Does anyone know a good abogado de Extranjeria?

You did not show that you are non EU nationals.   

That makes a considerable difference as EU nationals are automatically permanent after five years and do not need to renew their certificate (green paper).

Of course after Brexit U.K. nationals may be in the same situation as they will be non EU

I think my non-Eu status would be apparent from the form since we have to put in the nationality while filling in that form?

My wife is spanish, that should also be evident from the NIE etc i believe.

.......

There are many things that could have gone wrong with filling in the form and applying online (i dont recommend that to anyone - just do your stuff properly via a lawyer), but what im concerned with is the procedure afterwards.

I believe we should just hand over the process to a professional so that s/he can deal with it properly. I mean, if due to brexit etc there is load in the extranjeria and we cannot get a cita or the letter does not arrive (or arrives late) it will be our responsibility - the law probably wouldnt listen to excuses like "There was brexit and extranjeria was busy and the letter did not arrive and then pigs flew" etc...

That's why i am looking for an abogado - they would know what to do even in if brexit causes the system to go haywire etc...

Now that you have explained your status the situation changes

My wife is a non EU national.  I am an EU Citizen. She has been here now for over 12 years.  We have never needed to employ a so called ‘professional’ to help us.  Personally I would not recommend you doing so but it’s of course your choice

I am pretty certain that you also become automatically permanent after five years ( my wife did)  but unlike an EU national you do have to renew your status after the first five years and then every 10 years.

Spain has signed an EU Directive which in effect makes it illegal to keep a family separated so unless you have done something very odd you should not have had any problems    That your wife is spanish I would have thought there would be no language problems, 

I would suggest your wife investigates what the error was. I suspect it is something very simple to put right

PS. At the present moment brexit should not affect you making an appointment as U.K. nationals at least at some   Extranjerias have had appointments for after Brexit cancelled and new ones denied, as the authorities do not know what  will happen if there is no deal

Yeah, my general understanding is the same, but i think to become permanent or renew you still have to apply or something - at least with the recent rules i believe. I know it is a constitutional right in Spanish constitution but to make use of it it seems one would need to apply. Your wife may have become permanent a long time ago.

My spanish is so so, since i work internationally over internet with generally english-speaking clients i dont have much opportunities to practice my spanish. i dont think its a requirement at all for renewing residency - its a requirement for citizenship however.

i like to do things properly and by the book, so i am set that i am going to hand over this process to a professional. I did that for accounting and taxes 3 years ago so i didnt have any issues with that ever since.

I have lived in spain for a little over thirty years.   I have a background in the law 

Based on mine and others’ experienced with ‘professionals’ I believe many do not cut the mustard: i have firm evidence of that.

I would have thought you and your wife would have at least an equal chance of getting your problem resolved as would a ‘professional.’

Good luck

Thanks.

Update:

After ~1.5 months, the letter with the notification has not arrived.

So today we went and got a copy of it in the extranjeria.

It turns out that a new rule came into effect in between the time we filed the application and the application went into tramite. And due to that rule 2 documents that became new requirements were missing, it was rejected for this reason.

Apparently starting from 28 January 2019, for applications like this (tarjeta azul de la esposo/famililar de la ciudadana de la union etc) now you need to also provide your existing passport that is valid for the duration of the application, and also a recently issued marriage certificate.

We filed the application in early october. It was put into tramite in february, therefore triggering the new rule.

We had no idea such a rule or law was upcoming, neither we knew how to supply the newly needed documents after the rule came into effect. As a result we learned this 5 months later and lost that time in the process.

We only need to provide these documents to our local ayuntamiento within a month and that will do it.

I strongly recommend anyone who can afford it to do such things with a proper abogado so things can go smoothly. If we did this via a lawyer 5 months ago, we would either be aware of the upcoming regulation, or we would know that we needed to supply the documents when it came into effect and how to do it.

In any case all is well...

unity100 wrote:

I strongly recommend anyone who can afford it to do such things with a proper abogado so things can go smoothly....

I know I am cynical but:-

Usually only people who do not know how to do something for themselves,  employ someone to do it for them, thus they will probably have no idea if what is done was done well,  or if their professional was just lucky and any errors made did not become apparent.

If done poorly then they will only know if the problem comes to their attention and does not just slip by,  or does not come to their attention until maybe years later,  as often happens in Spain.

It is therefore possible to say when a professional did a poor job but almost never to be 100% certain they got it completely right

Bearing that in mind, I suggest it is practically impossible to say that a lawyer, or anyone else is competent unless one is competent in the same field themselves. 

For that reason I (almost never) recommend anyone.

Johncar wrote:

unity100 wrote:

I strongly recommend anyone who can afford it to do such things with a proper abogado so things can go smoothly....

I know I am cynical but:-

Yeah, i am aware that your experience has been different.

Usually only people who do not know how to do something employ someone to do it for them, thus they will probably have no idea if what is done was done so well,  or if their professional was just lucky.

Of course choosing a professional is important. Just like in choosing any service or buying anything. Thats something which depends on the person himself/herself and it cant be helped.

In our case we did a 1-2 day search on internet. Which is a difficult thing to do since its easy to misrepresent things on internet. But we are experienced with that. We chose a law office in Madrid area which specialized in dealing with extranjeria. We sent them a message, they couldnt reply for 2 days due to their workload. They called back, within 20 seconds they told us what we needed to do for our particular situation. We did that, and it was resolved.

Unity pleased to hear your experience was, as far as you can tell,  a good one and that you will not discover it to be otherwise  in the future

However the post I made, with a background in the law,  and over 30 years in Spain, still stands