I don't know why, but I guess there must be times when the ayuntamiento's records and you stating X&Y isn't enough for things and the requirement is an actual Certification.. by an official body, of who lives in the house. I had some red tape to sort out and it started out with the words "Certificado de Empadronamiento" but ended up with a "Copia de Empadronamiento conjunta" - i.e. the ayuntamiento's version of everyone that lived at that address. This does not surprise me as there are people all over the place living where they are not empadronados.

As for the case of an ayuntamiento not wanting to make it easy, even though they would get more money allocated, I suspect that with that money also comes responsibility. I know in the case of ours, getting building permits is getting harder because they're close to the point of limits on certain expensive infrustructure commitments - and budgets they don't have to meet their obligations - and a Brussels taking less and less crap from Spanish political powers. I understand that if the land grab etc., isn't sorted soon, Spain will miss out on Millions of € in allocation. That's got to hurt councils that have a lot yet to do and no money to do it with.