Antonio Flores’ Blog

It is a well-documented fact in Spain that, in the layman’s mind, we have a sluggish judicial system is incapable of dealing with a backlog of undecided cases. And this is bad because it brings to the entire court system a loss of public confidence, respect and pride.

But there are notable exceptions: the Spanish Supreme Court has recently ruled on two immigration cases (7/4/2014 and 5/5/2014) in a record breaking time of just under 2 years from when the Spanish Consulate in Teheran turned down two permanent residency applications, rejections subsequently confirmed by the Madrid Appeal Court.

These cases relate to Iranian nationals who had filed for Spanish non-lucrative residency in September 2012, after purchasing real estate in the province of Malaga. In their applications, they had proven that they possessed sufficient “means of subsistence” for the first twelve months, which is the duration of the initial residency period. Both the Consulate and the Appeal Court, strangely enough, understood that the required means of subsistence had to be enough to cover the full span of the temporary residency period, five years, when the law states one year.

The relevance of these cases stems from the unexpected judicial speediness and efficiency in resolving cases that would otherwise drag on for six or more years, an average time to reach the Supreme Court.

But the case also sends a crucial confidence message to investors who rely on the word of the law but have to endure the pains, when applying for their visas, of discourteous and unprofessional members of the Spanish consular service, often seen as a deterrent to foreign investment.

And I can sympathize with Iranians in particular as I have had to deal, many times that is, with bizarre decisions by the Spanish Consulate in Tehran, a place that I have incidentally visited personally on one occasion.

As said, a small victory for two Iranian families willing to invest in Spain but, most significantly, a far-reaching message to investors and Consular service staff members: the law is to be applied, and nothing more.

Antonio Flores Immigration Non-Lucrative Visa Spain, Self-Employed Residency Spain, Spain Immigation, Spain Investor Visa, Spain residency

We all know fraudsters never sleep, just like money; in fact when our guard is down the fraudster can be at his most damaging.

And this is exactly what is happening as a result of the irresponsible press release issued by the Spanish Government last November, when they propagated the lie that they would be offering residency (automatic) for anyone who bought a property worth €160,000 and above.

The above innocent release triggered a desire by tens of thousands of potential buyers eager to move to this part of the world, whether to be able to start a better life away from war zones or potentially conflictive areas, move the family to better education or living conditions and where the choice was for the Coastal areas, get the enviably famous weather. For many too, it was a way to be able travel more effectively without the hindrance of waiting in queues to be dealt by unfriendly Consulate staff for visas and for a few, for reasons of privilege and even social status.

And confusion was compounded by ignorant journalists who mistook residency for “citizenship”.

So in the wake of all the above, professional conmen saw an opportunity to try to trick desperate families into buying a property and on the back of it, get permanent residency for all the family. One of such companies, Green Planet EU residency, most probably run by former timeshare resale scammers, is offering a package where you pay €220,000 and you get, for the privilege, a property and a residency card. To make things look legit, they resort to the Costa conman manual and pick novice lawyers generally based in Fuengirola to receive the payment (whether the lawyers are aware of the scam or not is unknown to us).

Far from it. There is no approved norm, law, act, ruling or otherwise, in Spanish law, that will allow you to get automatic residency by buying a property worth €160,000 and above, for one simple reason: it was never approved.

The latest move by the Spanish Government has been to announce that, after much consideration, they will grant residency to families buying a property worth €500,000 and above, as was approved on Friday the 24th of May. But beware, this pre-law has not been published in the official gazette (www.boe.es) so even after this press release, professionals in the sector need to be cautious because as of yet, buying a property over 500,000 (cash-no mortgage) will yet not secure residency, and it is not going to be retrospectively applied!

Antonio Flores Immigration, Scams Spain immigration, Spain property automatic residency, Spain residency