Appeals · 14 min read

Your file has had no answer for months: administrative silence

Nothing is more wearing than a file that does not move. They have not said no, but they have not said anything either, and meanwhile the months pass and the academic year gets closer. That situation has a legal name, it has deadlines, and it has ways out.

The first month you wait calmly. By the third you check the electronic portal every week. By the sixth you write to anyone you think might know something, and by the eighth you no longer know whether your file exists.

I have lived it and I know what it does to your head. So this article is not about comfort, it is about explaining what is happening in legal terms and what levers you have, which are more than they seem.

What administrative silence is

When you ask something of an administration, that administration is obliged to decide and to notify you the decision within a deadline. If it does not, the law does not leave your application hanging: it assigns it an automatic effect. That is called administrative silence.

Silence can be positive, and then what you asked for counts as granted, or negative, and then it counts as refused. Which of the two applies is not your choice: it is set by the rule governing that particular procedure.

The purpose of silence is not to punish you. It is to stop the administration's inactivity from leaving you with no route at all, because once an effect is assigned you have something to react against.

How long your file can legally take

The maximum period to decide a homologation application and notify you is six months. That period starts from the moment the file is complete, and there lies the first important nuance.

If the administration asks you for additional documentation, the clock is suspended while it waits for you. That is why many people count from the day they applied and end up with numbers that do not match the administration's.

• From the initial application: the clock starts when the file is considered complete, not necessarily the day you submitted it.
• With a request for documents: the period is suspended from the moment you are notified until you reply.
• With reports from other bodies: it can also be suspended for a set period, and in homologation this happens often.

The practical consequence is uncomfortable: your file can have been in the system for eight months and still be legally within time. Before chasing it is worth knowing where that count stands.

Why silence counts as a refusal here

In homologation of foreign qualifications silence is negative. If six months pass with no answer, the law treats your application as refused.

It sounds unfair and it is, but it has a use worth understanding: without that effect your file would sit in permanent limbo where you could do nothing. With a deemed refusal you have something concrete to appeal against, and that is precisely what opens the next door.

The important part is that negative silence does not close your file. The administration is still obliged to decide expressly, and it can do so later, even granting your homologation. Silence gives you a tool, it does not take away your right.

The double silence rule

This is the part almost nobody knows and it can change your case completely.

The general rule says that if you appeal and nobody answers within three months, the appeal counts as rejected. But there is an exception: when the appeal is filed against a refusal that happened by silence, and the administration does not decide that appeal in time either, the second silence counts as granted. In your favour.

The logic is that the law cannot reward the administration's inactivity twice. If they do not answer your application and do not answer your appeal either, the system decides enough is enough.

Two things should be said honestly. First, this rule has exceptions and its specific application to a homologation file can be argued, so if you reach this point it is worth consulting a lawyer. Second, a deemed favourable act has to be enforced, and that is rarely automatic.

The timeline, month by month

Set out in a table it is much easier to see where you are and what to do at each stage.

Suspensions caused by document requests push the whole table to the right, so month six is not your application date plus six months if something was requested in between.

Before chasing: check these four things

1. That the file really is complete. Go into the electronic portal and check whether there is a pending request. It is surprisingly common for the administration to have asked for a document through a channel the applicant does not check.
2. Your contact details. If you changed email, phone or address and did not report it, you may have been notified without knowing.
3. The electronic notifications inbox. An electronic notification counts as served after ten calendar days even if you never open it. That is the mechanism through which most deadlines are lost.
4. The real count of the period. With suspensions deducted. If you are still within the six months, a formal complaint achieves little.

These four points resolve a large share of the cases that reach me as administrative silence and were really an unread notification.

The four things you can do

One: a written request to move the procedure along

The mildest option. A short document noting that the period has expired and asking for a decision. It opens no new route, but it leaves a record and sometimes moves the file. It is the first thing I would do if you have just passed the deadline.

Two: request the certificate of deemed act

The administration is obliged to issue a certificate confirming that the period has elapsed and what the effect of the silence is. It serves two purposes: documentary proof, and sometimes putting the file back on someone's desk.

Three: an appeal against the deemed refusal

This is the real lever, and the one that activates the double silence rule. Against a refusal by silence the appeal can be filed at any time, without the one month limit that applies to express decisions.

Four: a complaint to the Ombudsman

It is not an appeal and it has no enforcement power, but it works more often than you would think. I explain it a little further down.

How the request is written

A request to move the procedure along does not have to be long. In fact the shorter and more concrete, the better.

1. Your details and the file number.
2. The date the application was submitted.
3. One sentence noting that the maximum period has elapsed without an express decision.
4. The request: that the file be decided and the decision notified.
5. Where appropriate, that a certificate of deemed act be issued.

No reproaches, no adjectives and no personal circumstances. Half a page properly dated and with the right file number is worth more than three pages of entirely legitimate frustration.

