07 Jul 2016 10:40 PM:

The private medical firms do vary in whether they decide to cover a pre-existing condition, so definitely shop around : suggest going through an insurance broker..many speak English and will do the medical questionnaire in English, if that would be useful.

The broker will have a view on which companies tend to be more lenient on existing conditions.. I went through this, and was surprised that although the first company excluded both my conditions, the second one only excluded one of them, and the premium was the same. And I gave the same information to both.

Johnzx gave some good advice.. If you lie, obviously on top of legal problems, paying full whack etc, you will have also lost all the premiums you have paid in, and you would probably be denied any insurance in the future too.

If the private medical company are faced with a big payout, they would obviously check all the information you have supplied.. When you last visited your doctor, what conditions you have vs what you declared etc.

When you apply for insurance, each company will want a sentence on each condition you have, treatments etc, then when they have accepted you in principle, they will usually go through a very detailed phone call.. 30mins, going through everything in detail.. They will tell you it is being recorded, but you won't have the luxury of recording it too, unless you plan for that in advance.

Who knows if medical companies share information on applications? Surely some data protection act would prevent that, but who knows. It's in their financial interest to do so. There's probably some small print where you give them permission to contact other companies, doctors etc, to verify your claims.

So if you are going to lie, at least be consistent :-) .. But your doctor will give you away anyway.

Even if a condition is accepted in principle, and they begin paying out, on renewal they can either whack up the premiums to make the unaffordable, cancel the policy, or, as some companies claim they guarantee not to cancel your policy, but when pressed they say that they can 'ask you to leave'. The insurance company couldn't give a coherent explanation as to he difference. So definitely check renewal and termination conditions on continued payout for existing conditions before you hand over your money.

 

 

This message was last edited by jon-granada on 07/07/2016.
Thread: Private insurance and pre-existing conditions

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23 Nov 2015 11:41 AM:

I've just gone through the wringer buying in Denia.. been here since April, and I've focussed on doing the same as you.. trying to keep costs down.

So do obvious things like cutting down on (expensive) electricity by buying a wood or pellet burner, and install ceiling fans in every room, and never use the aircon.

Also, consider buying a 'casa suelta' ie. not part of an urbanisation with monthly communidad costs. Or buy a townhouse in Denia town centre.  Tha's 75-250 EUR a month you don't have to pay out.

In Denia specifically(compared to Javea), generally the plot sizes are smaller, and I have a 340m2 house, and in Las Marinas (Denia+2km), and pay around 400 EUR a year IBI.  So buying a decent house on a small plot will obviously keep your annual running costs down.

Watch out as ADSL degrades badly out of Denia town central (+1KM).  I am 2KM, and have 1MBs, which is crap, so I paid for a Wimax wifi solution, and pay about 25 EUR pm for 4MBs, but I could pay more and get higher bandwidth, which obviously costs more... so you need to factor that into your bills (on top of your phone line costs) if you want to watch videos online or make sure you buy somewhere very close to the town centre.

Then there's transport costs if you are out of town, with infrequent buses at this time of the year (1 per hour down to las marinas).

So yep, 1K a month is possible, with a carefully chosen small plot and investment in avoiding electricity, and if you are near town / keep the transport costs down.

The biggest problems that I had in Denia (thought it applies to all of spain -;)

1. dodgy property agents, who just plain lie about everything. Never ask them anything verbally, always demand documents, and get them checked if you don't speak fluently, as they lie about the purpose, scope of the documents they send to you. They will lie once, get caught out, and just continue lying.

2. solicitors who are incompetent and untrustworthy.. they just want you to sign the purchase paperwork so they get their fee, and to hell with your best interests. Don't expect any useful information from them.. you have to know the whole process and double check everything they do with a native speaker, especially re: habitation certificates.

3. getting residence if v. difficult.. queing up at Denia foreigners office at 6am on Friday to get an appointment to see someone the next week. You will need to prove you have FULL private medical coverage, including surgery, or your employer is giving you medical coverage. You will also need 7.5K in a spanish bank, and a certificate from the bank to prove that you have the the 7.5 funds(not a bank statement, a specific document you need to ask the bank for).

