process came into being, probably around 2007. We were given a piece of A4 paper which had lots of green on it. This green certificate which was actually officially the Certificado de Registro de Ciudadano de la Unión or Registration Certificate for a Citizen of the Union was proof that we'd registered with the National Police as being resident in Spain. In time that certificate changed shape and size to be a sort of paper card but its purpose was very much the same. Everybody I know calls that certificate/card the Residencia.

Then came Brexit. When it was complete we would be foreigners again. Not European Citizens. Foreigners, such as Canadians, Mauritians and Chinese, living in Spain have a card which is called a Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero or a Foreigners Identity Card. I'm not sure whether it was by negotiation or because the Spaniards baulked at the idea of re-registering the approximately 300,000 Britons resident in Spain that it was decided that the green bits of paper and the green cards would continue to be valid for Britons to show that they had registered correctly before the end of the transition year and were legal to continue living in Spain from the start of 2021. There was also the offer to swap the green certificate for an ID card much like the ones carried by Spaniards and foreigners, a TIE card, but without most of the usual bureaucratic palaver. That system started in summer 2020 and Maggie and I went and got ours as soon as we could.

To recap then the NIE is simply an ID number and has nothing specifically to do with residence. The green residence certificate or card and the special Brexit TIE card all show that someone who was living here before 31 December 2020 has continuing resident status and is legally living here. There are also, apparently, letters of intent which show that Britons were living here with their rights as Europeans but that the authorities didn't have time to process the paperwork before Big Ben chimed the last EU hour. Provided they complete the process they too will be legal.

There is another piece of paper which we Brits usually call the padrón. Each municipality keeps a register of the people who live there. This register is used for statistical purposes, as the census for funding for municipalities and as the basis of the electoral roll. Under some circumstances the "padrón" gives you some rights but for most Britons it simply registers us to an address. Often, if you want to carry out something financial, like entering into a loan agreement, you'll need a "padrón" that's no more than 3 months old but the "padrón" has nothing to do with residency status.

Obviously there are Britons who have recently moved to Spain and all this new paperwork must have been horrible for them. I sympathize because Covid has slowed everything down and getting an appointment has been hampered by unscrupulous characters who have found a way to profit out of selling on the appointments. 

On the other hand I have been amazed by the number of people who have lived here for years and years and have also been involved in the last minute scrabble. People who have always renewed their UK driving licences by using a family member's UK address, people who have never got around to getting one of the green certificates and maybe aren't even on the padrón. Some of those people seem to be blissfully unaware of anything that is going on around them. Back at Twitter and Facebook I have seen people who have no idea which document is which and what it's good for. And can you imagine the Customs Official at Stansted presented with a letter of intent to apply for this or that in flowery Spanish when their briefing says to only allow residents to travel?

Getting the new Brexit version TIE

Maggie and I went for our new TIE cards, Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero, Foreigner's Identity Card, today. The idea of this entry is to explain the bare bones of the process for someone who has to do it and who already has one of the green residence forms or cards.

Now that we are no longer European Union Citizens we Britons can get this ID card, we have been able to since Monday. We don't have to, at least for a while, but we can. The advantage is, in a country that uses and demands ID all the time, we will have a credit sized card that will save us the bother of carrying around our passport and other floppy bits of paper. I think, though I'm not sure, that it also allows us to sign in for certain online transactions.

The process was pretty straightforward. I saw, online, that there were some appointments available and didn't hesitate to book them up straight away. Getting appointments for lots of the official procedures has been difficult for months, no doubt partly due to we Britons finally sorting out our missing paperwork as the getting Brexit done dates came and went and came and went. I was happy to get an appointment at all and amazed when I managed to get appointments for both Maggie and me within half an hour of each other on the same day. If you have a go and you find there are no appointments available try again later. They seem to come and go quite often.

The paperwork we needed was pretty simple. There's a form for the process available online, we also had to pay the 12€ fee beforehand, which we did at a local bank. As well as the two forms the Foreigner's Office wanted a copy of the form that shows your official address, the padrón, a copy of the green document that all we British immigrants call the residencia (mine was one of the A4 sized sheets), a photo and, of course, sight of the British passport. Hardly anything. There was a trick to come though but I was ready for it.

