Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

ENERGY

When will they cut off my water and electricity if I don’t pay my bills in Spain?

If you don't pay your bills in Spain, like anywhere, you'll could have your water or electricity cut off. But, when will they cut them, and does the company cut them completely? Here's what you need to know.

Published: 31 May 2023 15:53 CEST
When will they cut off my water and electricity if I don’t pay my bills in Spain?
Photo: Vien Hoang/Pixabay.

Water and electricity make up a big proportion of your household bills, along with gas. They are also increasingly expensive and prices of electricity, in particular, have skyrocketed over the last couple of years.

Though it’s a pain for many, for some people who are struggling financially, these bills can be too much. Many people fail to pay their bills and have their energy supply cut off. But when will they cut off my water and electricity if I don’t pay my bills in Spain? How long does it take, and do they cut them completely?

Water

In Spain, as anywhere, you have a contract with a water supplier, and therefore a contractual duty to pay for the service. Water bills here are paid either monthly or every couple of months.

READ ALSO: The water restrictions you can expect in Spain this summer

If you don’t pay up, for whatever reason, the water company is (in normal conditions) within its rights to suspend the supply, as indicated in the first paragraph of Article 141 of Spain’s public services law:

“The breach of the contract for a period of several months, or repeatedly, or in matters that seriously affect the company or third parties, allows the company to terminate the contract and proceed to cut the service. Under the uniform conditions, the reasons for non-compliance that give rise to the contract being terminated will be specified.”

However, it’s not entirely that simple.

Despite the fact that non-payment of water bills eventually leads to the suspension of service, the Spanish courts have ruled that water is an essential right and that under no circumstances can a person be entirely deprived of it, so companies must guarantee a vital minimum of water per day.

In judgment T-034/16, the Spanish Constitutional Court declared:

“These benefits aimed at guaranteeing the vital minimum of water for citizens cannot be understood as an authorisation for users not to comply with the payment obligation derived from the public service contract. Therefore, this court, based on reports from the World Health Organization (WHO), has determined that when a subscriber cannot cancel the water service and requires it to guarantee its integrity, he will have the right to access to the minimum amount of liquid to survive, which is equivalent to 50 litres per day per individual.”

Due to the above ruling, companies must be flexible with payment arrangements and will, only as a last measure, authorise the restriction of water according to the limits indicated by the court: that is, 50 litres per day per person who lives in the house. 

In addition to that, the Spanish government recently introduced measures to ensure that vulnerable people won’t have their services entirely cut off during the ongoing cost of living crisis. According to the government website: “Until December 31st, 2023, supplies of electricity, natural gas and water, for those consumers who are vulnerable, severely vulnerable or at risk of social exclusion, may not be suspended”. 

How soon do they do this?

It depends on the company, and on the time limit set by each provider, as long as it does not exceed the limits imposed by Article 140 of Law 142/1994, which are:

  • Two bills for bimonthly billing arrangements.
  • Three bills when it is monthly.

That basically means that depending on the water company, if you don’t pay your bill for two or three consecutive bills, which will be 3 or 4 months, the company can decide to partially suspend the service.

Electricity 

Electricity bills in particular have skyrocketed in recent times. First things first, as with water bills, if you don’t pay your electricity in Spain, it cannot be cut off without warning. You will be given plenty of time to sort out payment.

READ ALSO: At what time of the day is electricity cheapest in Spain?

Firstly, your electricity company will send you the bill, whether by post or email. If, after this notice, it still hasn’t been paid, a notice of non-payment will be sent, normally by formal letter.

Here, the company will warn you that if you don’t pay up, they are going to cut off the lights, and usually indicate a specific payment deadline and a date when they’ll do it.

If payment is still not made, another letter will be sent warning off the cut cut-off and the “effective interruption of supply”.

How long does it take for that to happen? That depends on your contract, and the market that regulates the contract:

If you’re on the free market, both the payment period and the cut-off period are stated in the contract.

For those on the Voluntary Price for Small Consumers (PVPC): the payment period is 20 days from the date the bill is issued. From the receipt of the first notice, 2 months must pass before the supply is cut off.

In the case of vulnerable customers with a bono social or social benefits, in total this would work out to four months, although they have protection from any energy cut-offs until the end of the year. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

SPAIN EXPLAINED

Why does Spain have no nuclear weapons?

Despite a top secret project to build them during the dictatorship, Spaniards have never been keen on the idea of nuclear weapons, especially since the US accidentally dropped four nuclear bombs on Almería.

Published: 15 April 2024 16:36 CEST
Why does Spain have no nuclear weapons?

Spain isn’t part of the reduced group of nations that have nuclear weapons, which includes European neighbours the UK and France.

It has never tested nuclear weapons, does not manufacture them, nor has it bought them from nuclear allies who make them.

Spain is still a NATO member and doesn’t shy away from involving itself in foreign policy debates, often taking positions against the mainstream.

But it has still never joined the nuclear club nor have Spaniards ever really wanted to, even though former dictator Francisco Franco had different ideas (more on that below).

In fact, Spaniards seem to have an indifferent if not abnormally negative view of nukes, largely stemming from an accident by an American air force on Spanish soil in the 1960s.

