Contact
Write to us and you will get a useful answer, not "an adviser will be in touch".
Want to know what you would pay?
The intake form asks the right questions and gives us your case already sorted. Two minutes, no commitment.
Who you are dealing with
Jacob Salama Chocrón is a Spanish lawyer, member of the Málaga Bar Association (no. 11,294), and heads Salama Legal SLP. His practice covers international tax and everything around holiday lets: licences, owners' associations, tax enquiries and non-resident taxation.
The day-to-day bookkeeping is handled by the team and the system; anything legal goes to him.
What happens after you press send
Your email is read by a person, not sorted by a form. On a working day you will normally hear back within one; if your first line says a deadline is running, it goes to the front of the queue.
The reply tells you four things: whether this is work we do, which Spanish returns your situation actually requires, which deadlines are already running, and what it would cost. If we think you do not need us — because the obligation you are worried about does not exist, or because what you need is a different kind of professional — that is what the reply says, and it is the end of the matter. We would rather lose the fee than take on work that should not exist.
Nobody will call you unannounced. If a conversation would be quicker than three emails we will suggest a time and you decide; there is no sales call disguised as a consultation, and no follow-up sequence.
What we answer without charging, and where the line is
We would rather tell you early that we are not the right fit than take on a case that does not suit us. So a first email costs nothing, and the reply is a real one.
| Answered in the first email, free | Quoted first, because it is legal work |
|---|---|
| Which returns your situation requires, and when they are due | Deciding a position where the law admits more than one reading |
| Whether we handle that kind of case at all | Reading a share plan, a trust deed, an operating agreement or a will |
| What our fee would be, and what it covers | Replying to a letter from the Spanish tax office on your behalf |
| What documents we would need from you | A written opinion you can rely on, or show to another adviser |
| Whether a deadline has already passed and what that changes | Anything that requires us to compute your actual liability |
The distinction is not commercial squeamishness. An answer given off the top of a head, without the documents, is worth what it costs, and in tax it can be worse than no answer at all, because you act on it. When the question is on the right of that table we say so, quote for it, and you decide.
What to send with the first email
You do not need to organise anything. What shortens the exchange is sending the documents you already have, as they reached you, rather than describing them.
You own property in Spain
The latest IBI receipt, which carries the cadastral reference and the rateable value; the deed of purchase; and, if you let it, the platform statements for the year. If there is more than one owner, tell us the share of each.
You are self-employed here
Your form 036 registration, the activity code you are registered under, a couple of representative invoices and the last return that was filed for you, whoever filed it.
A letter has arrived from the tax office
The letter itself, complete, in PDF and not as a photograph of a screen — including the last page, which is where the deadline and the file reference are. And the date you actually received or opened it.
Shares, options or an inheritance
The plan documents or the will and death certificate, in whatever language they exist. They are usually the whole case, and no summary of them is a substitute for reading them.
Documents in English, Spanish or French we read as they come. In another language we will normally ask you for a translation, and for anything that has to be produced to a Spanish authority a sworn translation may be required, which takes time and should be started early rather than at the end.
If a deadline is already running, say so in the first line
This is the single most useful thing you can do. Administrative deadlines in Spain are short, they are frequently counted in working days, and they are not extended because you were looking for an adviser.
- A request for information or a hearing notice normally gives you a period counted in working days from the day after service. It runs whether or not anyone has read the letter.
- Where a notice is served electronically and nobody opens it, Spanish administrative law treats it as served once ten calendar days have passed. Cases are lost this way without a single argument being heard.
- An appeal against an assessment — the recurso de reposición — runs for one month from the day after notification. So does an economic-administrative claim.
- Filing late of your own accord and filing late after being asked are not the same event: one carries a surcharge, the other a penalty. Which one applies depends only on who moved first, so a day matters.
If the time left is enough to do the work properly, we will tell you so and what it costs. If it is not, we will say that instead, rather than take the file and hope. We do not promise outcomes in any case — no lawyer honestly can — and we will not tell you a reply is bound to succeed because you would prefer to hear it.
Everything you tell us is confidential
Salama Tax is a trading name of a firm of Spanish lawyers, and the duty of confidentiality that binds a lawyer of the Spanish Bar — Article 542.3 of the Spanish Judiciary Act and the profession's own code of conduct — covers your first email as much as it covers a case in court. It applies whether or not you go on to instruct us, and whether or not anything is ever invoiced.
In practice that means three things. We do not discuss your file with anyone you have not told us to speak to, including a relative or a business partner, unless you say so in writing. Your documents live in a folder that belongs to you and that you can take away. And if what you describe turns out to be a problem that has already happened rather than one you are planning, telling us does not put you in a worse position than staying silent — it is usually the only way to find out whether voluntary disclosure is still available to you.
Before we take anything on we check that acting for you does not conflict with an existing client. If it does, we say so and stop there.
The languages we work in
We correspond in English, Spanish and French, and we do it in whichever of the three you prefer, consistently, including the warnings before each deadline. What cannot be translated is the tax office itself: notices from the Spanish administration arrive in Spanish, and in some regions in the co-official language of the region. We read them and explain them; we cannot make them arrive in English.
We also do not advise on the tax law of your own country, and we will not pretend to. Where your case needs both sides — and cross-border cases usually do — you appoint your adviser there and we deal with them directly, in English, so that the two halves agree instead of contradicting each other.
What we are not the right firm for
We work with individuals, not with companies: no corporate income tax, no payroll, no statutory accounts. We do not issue your sales invoices for you, and we do not act as a general business consultancy. If that is what you need, a good gestoría will serve you better and cost you less, and we will say so in the first reply rather than the third.
Firm details
Salama Legal SLP · Spanish tax ID B25943473
C/ General Marina 14, 2.º izq., 52001 Melilla