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A little bit of Suma nonsense.
I usually pay my Suma taxes by direct debit, which Suma set up, straight from my bank. So I was a bit surprised to receive a bill for house tax in October last year. On checking my bank account I found that the bill was for € 2.23 more than I had paid by DD. It turned out that the Ayuntamiento had increased the taxable value of my property and wanted a further 2.23 Euros!!
So I set off to the La Mata Suma office to pay the difference – Silly Man!
I was informed by the clerk in the office that I would have to pay the second bill in its entirety otherwise they would charge me interest!
So I duly paid up and was told they would be in touch within the next couple of months regarding a refund.
Well Christmas came and went and no word from Suma so at the end of January I went once more to the office. On requesting my refund waving my bill together with my bank statement I was told that they needed my original passport together with my NIE number before they could consider it. My reply that these items were not needed when I paid the additional bill was ignored.
So several weeks later I returned with the relevant documents only to be told that I needed the original bill as well, when I pointed out that it was a direct debit and showed my bank statement where I had, quite helpfully I thought, highlighted the payment I was informed that I needed the little slip of paper that my bank shovels out in enormous quantities in separate envelopes every time a euro is added or subtracted from my account.
So back home and turned the house upside down to find this scrap of paper, which fortunately had not been tidied up by the memsahib as her filing is atrocious, and at last it was uncovered.
Back again to Suma, I now have my own personal parking spot!!! And the wheels were put in motion to obtain my refund.
My request for interest on the funds they had retained since October was met with a frosty glare and no answer, so obviously the penalties only work one way.
Now I know that all this palaver is quite normal in Spain, whereby you need umpteen copies of everything, and I know it provides employment for a lot of Spanish filing clerks etc. but should I have to make all these trips to Suma to get my money back when the guy has every piece of information on his computer in the first place.
And all for €2.23………………….!!!
So I set off to the La Mata Suma office to pay the difference – Silly Man!
I was informed by the clerk in the office that I would have to pay the second bill in its entirety otherwise they would charge me interest!
So I duly paid up and was told they would be in touch within the next couple of months regarding a refund.
Well Christmas came and went and no word from Suma so at the end of January I went once more to the office. On requesting my refund waving my bill together with my bank statement I was told that they needed my original passport together with my NIE number before they could consider it. My reply that these items were not needed when I paid the additional bill was ignored.
So several weeks later I returned with the relevant documents only to be told that I needed the original bill as well, when I pointed out that it was a direct debit and showed my bank statement where I had, quite helpfully I thought, highlighted the payment I was informed that I needed the little slip of paper that my bank shovels out in enormous quantities in separate envelopes every time a euro is added or subtracted from my account.
So back home and turned the house upside down to find this scrap of paper, which fortunately had not been tidied up by the memsahib as her filing is atrocious, and at last it was uncovered.
Back again to Suma, I now have my own personal parking spot!!! And the wheels were put in motion to obtain my refund.
My request for interest on the funds they had retained since October was met with a frosty glare and no answer, so obviously the penalties only work one way.
Now I know that all this palaver is quite normal in Spain, whereby you need umpteen copies of everything, and I know it provides employment for a lot of Spanish filing clerks etc. but should I have to make all these trips to Suma to get my money back when the guy has every piece of information on his computer in the first place.
And all for €2.23………………….!!!
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