We found the Foreigner's Office in Alicante easily, parking was easy too and it was on "our" side of town. A bit before the appointed time I queued up outside. It was a short queue of maybe seven or eight people, I showed my appointment card to the security guard and he let me in. It was amazing the number of people he turned away because they didn't have appointments. Once inside I went through the security scanner and then tapped my appointment code into a machine. The machine spat out a sort of delicatessen counter ticket and the number on that ticket flashed up on a TV screen in the waiting area telling me where to go. I went to my appointed desk in the appointed room and handed over my paperwork. In the official list of required paperwork there was mention of passport and residencia - there was no mention of copies but I've been to a lot of government offices in my 15 years here and I've learned to carry more paper than they ask for. So, when they wanted a copy of the passport and a copy of the residencia I pulled them out of my bag, rabbit like. The biggest problem was my fingerprints. I had to give my fingerprints for the biometric data chip and it appears I don't have one or any. As I said to the bloke I must remember to use that finger on the trigger if the time ever comes. I tried lots of time, maybe forty times before they got the prints they needed. That done, paperwork stapled together, the man gave me a paper slip which told me where to collect my new card in "about" three weeks. I was out within about 20 minutes.

Maggie had a similar experience though the security guard wasn't around for twenty minutes or so, probably breakfast time, I kid you not, so she was a bit late getting in. And Maggie's top hat didn't work so well - she pulled out the residencia but not a copy of her passport so she had to go to the nearby bar to get a copy. Even then she only took about 40 minutes to complete the process.

Now, if the document turns up, as promised in three weeks, just one more trip to Alicante and we're in business.

This part was written on 30 July. I rang, yesterday, to see if the card was ready and they said it was. I was told there was no appointment system and just to turn up at Calle Campo de Mirra, 6 between 9am and 2pm. That's what I did. There was a bit of queuing but basically it was hand over the bit of paper I'd been given at the end of the first session, show my passport, hand in the green residence form, give a couple of fingerprints and leave with my new TIE card.

Trying to get an ID card

In Spain you have to carry ID at all times. For Spanish nationals they have an identity card, the DNI and for foreigners there is a TIE, the Foreigner's Identity Card. EU citizens, within an EU country like Spain, are neither Nationals nor foreigners. This means that EU citizens have to carry the form of ID in use in their country. Now we Brits are a little odd in that we don't have an ID card so Brits are supposed to carry their passport with them at all times in case the "Competent Authority" needs to see it.

As well as the need to carry identification EU citizens, living in Spain, have to register. When the scheme was first introduced the registration certificate was a bit of green A4 paper but later it became smaller and more card like, something like the old UK paper driving licence.

A couple of weeks ago the UK left the European Union. Consequently the registration document became a bit of an anachronism for UK citizens. Nonetheless with the transition period, the limbo time, we're neither fish nor fowl. Quite what's going to happen is a bit moot. As everyone else in Spain carries ID then Britons are obviously going to have to do the same in time. There are a lot of us though, nearly 366,000, so if we all popped out to get our new ID between now and the end of the transition period it may all get a bit congested. Currently the idea is that the process for exchanging the green certificate for something more like the Spanish or Foreigners card, will be quick, cheap and easy.

Getting an appointment to go to one of the offices where ID cards and the like are handed out has become a bit of a problem. Most of the time it doesn't matter much to we (relatively) wealthy Brits, it's usually no more than a minor inconvenience. Not always though. It can sometimes make life very difficult even for we haves. For the have nots who need to rent a flat or find a job it can be disastrous.

The few weeks I spent in the Cub Scouts taught me to be prepared. I applied for an appointment back in November to get myself a new identity card appointment after the Brexit date. Clearly stating that I was British and I wanted the Foreigner's Identity Card, the TIE, I got an appointment. I'm not isolated though; I read the press, I have been keeping up to date with the Brexit information from the British and Spanish Governments as well as checking the Citizens Advice Bureau Spain stuff. I knew that the process wasn't going to be generally available on the date of my interview.

