payment of spanish pension into uk bank account

[morlandg]

I have an extremely small spanish pension due to my working autonimo for 13 months. Now we have moved back to the uk and want it paying into our uk account. Problems. 1. I have to annually send a certificate of uk tax residency in order to receive the full amount without a 8% tax reduction. 2. Each january I must send a life certificate. The tax residency certificate is free from the HMRC. I understand (after much running around and gnashing of teeth) that I must send a life certificate which has been notarised and probably apostilled. Where I obtain the form from I've no idea . The police don't know, my GP practice don't know and I can't find where on the gov.uk website. I may have to create my own. Oh by the way I've found out on my research that Canada, Germany and Spain use Life Certificates but all I can find on the gov.uk site is the list of those people authorised to certify the document. Can anyone advise me how to proceed with this mission. At the moment it appears that the cost of producing a Life Certificate will cost more than my pension!!! Help!

[Lavanda]

No idea but I imagine the absence of a death certificate is not the same as the production of a life certificate?

[morlandg]

There have been developments. CAB Spain say that one can write their own certificate (even in their own handwriting) and have that countersigned by the appropriate professional. This is called a Ley de Vida. Then I was invited to phone the DWP re life certificates, which I did. They said sorry - I'll transfer you to another department who may help. It was the International Pensions Centre. They have sent me a life certificate - both in english and spanish. When I look at them they are designed for people with UK pensions and live in spain and wish for their pension to be paid into a spanish bank account. So again not what I asked for. But when I study these forms I find that I can modify them slightly and use them as per CAB Spain. I will do that and send copies to my Assesoria in Majorca who is handling my affairs and ask their opinion. I cannot ask them to present one to the authorities as they only accept them in the first three months of the year. If the assesoria says they look OK I'll sit on them until jan 2024 and then send the completed and stamped forms to them. I hope this might be useful to someone else also trying to do the same as me. Graham

[Laslomas]

Hopefully you have managed to sort this out by now.

I have been receiving a small Spanish pension into my UK bank account for 10 years now. I have to send a Fey de Vida to INSS each year before 31 March. I struggled to find a form until Beachcomber, on this forum, sent me a link to one. I have found that original post from 2016, but unfortunately the link no longer works. I have used a photocopy of this form each year with no problem. I take it to my local Jobcentre Plus who complete it, sign it - no charge. They said they did numerous of these every year.

But from now on it will be much easier. This week I received notification from INSS of a new App they have released to do the job in place of the forms, so you may find you can complete all the necessary stuff this way. Available from Google Play or App Store. It is called VIVESS (acreditar tu vivencia). I have completed registration with a little help from a tutorial on YouTube.

Hopefully this will solve your dilemma if not already dealt with. Good luck.