Complaint filing terms

Service provider: IBERMÓVIL & HOSTING, S.L. (brand IBERFÁCIL), NIF (Spanish tax identification number) B13748173. Its full details are in the Legal Notice.

These terms apply to the criminal complaint processing service. They are supplemented by the General Terms and Conditions of Contracting (General Terms and Conditions of Contracting); if anything conflicts, in relation to this service what is said here prevails.

1. What exactly you are contracting: processing, not legal advice

This service is provided without legal advice. It is the most important boundary in this document and should be understood before contracting.

In Spain anyone can file a criminal complaint (denuncia) without a lawyer. What Iberfácil sells you is that this complaint is properly recorded, properly documented and properly filed: the processing work, not legal advice on your case.

1.1 What the service includes

1. Taking your statement. A case manager acting as gestor instructor (the person who takes and documents your statement) takes your statement at a formal appearance (comparecencia) —in person or by videoconference—, asks you structured questions and records what you state.
2. Verifying your identity, at the level that a statement of this nature requires (identity document and video identification).
3. Formalising the written criminal complaint with your facts, drafted in the format that the authorities expect.
4. Documenting the act with its records (diligencias): identification of the person appearing, data protection information, incorporation of the documentary evidence you provide with its folio numbering (foliado), and a final forwarding record.
5. Incorporating your evidence, with folio numbering, as numbered annexes of the case file.
6. Signing electronically the whole, you and the case manager, with an evidence package.
7. Forwarding the criminal complaint to the competent authority by electronic means, within a maximum of 72 hours from when the case file is signed and complete.
8. Delivering to you the complete case file in a single document: criminal complaint, records, annexes and the filing receipt from the public body.

1.2 What is NOT included

The following is not part of this service and is not done, not even informally in conversation:

• Assessing whether your facts constitute a crime or whether your complaint has any prospects of progressing through the criminal justice process.
• Legally characterising the facts on your behalf: it is not said what crime it is, nor are criminal offence definitions (tipos penales) cited in your name.
• Advising you on strategy: whether or not it is in your interest to file a complaint, when, against whom, or what is best for your interests.
• Representing or defending you afterwards, before the authority or in the proceedings that may be opened.
• Following up the proceedings after forwarding, unless you contract that service separately.
• Drafting the facts for you. The facts are yours and you state them; the case manager records them and gives them form, but does not construct them.

The written criminal complaint that you sign itself contains a legal notice that says the same thing: that the processing company does not perform public functions or provide legal advice, that the case manager acts as a facilitator, and that you are solely responsible for the truthfulness of what you state. These terms and that document say the same thing on purpose.

1.3 If you want advice

You can contract it separately, as an independent legal service, before or after the criminal complaint. If you do, you are quoted separately and a professional is assigned to you. And then what is said in article 2 applies.

2. Guarantee of independence between whoever processes and whoever advises

If, in addition to processing, you contract legal advice on the same facts, the case manager (gestor instructor) or clerk who formalises and processes the criminal complaint will always be a different person from the professional who advises you.

It is not an organisational formality, it is a guarantee for you. The case manager (gestor instructor) documents what you state: their role is to record your statement faithfully, not to improve it. The advising professional builds a legal strategy on those same facts: their role is to defend your interests. If they were the same person, the statement would stop being a record of what you said and would become a document geared towards a result, and it would lose precisely the value that makes it useful.

That is why:

• The two functions are never performed by the same person.
• The separation is recorded in the case file: it identifies who took and documented the statement and who provided legal advice.
• The statement record (diligencia de manifestación) records what you declared, with your reading and agreement before signing.

3. To whom your criminal complaint is forwarded

3.1 The choice is made by Iberfácil

The criminal complaint is forwarded to any competent authority, which may be:

• Public Prosecutor's Office (Fiscalía) —provincial or specialised—,
• Investigating Court (Juzgado de Instrucción) —the duty court or the one allocated by the court deanery—,
• Law-enforcement agencies (Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad) (Policía Nacional, Guardia Civil, regional or local police).

