Our residencia cards expire later this month, we obtained the cards 5 years ago and this is our first renewal, however we are now spending more time in the UK than Spain for family reasons
It is unlikely we will ever spend expended periods in Spain and any in total will be less than 3 months a year.
Our property in Spain is up for sale where it will remain until sold.
We are a married couple in our late 50’s, both retired, and in receipt of pensions from Local Authorities in the UK, therefore exempt from Spanish Income Tax.
We have no other significant forms of income in the UK and non in Spain.
I have checked a number of webb sites all of which detail the process of obtaining residencia however there is no information about non renewal or cancellation.
Would it be acceptable to simply not renew the residencia cards and revert to our original NIE papers that we obtained to open our bank account and purchased our property.
Can any one help ?

If you are now no longer resident in Spain you are not entitled to renew your cards. Which by the way is not actually possible as cards are no longer issued but were long since replaced by a new system for residents.

Rob,
Thankyou for you response which is helpful.
However do you know if we can simply revert to our original NIE or do we have to notify any one

Thanks in anticipation

You sound a little confused to be honest.

Your NIE numbers are with you until the end of time.

You should sign off the padron and health system, but I don’t think it is a hanging offence.

Suggest you sort these things out when you sell the house.

lhss - 15 February 2010 11:19 PM

Rob,
Thankyou for you response which is helpful.
However do you know if we can simply revert to our original NIE or do we have to notify any one

Thanks in anticipation

In theory you should notify the authorities when you cease to be resident in the same way that you do when you notify them when you become resident i.e. by completing a form EX 16 at the police station.  Instead of crossing the box “Certificado Registro residencia comunitario” in section 3 you tick the box on the right “Baja Certificado ...”.  This video I posted to Youtube explains the whole form in English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMAdH7v0CLo

After all that though I don’t see why you should bother.  Just let the card expire.

Love the You Tube - great idea! Might have misheard but not sure about the H & M translation though…........

Rob, funny you should say that but it is a bit of a bugbear of mine.  Gender on a UK form would of course be Male - Female , M or F.  In Spanish you get Macho o Hembra.  M or H.  But of course I have seen forms where you put Hombre or Mujer - H and M but the other way round.  I don’t want to confuse the authorities with a lot of cross-dressers so what’s it to be? U for undecided?

My Spanish partner and I used to fill in loads of them for clients and always took it to be Hombre/Mujer…......and never had a problem but you alternative is interesting and I have never seen a full set of guidelines from Spanish authorities to check it out.