Direct Debits In Spain

colsten

Duncxn said:

greyteam1959 said:

And to follow up on my post.
I have closed my  Spanish Bankia bank account after been advised of charges of 14 euro per month up from 5 euro per month.
No charge to close the account, but I had to look at the disgruntled Spanish lady who closed the account in about 5 minutes flat.
Set up all my direct debits with Transferwise on my Borderless euro account.

Hi, I found my way onto here whilst googling exactly this problem. I have a property in Spain but live in the UK and currently pay my direct debits using my Banco Sabadell current account. The bank charges are ridiculous and their customer service is terrible. Can I ask, how did you go about setting up the direct debits from your new account? I'm terrified of any break in the electricity company getting their money, last time this happened (through no fault of mine) they ripped out the meter within one month - I'm not joking!

Any help/advice appreciated.

You can use a free-of-charge Starling Euro account to set up DDs and SOs. https://help.starlingbank.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007227980-Can-I-set-up-a-Standing-Order-or-Direct-Debit-on-my-euro-account-

The advantage of Starling over Transferwise is that they are a proper bank, and come with the full £85K FSCS protection, incl on money in your Euro account. The exchange rate / transaction costs are essentially the same for Starling and Transferwise.

greyteam1959

You can use either TransferWise or Starling for your Spanish direct debits.
I only keep about 750 -1000 euro in the account mostly a lot less.
The Spanish will tell you that you need a Spanish bank account but you most definitely do not.
If you do not want to use the 'new' internet banks & prefer a Spanish bank account have a look at Cajamar Wefferent account.
An internet account with a debit card & no charges at all if you do everything online.
As a non resident you have to go into a Cajamar branch to open the account you cannot do it online.
I pay all my direct debits through TransferWise but I did open a Wefferent account just so that I have a presence in the Spanish banking system.
I took the easy way out & told my Spanish solicitor to change all the direct debits !!
HTH

Pygmy

How long does it take to transfer all direct debits to the Starling account and do all the utilities accept a UK iban number?