Spain maintains ban on UK travellers - Page 3

They were making a decision middle of April regarding the travel and he as brought it forward to April 5th, maybe this is why we have been told as from a Monday  there is a fine of £5000 , we will see

  LATEST UPDATE.     https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3782435181805785&id=106152756100731.     

Yesterday Spain announced Brits can travel to Spain after the 12th April but Britain has announced no travel at all with the review in July it carries a £5000 fine 

You are allowed to leave the U.K. to travel abroad for legit reasons Not a holiday !   but you are allowed to visit an estate agent to purchase a property, arrange the sale of your foreign home. So, they are clarifying this week if that includes U.K. second home owners that NEED to check on their homes.    Did you read that ?

So how is the UK government proposing that UK travellers prove their "legitimate" reason for travel?  What will they have to do - show an email from an agent in Spain confirming a couple of property viewings?  Then they get here, cancel the viewings and have the holiday they were really coming for?  Sounds like another opportunity for people to circumvent the rules.

In my opinion, second home owners wanting to check on their property have more at stake than someone wanting to "visit estate agents to buy a property" - that's not essential travel 😔

I’m not saying what’s right or wrong, and the owners should be allowed to come and check, but maybe fill in a firm on line, which you had to do before, you could travel for legal reasons but Spain locked U.K. out, 

He as said we can travel for legal reasons , that’s what you could before Spain locked down they have brought forward from the middle of April to 5th April there will be an announcement, 

Yes, I know, 

They will rely on people being honest, which most people are.  You have already proposed a dishonest way of circumventing the rules but I doubt that you or many other people would actually use it.

The word 'essential' in relation to travel has been much used by the media, local authorities and the public in the last year, but the government rules don't use it because it is essentially (ha ha) impossible to define.  One person's 'essential' is another person's 'unnecessary'.  I would certainly regard checking on the condition and security of a significant asset like a second home as essential, but people who don't own one probably wouldn't.  Getting the Spanish property market and building industry fired up again is certainly essential for Spain's economy, and also essential to people in the UK planning the rest of their lives with the clock for ever ticking.  Perhaps the UK government wants to encourage more people to move abroad, especially the older population, which would help the net immigration numbers and also the burden on the health service?  Most of the older age group have already been vaccinated, so there's no significant Covid risk to consider.

Hi Gordon,

I think the type that would look to circumvent the rules will already have worked out how they think they can - my comment was to highlight the lack of detail around what appears to be another set of poorly assessed "exceptions".  Without that detail, the exceptions themselves suggest there's little point having the rules at all.

As a Spanish resident, I have no need to - nor would I - break the law.  I have a property in the UK which I haven't seen for 18 months; while there's nothing preventing me from legally travelling to the UK, I don't believe it would be safe for my family, friends, or for myself to do so.  As I've said before, the safest (and fairest) way to proceed is to get the electronic 'vaccination passport' system in place as soon as possible.  How is it sensible to allow people from the UK, who haven't been fully vaccinated, to travel to a country where the vaccination programme is much farther behind?  We've all been enduring this for more than a year - would a couple more months really be such a great hardship?

As for the UK government trying to encourage pensioners to move abroad, they're going to have to persuade the Spanish government to make an exception to Third Country National residency rules before the average UK pensioner can afford the increase in individual financial requirements: lump sum increased from €5,500 to €27,800 per year (Non-Lucrative Visa/Permit).

Kind regards, 

Kim