Bureacracy 101

January 21, reposted February 12

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” ~St. Augustine

I was more than a little slow to recognize that we would need visas in order to stay longer than 90 days in Spain but the consulate web site didn’t provide the best information either. Neither did any of the typical resources I used. We started planning the trip in the late spring of 2012 and in July, while we were in Mexico for a month, I was still thinking we had the option to leave Spain before the 90 day tourist period ended, fly to a non EU country for a short visit, and then reenter Spain for another 90 days. Of course, this is wrong, you can’t do this anymore. The Schengen information on the Spanish consulate web site was confusing although those visas are only valid for 90 days and we wanted to stay about 6 months. The consulates have farmed out all the visa application process to a private company (VFS Global); they charge you to schedule the appointment with the consulate but they don’t provide any help or information whatsoever about the visas. They wouldn’t even answer yes or no when I explained the situation to them and asked if they agreed that we needed non-lucrative residence visas. I even considered using a visa application company but could not find one that would handle visas to Spain.

The consulate has a detailed and intimidating list of the documents required for the non-lucrative residence visas so the list below might not be complete, but I spent the month of September and October gathering these items:

*National visa application-one each, Tom and Ellen

*Passport photos, 3 each, Tom and Ellen

*Income documentation in English plus certified translation into Spanish, one only

*Letter of intent/introduction in English plus certified translation into Spanish, one only

*Proof of medical insurance, Ellen and Tom

*Health certificate in English plus certified translation into Spanish. Tom and Ellen

*Criminal background check in English plus certified translation into Spanish, Tom and Ellen

*Marriage certificate in English plus certified translation into Spanish, less than 3 months old

The letter of intent had to notarized and the items in bold had to apostilled as well, which required a trip to Sacramento. Actually, 2 trips as I didn’t understand that the marriage certificate needed to be a copy that was dated less than 3 months previously. As the consulate staff said “well, you could be divorced or something.” First lesson: never argue with the person who has control over your visa application. Second lesson: don’t take offense that the California DMV treats you better than the Spanish consulate. This is your first taste of Spanish bureaucracy. Finally, check everything with the clerk and make sure they understand how long you want to stay in Spain.

You might have to take out a small loan to cover the visa application costs. Notary public, apostille, copies, medical exam, lab tests, translations, visa charges…yes, this all starts to add up even before you get your airline tickets.

The worst of the application was the criminal background check, which is provided by the local sheriff’s office and the State. Should be straightforward, right? It took us 3 weeks of bureaucratic fiascos to get the necessary paperwork and this included time lost due to use of the wrong form (Santa Cruz sheriff says it’s the right one, Sacramento says it’s the wrong one. Who wins here? Not the poor applicant who’s stuck in the middle and who eventually has to pay for a second check with the ‘new’ form) and failure to electronically transfer information from the sheriff to Sacramento. I’d like to give a shout-out to Anthony Molina in the Secretary of State’s office in Sacramento for being so helpful and polite.

OK, enough about visa application. It took 8 weeks plus 3 days for the visas to arrive in San Francisco. Our original departure date was 8 weeks post application, which meant a lot of last minute changes and changes equal dollars in the airline industry. But, we are finally leaving on January 23. Despite Tom’s broken toe from yesterday’s misadventure on the stairs. He’s a hearty guy; his biggest concern is his planned walk on the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile trek from the French Pyrenees across Spain to Finisterre, the medieval end-of-the-earth, but it looks like the big toe will be mended in time.

If you are interested in obtaining a Spanish visa I’d like to encourage you to visit the excellent blog http://www.kurpediem.com/.  Shanna has a great description of the visa application process that has a happy ending.