New EU rules - Page 6

Deflection I'm afraid John.

We see time and time again on this forum posters coming on to "have a go at Spain" in one form or another. Generally these are people complaining that Spain is badly run. They can't understand that Spain is a different country and when in a different country things are done differently, some good, some bad.

They complain endlessly about bank charges, bureaucracy, bad service. We however do not post subjects up which we easily could, about all the bad things about living in Britain. 

Generally these are just people who don't have the intellectual ability to see that Spain should not have to  "do things the way they're done at home". So we put them right. We defend Spain. That doesn't make us "Brit bashers".

There's no doubt that some suffer from an inner angst that Britain is seen more and more as an irrelevance and their voices are a call in the dark, harking after a different age when Britain mattered.

“Ex Brits”?

I don’t like or agree with your use of this term. Moving to another country doesn’t remove your nationality. I may not always like it, but I’m still British. I also dislike the term “Expat”. 

I wouldn't expect you to have any bitterness, John, towards people who voted Remain - if 3% more people had voted that way, we wouldn't be having this discussion 🙂  

As you say, time will tell and in the short term at least, we're all having to adjust, to one extent or another, to accommodate the impact of Brexit.  But one thing we should all be able to agree on is that it's not Spain's fault, the UK did this to itself.

Stay safe,

Kim

Yes, the decision to leave was made by those entitled to vote in the referendum over 4 years ago and the impact is now been seen for many with 2nd homes in Spain.

But, seeing people (2nd home owners who are non-resident in Spain) talk about how this decision has "stopped me spending 6 months in Spain and 6 months in the UK" is almost certainly incorrect. They should not have been doing that before as Spain had requirements to apply for residency after 90 days pre-Brexit which presumably most did not! Nor I suspect would most have had any apprpriate travel insurance for such length of stay when delving into the T&Cs.

The fact they were not enforced and policed is neither here nor there - people were breaching Spanish national law and getting away with it. That should neither be condoned or accepted irrespective of whether there was any enforcement by the authorities.

Now there is enforcement (albeit now through Schengen requirements rather than Spanish law), lots seem to be up in arms about it. I'm afraid I have little sympathy.

The 3 month rule was only there to give countries the right to remove undesirables, I spent 6 months in Germany with no problem. The problem in the UK is it was never enforced.

This was (and still is) a Spanish law regarding residency requirements when you spend over 90 days in Spain in a row as an EU resident?

If I've got that wrong, my apologies.

Now the UK has left the EU, that application for residency needs to be done while in the UK through the Spanish Consultate as far as I was aware.

I do not know what the laws were for non-UK EU residents entering and ultimately residing in the UK before Brexit.

However, every country has differing requirements about at what stage requirements "kick in" to register in their country as a permanent resident when an EU citizen irrespective of EU Freedom of Movement. 

Spain's requirement was 90 days. It wasn't enforced by Spain, no one paid attention to it and hence the UK "snowbirds" got away with the non-compliance. So yes, I suspect you could conclude Spain were happy with the scenario.

Now, the compliance is with EU law (re Schengen) so Spain national law requirements regarding residency (and whether they are applied) plays second fiddle to the compliance with Schengen.

Spain has been in Schengen since 1992, EU passport holders in reality can travel freely for as long as they like, however break the law and they'll invoke the 3 month rule and you'll get sent back to country of origen with a stamp in your passport.