Advice please

Hi Annie,

If you want to continue to stay more than 90 days in Spain, you must apply for residency.  Although the UK leaves the EU on 31st January 2020, nothing should change until the end of the transition/implementation period, which finishes on 31st December 2020.  This is good news for you, as it means you still have time to sort out your residency when you return to Spain in February 2020.

As things currently stand under EU/Spanish rules, your income and capital should be enough to prove you are self-sufficient; however, it remains to be seen when Spanish authorities will start to apply the higher income requirements of Third Country Nationals - that shouldn't happen until 1st January 2021, but we've already seen examples of some National Police stations (mis)interpreting the requirements.

As you say you are drawing a private pension, I assume you're not currently UK State Retirement age?  In which case, you'll need to buy private health insurance for the first year at least, to obtain Residencia.  After that, you can maintain PHI, or opt to pay into the Convenio Especial instead, until you reach state pension age when, hopefully, we'll all still be in a position to obtain an S1 from DWP Newcastle to transfer our free healthcare entitlement from the UK to Spain (subject to BoJo's "deal").

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading Jim Taylor's guide on residency in Spain.  There's also a section on the implications of Brexit that you may find useful:

Jim's guides - your complete guide to Spain

You could continue to spend time in Spain, post Brexit, but you'll be restricted to a maximum of 90 days in a 180 rolling day period, i.e. you could come to Spain for 90 days, but then you'd have to leave the Schengen travel zone for a further 90 days before you could re-enter the area.  Some people have been avoiding residency in Spain for years, but the reintroduction of border controls means that UK over-stayers will be picked up - the risk isn't worth it, as you could be denied re-entry to Spain.  Best to get yourself up to speed with the implications of Brexit and residency, i.e. your tax status, and then decide how you want to proceed.

Kind regards,

Kim

Thank you Kim. Would be just my luck, now that I’ve found somewhere I feel I belong to be denied to stay 

My partner and I got our residentia in Dec and as long as we had our NIE, Padron, a years private healthcare paid for in advance and at least €7000 each in our Spanish bank account going back on the previous 3 months bank statements it took us just 5 mins!