READ ALSO: How important is nuclear power to Spain?

A 2018 study on state attitudes towards nuclear weapons concluded that Spain had “little to no interest in nuclear weapons.” Yet Spain still benefits from NATO’s so-called ‘nuclear umbrella’ defence and has nearby neighbours, including France and the United Kingdom, that are nuclear powers. It is also home to several American military bases.

In that sense, Spain balances a somewhat unique position of being pro-nuclear for other countries and as a broader defence deterrence at the global level, but not on Spanish territory because it knows that would not sit well with Spaniards.

But why is this? Why doesn’t Spain have nuclear weapons?

Anti-nuclear sentiment among Spaniards

According to an article for Institut Montaigne by Clara Portela, Professor of Political Science at the University of Valencia, the Spanish people are “sensitised on nuclear weapons, if not negatively disposed towards them.”

Much of it comes down to history and, in particular, an accident involving nuclear weapons on Spanish soil. As part of post-war defence and security agreements Spain made with the U.S, American nuclear weapons were kept on Spanish soil.

Spaniards weren’t keen on the idea. Portela notes that “their presence at the Torrejón base near Madrid was a controversial issue” among the public, but it was an accident in 1966 that really soured Spaniards to nuclear weapons after an American aircraft carrying a hydrogen bomb crashed and dropped the device in the waters near the town of Palomares off the coast of Almería.

READ ALSO: Ten of the best documentaries about Spain

The incident caused “one of the bombs to fall to the seabed and leak radioactivity” into the surrounding area, Portela states, something that would have no doubt hardened many Spaniard’s perceptions towards nuclear weapons, especially as the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was still in living memory for many.

A NATO-nuclear referendum

This scepticism towards nuclear arms was solidified twenty years later in a referendum on NATO membership. Though the government of the day campaigned for continued membership of the military alliance, it made it conditional on Spain also continuing as a non-nuclear power. A clause in the referendum consultation outlined this condition: “The prohibition to install, store or introduce nuclear weapons on Spanish soil will be maintained.”

Spaniards backed their continued, non-nuclear NATO membership by 13 percent.

A year later, in 1987, Spain formally signed the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), further cementing its non-nuclear stance.

And that was it — with this and the result of the referendum, Portela suggests that “the issue of nuclear weapons was all but archived. It hardly re-surfaced in public debates for decades.”

An atomic bomb of the type nicknamed “Little Boy” that was dropped by a US Army Air Force B-29 bomber in 1945 over Hiroshima, Japan. (Photo by LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY / AFP)

The nuclear dictator?

Despite the Spanish public’s distrust of nuclear weapons, there was one Spaniard in particular who was quite keen on the idea: Franco.

In what may be one of the most terrifying historical ‘what ifs’ ever, the fascist dictator wanted to equip Spain with a nuclear arsenal, started a project to do so, and came very close to achieving it.

The ‘Islero Project’, as it was known, was top secret and lasted for several decades of scientific research until it was finally abandoned in the 1980s after his death.

Firstly, a brief consideration of the geopolitics of the time is worthwhile here, and it concerns the Americans again. When the Second World War ended in 1945, Spain immediately became isolated on the international stage owing to its support for Nazi Germany and fascist Spain. It was excluded from the UN and shunned as a real player in international relations.

As the Cold War and threat of nuclear annihilation grew throughout the 1950s, Franco’s fierce anti-communism combined with the strategic geographical positioning of Spain led the U.S. to form closer ties with the dictatorship, promising financial aid and image rehabilitation in return for allowing American military bases in Spain.

READ ALSO: Where are the US’s military bases in Spain and why are they there?

The Junta de Energía Nuclear was created in 1951, undertaking research and atomic energy development more broadly, and it sent promising researchers to study in the U.S. When they returned, the Islero project continued in secret.

Rather bizarrely, it was the accident at Palomares years later that actually gave the scientists the key to designing an atomic bomb. Unconvinced by the American’s explanations for the debacle, the Spaniards working on plans discovered the Ulam-Teller method, which was fundamental to the development of the thermonuclear bomb or H-bomb.

However, the project was then frozen by Franco himself because he feared the United States would discover that Spain was trying to develop its own atomic bomb and impose economic sanctions.

After Franco’s death in 1975, Spanish scientists secretly restarted the project, but in 1982 the new Socialist government discovered the plans and disbanded the project. By 1987 the González government announced Spain’s accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty NPT and the issue has rarely even come up as an issue since then.

And despite that, Spain is a NATO member, regularly attends the G20, and often plays a leading role on the global stage. Certain elements of the dictatorship had eyes on building a nuclear arsenal, but it never happened. Franco ultimately worried about the economic repercussions of being discovered, and Spaniards were themselves sceptical about the idea based on the experience in Palomares.

In terms of nuclear weapons, Spain is what Portela describes as a ‘de-proliferation’ state – in other words, a country that aspired to have nuclear bombs but reversed it.

It doesn’t look like changing anytime soon either. A survey in 2021 showed that Spain had the highest level of support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, with a massive 89 percent majority.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain not in the G20 (but is always invited)?

SHOW COMMENTS