I'll be arriving in Madrid at the beginning of September and want to open a bank account and find a place to live right within the first 5 days or so. (I plan on having Don at www.welcometomadrid.com help me out) .
Anyhow, I will have a brand spankin' new bank account when I go out to find a place to live (I plan on finding a piso compartido). Does anyone have comments on whether it might be best for me to keep some cash out of the bank in order to pay cash up front once I find a place, or will a new bank account be "up an' runnin'" immediately?
I know that here in Nebraska it could be difficult to find a landlord/roommate who would accept those temporary checks from a new account.
thanks Darcy
Posts: 17 | Location: Lincoln, Nebraska USA | Registered: 27 June 2002
Ok, be careful, opening a bank account at a Spanish bank is not as easy as going, signing a few papers and depositing the money.
The process for opening a bank account here is covered on another thread, just click HERE
Plenty of banks here but the process is the same for all of them. Check out the most popular banks near the bottom of my MONEY MATTERS PAGE
I personally recommend "La Caixa" ( www.lacaixa.es ), good customer service and plenty of offices. Caja Madrid ( www.cajamadrid.es ) would be my second choice. In my opinion, the folks at BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) are rude and not patient with their clients.
So, your bank account will NOT be up immediately, keep some cahs on hand or travellers checks that you can cash at a bank when you need the Euros to pay the first month rent + a one month security deposit which is what almost all rentals will require.
Thank ya for the heads-up on the bank accounts, Jer, not to mention the countless other nuggets wisdom you and everyone have imparted on this message board.
And I'll be sure to post on that thread my account-opening experience at la caixa in **juicy** detail!
saludos,
Darcy
Posts: 17 | Location: Lincoln, Nebraska USA | Registered: 27 June 2002
Are you aware that many of these links don't work? I'm trying to check out the "Spanish Bank Accounts" thread but it kicks me to a page from your old server I guess. Could you please update the link so us so-to-arrive-in-Madrid readers can learn?
when the old server screwed the forums up (see the "beware the elephant" note at page bottom of http://spaintalk.multimadrid.org/groupee ) a lot of links were replaced with that page you got on the old server.
if the links could be updated i would have done it loooooong ago
you will have to do a SEARCH on "bank accounts" or similar terms like everyone else.
the "spanish bank accounts" thread (as well as many other threads related to banks and such) is alive and well on the new server and it comes up on the results pages if you SEARCH for "bank accounts", all 8 pages of it so happy reading.
please get used to doing SEARCHES as you can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you find... yada yada yada
it is pretty standard on all forums and the only thing more standard is that the forum members never pay any attention to it and just ask questions that are already answered all over the place
along the lines of field of dreams but as applied to message boards...
"if you build it... they will come... but never will they make an effort to learn to use it"
.
Ok, be careful, opening a bank account at a Spanish bank is not as easy as going, signing a few papers and depositing the money.
- rent or buy a cell phone from me for your stay in spain, more info at 
- already have a cell phone, get a spanish SIM card for it at 