4. if you are transfering the property purchase costs (deposit and principal) from outside the EU, as I was, you will hit problems - some banks will roast you alive on where the money came from. ie. you will need a 100% watertight audit trail.. original statements, showing how large sums of money have moved between the EU and AUS. And even then, they will probably say 'well, we can see that you have X going into AUS, and you want to take out Y for the purchase', but how can we be sure X and Y are the same money? Then  you will have to provide bank statement of all your accounts worldwide going back years. Avoid Banco Sabadell!.. BBVA was a much easier ride.  The banks will talk about their 'compliance team' when asking for evidence.. shorthand for the government.  And they won't ask for it all at once.. just drip, drip, question after question, week after week, as they build up your financial profile.

Given problems 1..4, living on 1K a month ? I promise you that's the least of your problems.

All that said, I've gone through the wringer over 6 months, have the efficient house, residency and padron, and I love it here. But get your audit trail bulletproof before you begin, or else it will be a nightmare. Start asking your AUS banks for statements going back years right now (before you close any accounts), should they start to shake you down over your financial affairs.

Best of luck!

Jon.

 

 

 

Thread: Moving to Denia

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13 Sep 2015 6:52 AM:

Funnily enough I have exact data (for July-August differences only).. I was registered with an estate agent earlier this year in Javea/Denia area - not inland, and they had my email address.

3 weeks ago, I received an email from them (clearly to the wrong person) saying.. 'can you ammend Rightmove and Zoopla with the following'.

It showed 19 houses were to removed from the index in September(ie sold or gave up), 19 new properties added, and 3 price reductions.

So the property churn rate is even, One of the price reductions I couldn't find the property ref, but the other two were 3%, 5% reductions.

So don't believe the hype..  info from the horses mouth.  Not one price increase for that agent in the Javea/Denia area. The agents will always say it has never been a better time to buy.

Although from my buying experience documented in other threads (trying to put in offers 10-20% below asking price), most of the sellers I met were either spanish, and just sit on a price, and wait for years, or they are foreigners who don't have enough equity in the property to drop the price any further.. ie it is their bank(mortgage) who decide whether to accept an offer. ie. won't sell or can't sell.

You have to look long and hard, and put lots of offers in to find people not in the above camps.. ie. have lots of equity, and will accept a v. low asking price for circumstantial reasons.. but most of those will have already sold in the last few years.

So prices must be near-sh the bottom I reckon, which is why I bought (10% more to go?).  But not another 20,30,40%, unless something cataclysmic happens in europe.. revolution, massive interest rate rices, financial market collapse etc.

My best guess, for what it's worth.

 

This message was last edited by jon-granada on 13/09/2015.
Thread: Are property prices really on the up in Spain?

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23 Jun 2015 5:33 PM:

Hi John,

1. 4th June 2015

2. I was told to go to the Guardia Civil, but they bounced me to the National Police, where all the action happened.

Sent you a p.m. with a copy of it

Jon.

Thread: Making a crime report in Spain to National Police

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23 Jun 2015 3:11 PM:

Mine was definitely the denuncia with the details of what had been stolen.

The thing is that whenever you need to apply for something eg. EU Citizen's Registration Certificate (thanks for the correction on that), and you have lost the original, you must present a denuncia to say it has been stolen.

This happened to me as I had lost my green nie card.. they are asking for the denuncia. While I was in the extranjeros police, chap next to me had the same problem.. the girl on reception refused to give him an appointment as he had lost an original document. She said to come back when he had the denuncia to say he had lost it.

If the denuncia 'certificate' doesn't say what has been lost, I can't imagine the extranjeros police taking it as a valid document.. surely they would insist on having the details of what was lost.  And even if you could take photos, no doubt they wouldn't accept that, since it isn't the original denuncia (guessing here..).

It also allows the police to deny in the future, to deny the details of any reported theft or crime.  I wonder what the process is of taking the 'certificate' and requesting details on it from the police. Or using that 'certificate' in a court of law. Could a judge request the police to release details on that document ?

Looks like a useless bit of paper to me.. creepy stuff.

Thread: Making a crime report in Spain to National Police

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