Financial services in Spain

FINANCIAL AND LEGAL SERVICES IN SPAIN

I am, as anyone who reads Culture Spain knows, a great supporter of Spain.  It is a terrific country in which to live and offers holidaymakers a tremendous variety of activities, often within a blissful climate, almost whatever time of the year.  However, when it comes to financial services in Spain and legal services in Spain – matters tend to be rather less than ‘terrific’!

Indeed, over the past few years, I have been repeatedly horrified by the lack of competence and integrity of ‘so-called’ professionals.  This certainly extends to many areas of financial services in Spain, certainly the Spanish legal profession (with notable exceptions) and virtually anything to do with Spanish property (again with exceptions).

Does this sound harsh?  Perhaps it does – but I think most commentators about Spain would reluctantly agree with me.

The annoying thing is that you can buy a sound and good value Spanish property safely and be blessed with fine, measured and correct legal advice in Spain.  The same is true of financial services in Spain where there are professionals who provide the type of service (in terms of rigorous integrity and quality) you would expect from most advisors in Northern Europe.  The trouble is that finding these people and navigating your way through the mine field of ‘wide boys’ and incompetents in Spain (Spanish and international) is not always easy.

Of course, part of the problem is that the business culture of Spain (often wonderful, sometimes woeful!) is very different from the US or Northern Europe.  Corruption, for example, is endemic in Spain when it comes to anything money orientated but is tolerated, seemingly, by almost everyone.  This means that, to some extent, integrity is not a concept that is considered ‘normal’ or something to aspire to – whether you are a professional or otherwise.

I have often found with lawyers in Spain, for example, that they are very much businesspeople first and lawyers second.  This is the reverse (with exceptions, of course!) of lawyers in Northern Europe who tend to be lawyers first and businesspeople second.  The distinction is important as it means that integrity as a professional in Spain is sometimes secondary to making money.  To my mind, this is a dangerous thing when a professional (whether an engineer, lawyer or qualified financial advisor) is turned to for objective, dispassionate advice that will, almost by definition, be relied upon.  Of course, before that he will often have been given information of the most confidential kind by the person seeking his advice or help…

Needless to say, regulatory bodies in Spain seem to lack either teeth or the will to sanction properly negligence or corruption.  Indeed, Heaven help you, for example, if you ever took a case to the College of Lawyers in Spain (the Spanish version of the UK Law Society) regarding a negligent lawyer.  Meanwhile, there are numerous examples of bad building in Spain (whatever happened to the architects responsible?) with Spanish estate agency a haven for poor practice (API qualified or otherwise)…

I mention all of this because I was recently updating Culture Spain and I have just placed a series of new pages on the site tackling such matters as lawyers in Spain, building surveys in Spain, QROPS and pensions in Spain, banking in Spain, currency transfers and mortgages in Spain.  All of these areas are often replete with problems – and expensive problems at that, if the advice relied upon turns out to be wrong or biased!

So, if you are coming over to Spain then I would strongly advise you to have a glance at some of the information that I have Posted recently – all of which should act as a complement to my book: ‘How to Buy Spanish Property and Move to Spain – Safely’.

At the end of the day – ‘forewarned is forearmed’…