Money Matters

Money certainly does matter here in Spain, but the way the financial institutes deal with your money seems to be dependant on your gender.

I am not a great feminist but I am grateful to the likes of the Pankhurst sisters for getting us girlies up one rung of the ladder. In Spain it is clear to me that they still have a fight on their hands.

In the UK I was very independent, had full employment, owned my own home, and all my bills and bank accounts were in my name, despite the fact I was married……..I liked it that way.

Since coming to Spain some five years ago, I have had to open bank accounts, which is the norm. My first bank account was opened with my partner, and at the time I thought very little about the procedure. I did however take exception to the fact that all the correspondence from the bank was addressed only to my partner and not me, even though it was a joint account. On this occasion I put this down to the little idiosyncrasies of the bank.

A few years later it became necessary to open a joint account with my mother as we wished to raise some capital, and in order to this we required a small mortgage. We opened a bank account together and my name went onto the deeds of the house and also onto the mortgage agreement. Would you believe it they sent all the correspondence to my mother !!!! This situation was starting to annoy me slightly, and I found myself making constant checks in the mirror to make sure I did actually exist even though the banks seemed to think I did not.

I opened another account with my partner, at the beginning of this year, which we intended to use for business. And my name was also added to my mothers long standing Spanish bank account. Guess who the banks contact……not me!! Paranoia is now taking firm hold of my hand.

We have since sold our house and in doing so we had to cancel the small mortgage we had and duely toddled off to the notary to sign the relevant papers connected to the house sale. On arrival both my mothers and my passport were required to complete the process. We sat before the notary whilst he read through the sales contract checking off the names which appeared on it, against the pile of passports he had before him. Mothers name was read out in the context of her being the seller and he checked her passport and handed it back. The buyers names were read out and checked against their passports, then it seemed that part of the process was completed and it was time to sign. By this time I had noticed that my name had not been mentioned, neither had the notary looked at my passport. I found this a little disconcerting especially as my name was on the esquitura, and on the now cancelled mortgage agreement. I mentioned this to our solicitor who told me not to worry everything was in order. Papers were signed and our solicitor handed me a cheque. Eureka my name was on the cheque, but only mine??? So what had actually happened is we sold the house, mother signed and I got the money even though from the notaries point of view I was not a party to the transaction. Confused??? I sure was.

With the cheque in hand we all headed off to the bank were I would deposit the cheque in my account. Everything went smoothly and the cheque was paid in, and I was given the receipt. On closer inspection the receipt was in my partners name, not mine !!

The story does not end there, although it has to be said the best has been said.

Again my partner and I opened another bank account in Granada where we are buying our cave house. We needed to open an account so that we could place funds locally so that it is available for the work we need to have done on the house, and also so we can raise a small mortgage to complete these works. On opening this account my partner was required to sign a bundle of papers, yet I was only asked once for my signature, as they told me they needed this as a specimen. I asked why my partner had signed so many times and I had only signed once. They said “ You are a woman, it is not necessary”……

What do you say to that????? In my case nothing, it took me an hour to raise my chin from the floor from where it had crashed after that statement.