“You get what you pay for, and if you pay for peanuts, you get monkeys“

We have seen many clients, more frequently in the last year, who have received a bad financial and tax advice. Many of them can only explain their choice by the Price they have to pay against other advisors. Now, regrettably, that cheap advice has converted into fines, interests, and fees that have to be paid to other professionals to short out the problems.

We have invested time, money and efforts to be what we are today and to know what we know. We pay insurance policies, good salaries to have a good team working in the office, we have an office where we are constantly and you can come whenever you it is needed to ask something. With some others, they only find on the internet the information they need to do the job, they work from home, some don’t pay taxes, don’t provide a proper invoice so you wouldn’t have the possibility of claiming anything, there is no insurance policy and neither an office where you could go to ask anything…

A few months ago a new client who came into our office with a similar problem told me: “You get what you pay for, and if you pay for peanuts, you get monkeys”.

Different Law Associations, have also noticed that the number of false Solicitors has increased in the last few years. They write guides and articles on newspapers to warn people about it although these news do not arrive to everybody, principally because it is written in Spanish and many Expats do not read spanish newspapers.

There are ways of discovering if a profesional is really a profesional or not and also, ways of claiming against them if there is any Civil Responsability. Here is a link to “Consejo General de la Abogacía Española“, the Supreme Spanish Institution that regulates Lawyers, Solicitors and Barristers. If you get in, write the Name, Surname (or both) of your Solicitor and click “Buscar”. Then you will have a list in which you can click the one you are looking for and you will get the following information:

• Name
• Law Association where is registered
• Registration date
• “Num colegiado” – Registration number
• “Ejerciente” – Active (Or “No Ejerciente” – Non Active) This is really important
• “Residente” – This express if the office is on the región covered by the Law Association
• “Información actualizada el” – Date when the information has been updated

Check with our information writing “Manuel Antonio” on the name box and “Perez Manresa” on the surname box. If you click “Buscar”, you will see I am the only one in Spain with that full name and you can also check all my personal details.

You can also check on the “Economics Association” web although it is a bit more difficult because you have to choose the Community where the economist is based and then, the provincial association, after that, the information you get is very similar.

Please check always when using a profesional offering Tax advice or Legal advice and make sure he/she is registered in one of the principal associations. Be a member of these associations gives much more security to clients and confidence, as they can claim against them and there is an insurance policy that covers any Civil Responsability produced by the bad advice received. Those associations could also be contacted to claim against those profesionals if there is any bad practice or negligence and the profesional will be warned by the own association even with a suspension if the negligence is important.

In our Company, we choose our collaborators carefuly, checking the Experience and Reputation, in order to provide the best advice so do not hesitate to contact us for any queries about tax or legal matters and even further, as we stablished a while ago collaborations with Engineers, Architects and builders to solve any problem that any of our clients may have as Energy Proficiency Certificates, legalisation of extensions on properties, certificates of antiquity, opening licenses for new businesses and much more.
We are here to make your life easier in Spain. Contact us!