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Click here to open a pdf guide to events and activities in Chiclana during April

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Happy Endings charity is in urgent need of volunteers to help care for its rescued animals. Read more here.

 

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ChiFRA Events

ChiFRA AGM 2013

Wednesday 26th June. 7.00 for 7.30pm. Venue: Azahar Costa. Full Details will be available soon.

 

Newly Added

Energy Efficiency Certificates

From 1st June you will need to have one if you want to rent your property out for more than 4 months or offer it for sale. Read more here

 
British Consulate Newsletters

Click link for the April 2013 edition Includes info on Meals on Wheels in Spain, returning to the UK, The Samaritans in Spain.

 
Cycling Routes

New free booklet 56 cycling routes in Cadiz Province.

 
What’s new at Active Language?
Read the latest newsletter from ChiFRA sponsor ActiveLanguage  to find out about their community development projects , teacher training, TEFL del Sur and more.
 

Electricity problems – do you need help? 

If you have had to pay large sums of money to an electricity project and still have no supply, or have been fined for electricity you have not used or you are having any other problems with Sevillana Endesa  read how ChiFRA may be able to help you.

CFRA members can now read Juan Antonio's informative and definitive guide on how to contest a fine imposed by Endesa.

Welcome to  the Chiclana Foreign Residents Association for English speaking residents in Chiclana de la Frontera. We can offer you support, representation, information and much more. Membership continues to be free. click here to apply.

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The end for UK Satellite TV in Spain......is there a future?
Wednesday, 03 April 2013

Written by Steve Harris

The current satellites that we get our free to air satellite TV from are out of date. TV satellites have a life span of 12 years which has now elapsed. The company that runs the satellites SES ASTRA (www.ses.com) are launching the new Astra 2E satellite in the 2nd quarter of 2013 ready for use in the summer of this year.

Once the satellite is in the correct position in space the BBC, ITV and CH4 group of channels will be moving over to the new satellite. See BBC blog for current news.  The new satellite has the technology built in to it to spot beam the signal directly over the targeted audience the UK and as a result we will be unable to pick up a signal even with a bigger dish. Testing has been done with 3 metre dishes on a community system in the Estepona area with no success trying to pick up Channel Five and 5 USA etc.

 
The tax vice tightens on non residents and residents in Spain
Wednesday, 06 March 2013

Press Release Issued by Cadizcasa

Not surprisingly, in these cash strapped days, the Spanish Hacienda are thinking up ways to squeeze every last drop of tax out of not only Spanish non residents who own property in Spain but Spanish residents who own property outside of Spain.

It has long been the rule that if you are a non resident and own property in Spain you should be paying non resident tax on that property and making an annual declaration to the Hacienda or Tax Authority. If you help to subsidise the running costs of your property in Spain by doing a bit of renting then you need to declare that income here in Spain also.

What has changed? Well instead of the usual return process, you are now required to make a return for every client who rents from you even if it is only for 2 or 3 days. If the house is joint owned for example between husband and wife each needs to make a return so 2 returns per rental client. In addition, the Hacienda wants to see the Passport number or national identification (NIE or DNI) of the clients or if you rent through an Agency the Agency CIF will do. Quite what our already under financed and under staffed Hacienda will do with all this paper is a mystery but those are the rules.

You may feel that if you have declared yourself as a Spanish resident and are paying your way in Spain what you have outside the country is not their business but sadly that is not the case. For many years, you have been required as a resident to declare all your worldwide assets but there is great confusion over this and many have either failed to do so or do not know what to do. However, a new piece of legislation commonly referred to as 7/2012 may be sufficient to change things.

 
Yet more delay to provisional planning regulations
Thursday, 21 February 2013

Source: Lavozdigital.es   17th February 2013

When the mayor of Chiclana, Ernesto Marín, declared in December that he was ready to put the finishing touches to the provisional planning regulations, it seemed that an interim solution to the current planning situation – pending a new town plan – could at last be on the horizon. However, two months on, no news is forthcoming from the town hall about the interim regulations.
 
The document was ratified in a council meeting last December and it was agreed that it should be definitive. This ratification was a necessary step which had been requested by the regional ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment. Thereafter, all that remained to be done was to overcome the final obstacle – to gain approval from the Junta de Andalucia.

 
Property values to be updated
Thursday, 21 February 2013

Source: Chiclana Town Hall Press 13th February 2013

Chiclana council has officially requested an update of property values as established by central government. The measure, which would come into force in 2014, is the result of an amendment made to article 32.2 of the law governing the property register which would allow local councils to take advantage of the recent changes made to budgetary laws.

 
“A reduction of legalisation costs had already been agreed upon.”
Saturday, 17 November 2012

Source: Diario de Cádiz 13th November 2012

These are the words of José María Román (PSOE), who claimed that “after months of silence surrounding the issue of the town plan and the provisional planning regulations, the PP/PVRE coalition government is proposing a measure which we (PSOE) had already planned to implement.” Román added that there was “nothing new” about the proposed 40% reduction in legalisation costs which was announced recently by the government. The former mayor protested that the idea of making the whole process cheaper had in fact been tabled by his party and that a document to this effect had been signed by the PSOE and representatives from a group of local residents affected by the legalisation process as long ago as March 2011.

 
The Councillor for illegal housing
Monday, 29 October 2012

Marisol Ayala
Source: El País 28.10.2012. Written by Pedro Espinosa.

 There is a city in the province of Cadiz where half of its 80,000 residents live in illegal houses and the Councillor for urban planning resides in one of them. The name of the city is Chiclana, trapped in a legal limbo – one which Marisol Ayala, head of the town planning department understands only too well given that she herself lives in an illegal property.  Chiclana has had to resort to using town planning regulations dating back to 1987 because all previous drafts of town plans submitted to the courts for approval have hitherto been rejected and no further licences for occupation can be granted. Ayala came to the post of head of town planning from the PVRE party representing the illegal home owners and campaigned for an amnesty for these properties. Ayala also wanted to reduce the amount which residents had to pay in fines and to legalise homes at the lowest possible cost to the property owner.

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New town plan faces yet more delay
Friday, 05 October 2012

Source: Diario de Cádiz  2nd October 2012

Manuel Fustegueras, the head of the company tasked with drawing up the long-awaited new town plan (PGOU) has already submitted his work to the town hall for provisional approval. Now, however, he says his hands are tied until such time as a viable legalisation process for the many illegal houses in the town can be devised.

He added that his company had “handed over the results of the work which we have been developing over recent months to the local council.” This work, that is to say the new town plan, will, said Fustegueras, “culminate when a specific planning methodology has been formulated with regard to the legalisation process.”

 
Andalusian Housing Petition
Thursday, 30 August 2012

A petition that will be delivered to the Andalusian Regional Government has been created at Avaaz.org.
It asks the Government to:  "Restore responsible buying and selling of property within the European context. Restore the fundamental rights of citizens to move house as life dictates and not have assets effectively frozen like criminals."

The petitioner gives further background information about why signing it is important.

 
 
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