And a practical recommendation: always file through the register, never only by email to an information address. What has no entry stamp does not exist as far as the procedure is concerned.

The Ombudsman

The Spanish Ombudsman supervises the activity of public administrations and accepts complaints from anyone, Spanish or not, resident in Spain or not. It is free and it is filed online.

It cannot force the administration to decide one way or the other, but it can require it to comply with its duty to decide expressly and on time. It has in fact had to rule on this in relation to the homologation of foreign qualifications more than once.

As a strategy it makes sense once you have already filed a written request and a reasonable time has passed with no effect. It does not replace the appeal, it complements it.

Two cases with their dates

These are composites of situations I see repeatedly, with the dates included so the count is visible.

Case one: the request nobody saw. He applies in January. In April the administration asks for a contact hours certificate through an electronic notification. He does not check that inbox, so the notification counts as served after ten days without him reading it, and the clock is suspended. In October he writes in despair because nine months have passed with no answer. In reality his file has three months on the clock and is stopped waiting for him. The solution was not to complain: it was to go into the portal and provide the certificate.

Case two: genuine silence. She applies in February with a complete file and no requests. In August the six months expire with no decision. She files a written request and gets no answer. In October she asks for the certificate of deemed act and files an appeal against the deemed refusal. If by the following January the appeal has not been decided either, the double silence rule comes into play. In parallel she has processed UNEDasiss and prepared her subjects, so her academic year does not hang on that decision alone.

The difference between the two cases is not luck, it is having looked at the file before assuming the problem was on the other side.

What to do while you wait

The hardest part of a stalled file is not legal, it is planning. With an open procedure of uncertain length, your next academic year hangs on something you do not control.

What you do control is everything else. The UNEDasiss accreditation can be processed. The exam subjects can be prepared. The documentation they will ask for later can be legalised and translated. And there are access routes that in some cases work with homologation still pending.

I know the temptation to stop everything until the decision arrives, because that is what I did. It was exactly the mistake that cost me my first year: waiting for an answer empty handed instead of waiting with everything else ready.

There is something else worth doing during the wait, and that is documenting it. Keep dated screenshots of the file status, the receipts for every document you file, and copies of everything you provide. If at any point the chronology has to be reconstructed, whether for an appeal, for the Ombudsman, or to explain to a university why you are late, that folder is worth more than any explanation.

And finally, a matter of mental health that is not a small one. A stalled file will occupy your head every single day if you let it. Set one day a month to review it, do whatever that day requires, and spend the rest of the month on what does move. That is not indifference: it is the only way to stop the wait from eating your capacity to study as well.

The six mistakes of those who wait

1. Confusing slowness with silence. A five month old file is slow, but it is within time, and formally complaining early achieves nothing. The count is done with suspensions deducted.
2. Not checking the electronic notifications inbox. It is the number one cause of supposedly stalled files. The notification counts as served after ten days even if you do not open it, and the clock is suspended all the same.
3. Chasing through channels that leave no trace. An email to an information address is not a complaint. With no register stamp, as far as the procedure is concerned nothing happened.
4. Chasing every week. It does not speed the file up and it wears you down. One well made document every two or three months does more than ten emails in a row.
5. Waiting empty handed. Stopping all your preparation until the decision arrives turns an administrative delay into a lost year.
6. Keeping nothing. Filing receipts, screenshots of the file status, copies of what you provided. If the chronology ever has to be proved, it is proved with documents, not with memory.

None of the six is a mistake of ignorance: I made almost all of them. They are mistakes of attrition, of spending months waiting for something that does not arrive and losing the ability to look at the procedure coldly.

Frequently asked questions

How long can homologation of a qualification take?

The maximum legal period to decide and notify is six months from the moment the file is complete. Once that passes with no answer, administrative silence applies.

If nobody answers, does it mean it has been granted?

No. In homologation of qualifications silence is negative: the absence of an answer counts as a refusal. That matters because it opens the deadlines to appeal.

What is the double silence rule?

If you appeal against a refusal that happened by silence, and the administration does not decide the appeal within three months either, that second silence counts as a grant, that is, in your favour.

Can chasing delay my file even more?

No rule allows that, and in practice a well made request tends to tidy the file rather than obstruct it. What is worth doing is chasing with judgement and not every week.

Can I ask for a certificate that the deadline has passed?

Yes. It is the certificado de acto presunto, and the administration has to issue it. It proves to third parties that your application counts as refused by silence and that the deadline has expired.

Do I have to wait for silence before appealing?

Against a refusal by silence you can appeal at any time, without the one month limit that applies to express decisions. That leaves you room to choose the moment.

If what you have is an express refusal rather than silence, the path is different and I cover it in the appeal, step by step. And if you are still deciding which route to apply for, start with homologación, equivalencia and convalidación are not the same thing.

Published on 26 September 2026 · Salam Aiach