The choice of addressee is made by Iberfácil according to internal criteria: the type of facts reported, territorial jurisdiction, the place where they were committed, the existence of prior proceedings on the same facts, urgency and the filing route available.

You do not choose the addressee, unless there is a reason that requires it and it is so recorded in the engagement.

3.2 What you are told

Once it has been forwarded, you are informed of:

• To which authority it was forwarded and by what route.
• The exact date and time of forwarding.
• The filing receipt from the public body, with its registration number.

All of this is added to your case file and reaches you in the single document in article 1.1, point 8.

3.3 What the authority does afterwards does not depend on Iberfácil

The receiving authority may reject the criminal complaint as inadmissible, close the case (archivo), forward it to another body that it considers competent, or open proceedings (diligencias). Any of those things may happen, and none of them is a breach of the service you have contracted: what is contracted is that your criminal complaint is properly recorded, documented and filed, with proof of filing obtained, and that is fulfilled by forwarding it and delivering the receipt.

What happens then:

• If the authority forwards it to another body on grounds of jurisdiction, there is no need to file again or pay again: the transfer is made by the public body itself.
• If the authority requires a formal defect attributable to the processing to be remedied (subsanación) (a document of the case file is missing, an error in the written complaint), it is remedied at no cost to you.
• If the authority requires the facts to be completed or expanded, that is new work: it is quoted as an extension (article 7) and you decide.
• If the authority rejects it as inadmissible or closes the case, there is no failure to perform the service, which is fulfilled by forwarding and by delivery of the case file with the receipt. If you want to appeal or pursue it further, that is a different legal service that is quoted separately and requires an assigned professional.

4. Precautionary measures

If, in addition to filing a complaint, you want to request precautionary measures (a protection order, a restraining order (prohibición de aproximación), the securing of assets or evidence), that is a legal action on behalf of a party and is not part of the processing of the criminal complaint. It is contracted as an independent legal service, with an assigned lawyer who assesses your case, drafts the application and argues it before the authority, and with a court procurator (procurador) when the procedure requires it. It has its own quotation and its own engagement sheet (hoja de encargo).

If, when taking your statement, the case manager considers that your situation might require urgent protection measures, they will tell you and offer you that service, but will not assess for you whether it is appropriate nor request it within this engagement.

5. Your obligations, and what you assume by filing a complaint

By contracting you declare and accept that:

• Everything you state is true. The criminal complaint is made under your responsibility, not Iberfácil's.
• You know that reporting false facts or simulating a crime has criminal consequences (arts. 456 and 457 of the Código Penal, Criminal Code) and that, for that reason, you must tell the truth when filing a complaint.
• The documents you provide as evidence are authentic and you have obtained them lawfully.
• You are solely responsible for the content of the criminal complaint. The case manager records your statement; they do not endorse or verify it.

Iberfácil may refuse to process a criminal complaint when it finds indications that the intention is to simulate a crime, falsify evidence or use the service for purposes other than its intended one. In that case you are informed and what you paid is refunded, minus the work already carried out.

6. How the service proceeds

Nothing is forwarded without your review and your signature. If the draft does not reflect what you meant to say, it is corrected before signing.

An artificial intelligence assistant may take part in preparing the written complaint, helping to organise and draft what you have stated. It is always reviewed by the case manager before you see it, and you always review it before signing it.

7. Supplementary appearances and supplementary criminal complaints

• If before forwarding you want to provide more facts or evidence, it is recorded as one more record (diligencia) within the same case file. If the additional work is significant, you are quoted beforehand.
• If after forwarding new facts or evidence appear that have to be sent to the same authority, it is a supplementary criminal complaint: a new case file, referenced to the earlier one and to the registration number of the public body, with its own forwarding, its own receipt and its own price.

8. Online contracting, prior information and withdrawal

8.1 Before contracting you are informed of

The characteristics of the service and its scope (article 1), the total price including taxes and the foreseeable disbursements (suplidos) and third-party costs, the time for performance, the identity and contact details of Iberfácil, the complaints procedure, and the right of withdrawal with its conditions.

