Bulletin online has published numerous articles over the controversial issue of UK driving licences. Spain, at the moment, is refusing to recognise British driving licences which has left many expats in the slow lane. The British ambassador and his team at the British Embassy is working around the clock to try and resolve the issue and we are told that a deal is "close." For some UK residents in Spain the deal can´t come soon enough.
Here is the account of one British couple faced with the paperwork nightmare:
"We moved to Spain November 2019 and were just getting settled when the pandemic hit and we went into lockdown on March 14 2020.
"Everything in the Valencia region shut down. Brexit was not resolved and no solid information was available on how to apply for residency or any of the requirements. We started the residency process September 2020 and spent the next 4 months trying to navigate the non existent process in Valencia. Finally on 23 December 2020 we got an email telling us that the process we had followed on information they had supplied was incorrect and we had to resubmit our application. We had no access to direct assistance from any human by phone or email or face to face. We resubmitted our application 28 December 2020. The deadline to register your intention to exchange driving licence is now about to expire and must be made online with one of the requirements being your residency ID so we were basically stuffed.
Our residency application was not actioned until September 2021 - once they open the application they have 3 months to process but the clock doesn’t start until they actually open the application. They then requested us to resubmit the financial information as it was no longer current due to their delay, which had to come from the U.K. , original documents, notarised with Apostile attached AND translated into Spanish giving us 10 days to respond. Obviously we had to request an extension to allow us to provide the documents again at a cost in excess of €1000.
Our residency was finally granted December 2021 with a further month to wait for receipt of our TIE card. So January 2022 was the earliest date we could have applied to exchange our driving licences."
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For that kind of money, you could have just done it the normal way; take the test.