Paperwork and bureaucracy
Or bureaucrazy as I like to call all the paperwork hassle here in Spain. Although it really gets easier over time, when understanding the way things are handled here, often not in the most efficient ways, but there's growth there for sure. I see it already comparing our paperwork things in 2016 to the things in the past 2 years. Things are getting better for sure. BUT, often it's so difficult to find the right department to learn about processes and needed documents even if you have some sense of the language and already did similar things in the past. I often wonder how on earth a government department appointment system is not working for months in a row. Yes, this was the communicated link to the system everywhere, yet, it never worked!
I had to drive to the city to find a broker in front of the building who then made all the appointments for everyone, so he could send everyone to a certain clinic to get the medical check document which is needed for the renewal. Of course, this all goes with a kickback fee because the price there was much higher than the document I already arranged at my local medical clinic. He was disappointed I already had it, lol. But back to the main point here, I found the working link to the appointment system in front of the building, on a poster. Upon scanning that link, it turned out to go to a totally different site and was nowhere to be found online. Yes, I checked it because I thought I was losing it and just didn't search well enough.
You'd think that the official department for traffic would update such an important thing, right? Anyway, a week later I had my appointment, filed all the needed documents and a month later or so the new drivers license arrived by mail. Next time someone needs to do this, I have the link saved because I can't possibly expect the Spanish officials to update it before that time, can I? :)
Cohabitation contract
For us, Dutch people, these things are unbelievable but I have to say when the years pass, we now fully expect the answers to be found somewhere totally unexpected and websites not to be updated so at least I get creative finding workarounds, often successfully. Slowly but steadily, I'm starting to master navigating Spanish systems, even with very important paperwork.
Today I received a phone call from a lady working at a department arranging cohabitation contracts. We knew from last year that if we were to get this sorted, we have some advantages ahead and can save some tax costs. We're together for a decade and we've been sharing whatever we had since. There's never a "this is mine or yours" situation, ever. Getting married is something I'd only want if my two oldest can be there so the best way to get into easier paperwork routes is simply getting this contract for the time being. It's not fully the same as being married, but it's good enough for us right now.
I could not navigate the system properly last year, too much going on with my back pains and later even hernia. When I wasn't in pain, I had a wonderful brain fog from the medication so that's usually not the best moment to dig into Spanish paperwork systems. Having tried several times and asked my daughter's tutor for assistance, who also didn't know for sure, I gave up earlier this year. All these months passed and all these months we could have saved quite a bit of tax but what can you do, if you are stuck, you are stuck.
Clear mind
When the hernia pain left, I slowly started getting back into stuff that was on hold and one of the first things (the biggest hurdle to be honest) was this cohabitation contract. Putting a date in my calendar and being determined to get it sorted that week, I started the process on a Monday morning as soon as I woke up. Double checking my resources, and because of having all our important documentation sorted and scanned in very well, uploading things wasn't hard this time.
It turned out that the one issue I had because of it not being clear was not even an issue when filing this online, go figure! We had issues signing the documentation even though the digital certificates were working just fine last time we used them, apparently this was a different route they use when signing things together. With some help of my boyfriend (the IT part) and later me trying to walk through the things and adding some logical thinking, I figured out the final part that caused issues and then we signed it both.
Not only did I manage to fix it that week, it was fixed before noon on Monday that week! You will probably not believe how proud I felt for doing this all by myself without any translation help from anyone, just the digital certificate part needed some TLC (which was a one time thing as next time things work as they should) and voila, it was sorted.
The waiting started
After successfully filing the needed documents, the waiting started. It was still August when I did this and I didn't expect things to move fast because everyone starts working again in September and I figured they'd have a backlog from the month August. At the very minimum I expected an answer in October. Here we are though, just three weeks later and someone called me.
I didn't expect a call about an appointment so I had to process what she was calling me for first but when I understood what it was for, I was happy to hear she wanted to make an appointment to sign the documents. As I asked a few questions and said my Spanish is not fluent sorry, what do you need from me for the appointment, she told me that we'd need a sworn translator for the signing and I asked her kindly to put it on the mail so I was 100% sure I got everything correct.
Although I didn't think anything was missing in my documents, I surely expected some hurdle after processing it and was surprised to find out she called to sign everything. That means this is the first big paperwork thing that I fully researched and managed to get sorted by myself without the help of a third party. The sworn translator part is the final stage and needed to make sure we understand what we sign, but the application could have been rejected for whatever reason, yet it didn't. I'm quite proud of that and gave myself several pats on the back for getting this monster (it felt like one) out of the way.
Sworn translator
I found a very kind translator, who happens to live near us as well so I found out later. He kindly took the time to explain what they'd probably want and his hourly rate. I'm mostly happy that I found one on the same day as this news because many people here don't respond quickly to enquiries, sadly.
This guy got back to me within thirty minutes and later when I asked him for the email address of this department he sent it to me in 5 minutes time. I like his way of working, very hands on and I'm happy to have a new connect in case we need his services again in the future.
So even though the process is not final yet, I have a feeling it will be within the next weeks, that is if their calendar has a free spot for us. Today I celebrate for not giving up and it gives me a good confident boost to get other things sorted as well. It seemed like a huge thing to do, but I did it.
Victories need to be celebrated, don't they? :)
All pictures above are my own..