Town hall rate's

 Hi

I have received an e-mail from my solicitor which was dealing with our house when we bought it in 2006. I haven't heard from him in the last Four year's and now he is looking for payment on behalf of the Town Hall. Below is a copy of the e-mail that he sent and I was just wondering was this normal. I just thought that it was strange seen as that I haven't heard from him in Year's, and is this payment going to be a Yearly thing from now on. I will be going over for the summer hols and I will try and find out a bit more.

Regards

Johnp

Dear Mr. O’Neil

I send you the Town Hall Rates we have received in our office, we could arrange directly the payment, if you transfer the funds of 212,17 euros to our client account:

Town Hall rates (IBI) are payable annually, and is often collected by an organisation on behalf of various town halls. If your house was bought newly built it is possible that this is the first time that you have been billed; maybe not. Normally these bills are paid by your bank, if you organise a DDM. To do this may save on any fees which your solicitor might charge you for his service!

The due date of payment is between May and July, or later depending on your township, and a late payment attracts a 20% surcharge. They are payable by the owner of the property as at 1 January each year.

I am sure you appreciate that IBI is substantially less than would be payable on a UK house!

Pay the town hall directly or as said, the soicotor will add his charges,

Then make a Direct Debit for subsquent years.

Also be ware of electric, water, and basura cahrges,  and if you have a garage (Ior a space) the chagre for driving in and out, across the footpath, payable to,the townhall.

Yes , rates are lower than UK, but no one has yet given me a satisfactory explanation as to why i pay 385 euros on this urbanisation, yet a similar house in the village or campo may only pay 50 euros or less. Surely the value of my land isn't that much greater? If it's judged by facilities then the next village is better off than us since it has a medical centre, pharmacy,supermarket, street lighting, bus service etc. We  might have a few more bars and small shops but that's all. I won't even get started on my opinion of the fact that only 900 out of all the 4,500 houses pay IBI!. Before anyone starts saying abou esctrituras, legality of houses etc-i've heard it all!

 We went out to our apartment in May to find demands from Vera Town Hall for IBI, for also Rubbish Tax dating back to when we purchased our apartment in 2009. We have now had to pay all back dated bills, plus intetest which has all been due to the authorities incompitence of not sending them out in the past. 

We have had DD's set up since 2010 but they can't collect back dated bills by this method, and our Barclays Bank Manager in Mojacar was very helpfull but we had to visit the townhall to sort them all out.

So from our experience and what we have been told the Authorities are now out to get all Unpaid Taxes, so be aware, as we had to fork out 240Euro's.

Don't expect the townhall to  tell you that have to pay. In Spain generally you are the one who must know that you need to pay and tp knw the date by which you must do so.