Home Working In Spain - Would It Work

[Gerry Pridham]

Hi Hayley,

First of all, many thanks to Elgestor for that very useful post on Autonomo obligations.

I have some experience in 2007 of setting up to work in the Canary Islands, which are under Spanish law. A brief history follows:

Visited February to look at a multiple unit property investment, and decided to invest, along with six other colleagues.

The deal went south when a broker ran away with some of our funds. We initiated two legal cases against the broker.

Realizing the deal still had much potential, my wife and I decided to set up a Spanish S.L. The deal is far greater than just a simple investment in a few apartments, so it was deemed appropriate to do the S.L. and register as autonomos.

August 2007. Four trip. The S.L. was completed.

October 2007. Sixth trip. I rented a local apartment and stopped living out of the Sheraton.

December 2007. Completed our first year's operations, and spent a week there over Christmas with the family for a bit of relaxation and planning for 2008.

We have made good use of a lawyer, an accountant and an agent, who himself has decided to register as an autonomo.

Both from the hotel, and also from the apartment, I got a Vodaphone pay as you go mobile SIM, and have been able to access the internet via a wireless paid service, so have also been able to take care of our other UK business whilst living in the Canaries. I now have an official office address at the place of our lawyer's business, and a residential address at the place we rent an apartment, so can conduct business there even though I only spend one week per month locally.

I have come to know around 20 British expats who live out there, ranging from those who work unofficially, to those who have fully registered S.L. companies. I have put quite a few challenges to our accountant (I interviewed three accountants before I decided on one to use, and they were equally challenged to answer some of my more esoteric questions). What I have ended up doing for 2007, because we also run a Ltd Co in the UK, is to bill our Spanish company for my services on an "apartment sold" basis, enabling me to maintain our UK tax and personal income reporting unaffected by what we have done in Spain. To date, I have not drawn a salary from our S.L. but am curious as to why the autonomo payments have to come from our personal bank accounts and not from our company bank account.

Joining this forum has paid dividends already, in reading through many posts on here, and I suppose I will learn an awful lot more in the next few weeks.

Anyway, I hope my own experience has encouraged you to keep going with your Spanish enterprise. For our own sins, we have registered companies in five jurisdictions in the last fifteen years, so it wasn't a big deal. We went into this quickly knowing we would be learning as we went, and we achieved the objective we were looking for.

Into 2008, we want to rent an office locally, and by mid next year, I am sure we will need to address the requirements to hire staff. Via our autonomo agent, we have three people working for us part time, and like a lot of people in Spain, they seem to be naturally tax-averse, but over time I am sure we will find a way for them to get onto the straight and narrow, or use services of those who are already accustomed to doing things the right legal way. since our company pays all fees to other autonomos via bank transfer, I am leaving it to my accountant to do the right thing. With reference to the 15% you mentioned, I think it referred to this as an example. Our lawyer sends his fees per property transaction to our company, but his equivalent of autonomo tax has to be paid by our company. Eg. if he bills us €1,000, our company also has to pay €150 in taxes having paid an autonomo providing professional services his fees "before tax". I don't pretend to understand this, but I think this fee does not apply if the legal customer is not itself an autonomo or a S.L. I will ask more questions once we've got over the first tax payment due 20th January.

I hope this has been of some help. Don't hesitate to ask more specific questions.

[Boadicea]

Hi,

I've lived in Spain all my life, speak native Spanish, fluent French, and various levels of other languages... I'd be interested in working from home too, so please let me know if/when you're recruiting...

[hayleymorgan]

HI.

First of all Boadicea I have replied to you directly. We are now recruiting in Spain and I have sent you the details.

Secondly, Gerry my sincere apologies for not replying - since just after xmas I have been two and fro from the UK to Spain setting everything up, and the response we have had has been amazing, so it has been a little chaotic to say the least. Your message was indeed very useful information and I do appreciate you taking the time to reply.

I have now moved to Spain lock stock and barrell with my family and having just finished unpacking what seemed to be endless boxes we are now begining to enjoy being here. I attended the Homes and Garden exhibition in Alicante this weekend and that was a great opportunity to speak to people who are looking for employment and also it proved popular with companies who are looking for good staff. Now that we have launched into the Costa Blanca we will be looking to spread the word across other areas of Spain and the Canaries. So if anyone could provide me with the names and contact details of local free press or radio stations in your areas that would fantastic.

Since I posted the message in the Autum of 2007 and posed the original question we have come alonng way, and were here!

Thank you to everyone for their help and advice and support.

Kind regards and sincere thanks once again.

Hayley

[Dorothy]

Hi Hayley
Glad to hear you have settled in and things are going well for you.
My family and i are looking to move to Spain in the next few months and have been searching for available jobs, of which there seems very few. Your new venture sounds ideal to what i am looking for.
If you are still recruiting can you send me some details please

Many thanks

Dorothy

[Evette Blakey]

Originally Posted by hayleymorgan

Hi,

I work for a HomeWorking Network in the UK. We take order entry calls and customer service calls for large global, blue chips companies for the comfort of our own homes, no commuting, great flexibility, and good money.

I used to work abroad for one of the major tour operators, and always said that I would like to return to live in Spain.

I have recently speaking to my MD, about taking our company to spain to open up opportunities there. Do you think that British people would be interested in working for a UK company, working from thier own apartments or villas????

I think it would be a great solution to the sometimes difficult job situation in Spain. All that is needed is a dedicated landline and broadband connection.

Please let me know your thoughts, it really is something that I feel would work well, but you are there and I'm here, so your comments would be appreciated.

Hayley

Hi iv just joined and read your mail have you started the telesales buisness yet ? if so I m moving to albox in june I have internet connection and a phone already connected. I have many years of experiance in telesales would you consider me to work for you company

Evette

[hayleymorgan]

Hi, Many thanks for your messages - it is not just telesales but customer service too!

I will send you details privately.

Kind regards,

Hayley

[JanetB]

Hi my name is Janet and Im wondering what the outcome was of this thread?

I too would be very interested in this typre of work.....Please let me know the result?

Janet

[lauraibz]

If you were sucesfull in opening your new pathway to spain and are looking for staff , i would like to know where to reply. Best of luck
Laura

[lizzyjones]

Hello, yes I think it would work. It would depend on the work itself and as broadband is widely available now in spain, I see no reason why you would have a problem with interest from people who are keen to work from home.
I think the first thing would be to divide the work into various territories in say, costa blanca north and costa blanca south areas and take it from there.
I certainly would be interested. Regards Libby

[hayleymorgan]

Many thanks for your messages and comments.

I have sent private messages to you both with further details.

Kind regards,

Hayley