Xàbia Orders Refund of Incorrectly Charged Waste Collection Fees

The Mayor of Xàbia, Rosa Cardona, and the Councillor for Finance, Teresa Legay, addressed the public on Tuesday to clarify the situation regarding the direct debit of new waste collection fees, which occurred without prior notification to residents. Cardona explained that "after so much individualised work, personalising each bill, the least we could do was to address this outsourced management error and take responsibility as soon as we became aware of it."

Councillor Teresa Legay detailed that the issue arose from the subcontracted company responsible for tax collection management, which erroneously generated informational letters with barcodes—something that should not be done for direct debit or payment plan bills to avoid duplications—and therefore, they were not sent. However, the charges were mistakenly processed by the bank on July 1st.

In response to this situation, the Town Hall "reacted immediately" by instructing banks to reverse the charges. "Residents will see the refund in their accounts" between this Tuesday and Wednesday, Legay indicated.

Once the notification errors are corrected, they will be sent correctly to homes with all necessary information: details of the new fee calculation system (now based on the cadastral value of each property), information on payment plans, direct debits, and possible discounts for retirees, among other aspects. Only after these communications will the direct debit bills be issued again, this time with the 1% discount planned for such payments.

The Town Hall emphasised that this new structuring of the fee is in response to a state legal obligation that requires alignment between service costs and revenues. With the previous government having approved an increase in the waste contract by 1,200,000 euros, they are obliged to raise the fee.

Faced with this legal imposition, the Town Hall has opted for a model that seeks to minimise the impact on citizens: tourist homes will bear the brunt of the increase, while other taxes such as property tax have been adjusted downwards to ensure the final balance is favourable for the majority of residents.