We finally got our empadronamiento! We made a lot of mistakes along the way but we have it now. The instructions from the consulate in Chicago made it sound easy as pie: simply walk in to the Subdelegación del Gobierno and hand them your police history and medical certificate and get your residence card. That was not accurate.
So we asked around and tried to find out what the steps were. I went to countless expat forums, Spain specific forums, reddit and even blogs that had succeeded in getting the same visa 1 or 2 years prior. We learned we had to do it within 30 days- this part Chicago had right. But since Chicago told it was so easy, we hadn’t expected to need the entire month to do it- we spent our first ten days after arrival in Vienna. So we start by making an appointment with the police commission because they issue the cards. Then we make an appointment with our local town hall for the empadronamiento or padron. Both appointments are in early October, about 3 weeks into our 4 week deadline. Of course our apartment lease is about to end so we find a new apartment and sign a lease for 3 months. I make a new appointment with the police commission, the assigned date is 7 weeks past our arrival.
A week later, the police cancel our appointment and send an email saying what I think is, ‘You’ve made the wrong kind of appointment. We’ll cancel this for you. Try again.’ We go to our appointment with the local town hall (Gracia). They tell us we need to have a lease for 6 months or longer and send us on our way.
Now I’m scrambling. We’re out of our 4 week window. I find a Gestor (kind of like an attorney, but geared toward helping you handle low level law BS) and for €30 she tells me I need to get my padron and take it to my upcoming meeting with the police commission *not new information* She does say that the town hall can issue an padron without an address if they want to, though they usually won’t. She also says the police can issue our residence card without the padron if they wish and we should beg them to give it to us. *not great advice*
We go to the police on our appointment date. We beg them for the card. They say no and tell us to get our empadronamiento first and come back. She does stamp and sign our appointment sheet, which basically gives us an undated extension to continue to work on our paperwork. We reached out to friends to see if someone can help us with the padron. Fortunately, our good friends in Barcelona agreed to help! They filled out a ton of paperwork and gave us copies of the necessary very personal supporting documents. They even went to the appointment with us! With this extra help, the padron was issued in the 3rd week of November.
2 days later we went back to the police commission. They took our padron and our fingerprints and gave us the resguardo document and told us to pick up our card in a month. Fingers crossed!
Update: When we returned, we were a week early. We came back a week after that and they had our cards waiting for us!