I came very close to cancelling the appointment. In the end I asked the Citizen's Advice people what they thought, expecting the answer to be that there wasn't a chance. What they actually said was along the lines of - you've got nothing to lose by having a bash, have a go and tell us how you get on.

I went, yesterday. The appointment was in Benidorm. The policeman on the front of house information desk was acting as gatekeeper asking all sorts of questions before allowing anyone to stay. I thought that was quite positive. He was turning away well over 75% of the people for being in the wrong office, not having an appointment or not having the basic documentation.

I got seen half an hour after my appointment time. I told another police officer what I was there for. He looked at the paperwork and said no. He reckoned it would be September before they started to process we Britons. It took him about 2 minutes to turn me away. I wasn't surprised, I wasn't shocked or angry. It was just a bit of a waste of time.

Hang on, let's say he's right and they get cracking on September 1. The end of the transition period is 31 December 2020. That's 121 days (we'll pretend there are no holidays or Sundays) so if there are 365,967 Britons resident in Spain my arithmetic says they will need to process 3,024 people a day.

Dealing appointments

Spaniards are very ID conscious. They carry ID cards and use them all the time. One of the first tasks of anyone moving here is to get a foreigners identification number, the NIE. It's a bit like your own personal VIN. It will turn up on all sorts of documentation from your tax return to your driving licence. It's not difficult to obtain but it does involve form filling, fee paying and going to an immigration office or National Police station. In the past it meant a lot of queuing but nowadays appointments can be booked beforehand, usually online. Appointment systems are now used by nearly every agency including traffic, social security, land registry, employment and immigration.

Europeans from the European Union have more rights in Spain that someone from Senegal or the US. We're also able to sidestep some of the things that we should do from tax registration to driving licence swapping. Brexit will put us on a par with the Senegalese and Americans so there has been a bit of a rush of Britons trying to put their administrative paperwork in order before that happens. There are Britons all over Spain but most of we pinker and older ones live in Alicante and Malaga provinces or on the Balearics and Canaries. People began to have problems getting citas previas, appointments, in these areas and the presumption was that it was sheer weight of numbers.

My paperwork is, basically, in order. I didn't need to run off for a residency certificate or a driving licence because I already had them. I also felt pretty smug about my healthcare. Then the Social Security people turned down my application to renew my European Health Card. This was not good, I was pretty sure I had health cover because of my status as an ex-worker but it now looks as though it's a concession to a long term resident.

Pension systems all over Europe are creaking and soon we'll all be to working till we drop. Not me though, I'm getting money already. I have enough time worked in the UK and Spain to claim a full pension. Last December the bloke in the Social Security Office told me that I would get a proportion from both countries though my Spanish State Pension wouldn't become due till four months after my UK pension. I've just passed that date. Not a dicky bird though. So, all of a sudden I'm concerned that my health cover is not as it was and maybe I'm not going to get a Spanish pension. I could have to depend on the UK and with Brexit wobbling towards us that's bad. I decided I needed an appointment to talk to someone about my status. I went online to book an appointment - six weeks! This was Social security not Immigration. Why the wait?

Yesterday morning I heard on the radio that there was a demonstration planned outside Extranjeria, the Immigration office, in Madrid to protest the lack of appointments. If, as a newcomer, you can't get an appointment and you can't sort out your ID card or number then you won't be able to get a job or rent a flat or even take on a mobile phone contract. Indeed, technically, some people could be deported. I delved a little deeper and found that all the offices are backed up, not just the ones besieged by Brits, mainly due to staff shortages. Some of that is cuts but apparently it's also because we still have a caretaker government so things that need parliamentary approval, like taking on new government workers, are not happening. And it's not just Immigration there are problems with Traffic and Passports and lots of other agencies.

But the thing that really surprised me about this story was that some people have found a way to take advantage of this situation. I found several complaints about "mafias" operating in the appointments game. I'm not sure how - maybe by simply transporting people to areas where there are appointments are available, maybe by block booking appointments and then selling them on in ticket tout style but it looks as though, as usual, poor people are being robbed by the unscrupulous.

I don't suppose we Britons will generally fall into the hands on mini gangsters but I do wonder what will happen when Brexit actually happens and nearly 400,000 Britons start looking for an appointment to get new ID cards.