Missing 3% retention refund from the tax office

Hi. Can anyone help please? In December 2019 we sold a property in Murcia and as required paid the 3 % retention tax as all the 4 owners were non residents..  We also paid the plus valia. Four weeks ago 3 out of the 4 of us  received a refund from the tax office. The 4th person did not. We contacted the receiving bank who suggested we requested the tax office put a trace on the payment as they had not received it.. I contacted our solicitor to request he makes contact with the tax office and establish what has happened. Since then I have written to him several times requesting an update but he is not replying to my email mails.  Additionally although he kept the money to pay the Plus Valia I do not know whether it has been paid. I have asked him to reclaim this payment as we lost a significant amount when we sold from what we originally paid for it.  How do I move this situation forward and insure the money owed iso repaid? There are no taxes owed by the person who did not receive the refund so either an error has been made or its got lost. 

Hello Denise and welcome to EOS.

If you are now back in the UK you will be of little or no interest to your Spanish Lawyer. You have ceased to be an earner for him/her.

However if you are still in Spain things maybe easier. You will need to go to your lawyers office and camp in the waiting room with your flask and sandwiches, and demand attention. You could ask for the famous complaints book.

I did read somewhere that the courts had ruled that where a property was sold at a loss ''Plus Valia tax'' was illegal, but town halls said they would continue to do as they like.

There are principles involved here but you need to consider the money involved versus the stress and grief.

Good luck

Hi Kavanagh. Thank you for your advice. As a result I have decided not to pursue the plus valia repayment as it seems a non starter. However I really want to make contact with the tax office as a believe they will have sent the payment and it's got lost in the banking system.  A simple trace will locate it and then my daughter, the fourth person who owned the property can access their refund. I contacted my solicitor again yesterday  and he said his colleuge who deals with the tax office  was dealing with it. I rang his colleuge directly and they said my solicitor was dealing with it! So nothing has been done. Do you know how I might get in contact with the tax office in Murcia? I feel totally let down that a 17 year relationship with this firm of solicitors is ending in this way as over the years they have been supportive but the company has grown and got very busy so maybe this has contributed to the very poor after sales support we have received. It has and still is a most stressful experience.  However once this refund is received we will have completed the process. Many thanks for any advice given.

Just thinking out loud.

Is plus valia based on the cadastral value and not what you may have actually paid for a property or whether you made a loss on that when you sold?

Plus Valia is based on cadastral value land price only. Amazingly while property values in some cases have dropped by 50% since the financial crash of 2008 land prices have doubled. So in theory we are back in the boom times again.