Before paying you see a summary of all of the above and you expressly confirm that the order implies an obligation to pay.

8.2 Right of withdrawal

If you contract as a consumer, you have 14 calendar days to withdraw without giving any reason, from when the contract is concluded. You can exercise it from your private area or by notifying it by any means.

This service has a particularity that is worth understanding:

• Processing begins immediately because criminal complaints do not wait. To be able to start within those 14 days we need you to ask us expressly: when contracting you tick a box —separate, not pre-ticked— in which you request that the service begin before the withdrawal period ends and acknowledge that you will lose the right of withdrawal once the service has been fully performed.
• If you withdraw before forwarding, even if you have already signed, you are refunded what you paid minus the part proportional to the work already carried out (appearance, identification, drafting, records), calculated on the total price of the service. The calculation is detailed to you.
• Forwarding is the point of no return. It is irreversible: a filed complaint cannot be withdrawn from the public body's register. That is why you are notified prominently, at the time of signing, that, by signing and authorising forwarding, you authorise a step that you will no longer be able to undo once it has been taken, and that until the complaint is forwarded you can still withdraw. If, within the withdrawal period, you withdraw after forwarding and before the case file is delivered to you, the complaint already filed is not withdrawn and you are refunded what you paid minus the part proportional to the work carried out, which already includes forwarding. The service is only fully performed, and the right of withdrawal extinguished, when the complete case file is delivered to you with the filing receipt (article 1.1, points 7 and 8).
• If you do not tick the immediate-start box, processing does not begin until the 14 days have passed, and you are told what that wait implies for your case.

9. Price

The price includes what is described in article 1.1. It is quoted with the separation into three blocks in article 7 of the General Terms and Conditions: Iberfácil's fees, third-party costs passed on and disbursements.

The following are not included and are quoted separately: legal advice (article 1.3), precautionary measures (article 4), following up the proceedings, supplementary criminal complaints (article 7), and any translations or expert reports you may need.

10. Signature and value of the case file

You and the case manager sign electronically. The signature used is an advanced electronic signature based on evidence: it is not a qualified signature. What that means exactly is in the Electronic Signature Policy, and it is worth reading, because a criminal complaint can have effects years later.

Documents in the case file that have a secure verification code (código seguro de verificación, CSV) and a QR code printed on them can be checked with them by anyone —including the receiving authority—: the verifier shows the verification record of the document and its fingerprint, to compare it with that of the copy and check that it is authentic and has not been altered. The verifier is at the address printed on the document itself: the path /csv on the domain of the brand that issued it (for Iberfácil, iberfacil.es/csv). It shows the verification record, with the signatories' names masked, and allows the original to be downloaded while it is available. If the original is no longer available, the verifier may fail to find the document or not offer the download.

11. Data protection

A criminal complaint contains data relating to criminal offences (art. 10 of the General Data Protection Regulation (Reglamento General de Protección de Datos, RGPD/GDPR) and art. 10 of Ley Orgánica 3/2018 (Spanish Organic Law on Personal Data Protection and Guarantee of Digital Rights, LOPDGDD)), both yours and those of third parties, subject to stricter rules. How they are processed in detail is set out in the Privacy Policy, articles 5 and 12.

Please note that you are providing data of other people —the person complained against, witnesses—: by doing so you declare that it is necessary for the exercise of your right to file a complaint.

During the appearance you are given and you sign a data protection information record (diligencia), which forms part of the case file.

12. Liability

Iberfácil is liable for your criminal complaint being faithfully recorded, properly documented, signed with its evidence package and forwarded on time to a competent authority, with delivery of the receipt.

It is not liable for the outcome of the proceedings, for the decisions of the authority, for the content of what you state, or for the consequences of a criminal complaint whose facts turn out not to be true.

13. Versions of this document

Every published version of these terms is archived, and which version you accepted when contracting is recorded.

In the event of any discrepancy between the Spanish version and any translation, the Spanish version prevails.