Residence Permit Types ?

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EphesusExtra
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Residence Permit Types ?

Post by EphesusExtra » Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:28 pm

Hi there,

I'm planning to move to Finland on November; still waiting for the residence permit from the embassy. What I wonder is that, I had a friend in Finland Helsinki who had been living there like 4 years by residence permit type B. I dont know the exact difference between type A and B but when he applied for citizenship, they said that the days that he passed in Finland doesnt count under that type of Residence Permit (B) when applying for citizenship. Is It true that you've to own a Type A residence permit to apply for citizenship? How could a person that's Type B permit get type A permit? Thanks guys, really annoying :? :? .


In soviet army it takes more courage to go retreat than to advance..Stalin

Residence Permit Types ?

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therese
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Post by therese » Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:25 pm

I think you first have to have a B visa.
After you have had a B visa for a while, you are entitled to an A visa.

My husband and I are Australian.
When we first arrived, my husband and I got B visas.
This year, when we renewed our passport they gave us A visas.

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Hank W.
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Post by Hank W. » Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:46 am

Cheers, Hank W.
sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.

EphesusExtra
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Post by EphesusExtra » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:22 am

thanks for the replies people. I think I will really like it there in Helsinki if there are enough people like you willing to share their knowledge. I'm sure I will learn lots of life-saving stuff from this forum. Hank knows crisis management. That's for sure :P
In soviet army it takes more courage to go retreat than to advance..Stalin

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Hank W.
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Post by Hank W. » Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:01 am

Just remember that the Finnish way of answering is you get an answer to exactly what you ask, and no more. So if you go to any (government or other) bureau better ask all questions 3 times from opposite directions so you don't get to "think" everything is allright.

Say like
"Is there a bus to Helsinki today?"
"Yes"
.... you wait 25 minutes...
"When does the bus to Helsinki go?"
"It went 30 minutes ago"
... you didn't ask :lol:

BTW you said your friend has been 4 years on B. Let me guess - student?
Cheers, Hank W.
sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.

baris
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Post by baris » Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:57 am

Hello people!

The person who had the B status for four years is me ;). I came here first as a AIESEC trainee and at that time I had B3 residence permit then there were economical problems in the company and I had to leave. Luckily I could find another company but being careless I didn't apply to change B3 status around a year.

Then a very nice officer told me to apply for B1 and I applied for it. After having B1 for around 1.5 years I applied for A1 and it was rejected. Officer told me I can appeal but I didn't, just because I thought it might be troublesome to do so.

Then because of my laziness I had this B1 for around 2.5 years and yesterday I realized that people deciding this citizenship don't care about all these 4 years even though I worked and studied for the most of the period. I only didn't work for around 3-4 months while looking for a job but after that, I always worked for the same company and I actually had a permanent contract after 4 months. In other words I had a permanent contract for around 3.2 years.

I also studied for the last 2 years and I wasn't a full time worker for that time period. When the decision maker didn't give me A1, he said that I should have had B1 for 2 years but interestingly there was a new law at that time and I don't understand why it didn't apply for my case.

I have two friends in Oulu, coming from the same country, having similar jobs. When their applications are processed with the new law, one of them got the A permit after 6 months of stay here. The other got it around 16 months later. So isn't there some injustice in the case? How can I win back my years or are they just lost because of a sloppy officer?

I will appreciate any kind of help in this case. Thanks.

PS: I know that the case is not very straightforward but please ask me for clarifications if I couldn't explain it crystal clear.
Last edited by baris on Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:21 pm, edited 6 times in total.

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Hank W.
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Post by Hank W. » Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:22 pm

I think you ought to appeal the A1. You can show you have a permanent work contract at present?
Cheers, Hank W.
sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.

baris
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Post by baris » Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:53 pm

Well the decision for the last B1 permit was made on 26.7.2004 and they say that you have to right to appeal in one month period so it seems like I lost the chance there.

Also after talking to some officials, there are some new information:
- Because I was interpreted as an AIESEC and CIMO trainee, I didn't need a work permit at all in the beginning. This period seems to be from 01.08.2001 to 31.01.2003. I had B3 throughout that period. After 31.01.2003 I had a B1 permit.
- When I made an application on 26.04.2004 for A1, they processed it according to the old law because the application was submitted before 01.05.2004. According to the old law I should have had two years of B1, that's why they didn't give me an A1. Is this really true? I felt like there's this principle when law changes, it should be applied so that it is favorable for the applicant and it's just 4-5 days for god's sake.

They just recommended me to apply for A now and they said they can't do anything at all for the past but I hope at least officers processing citizenship application can have better judgement for the case.

Seems like a very odd case I had. I contacted other authorities as well and will keep you updated about the proceedings.
Last edited by baris on Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:22 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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daryl
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Residence Permit Types ?

Post by daryl » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:21 pm

This thread needs anchoring at a few points to make sure that it makes sense:

1. A new Aliens Act took effect on 1 May 2004. This law scrapped the quasi-legal status code system that had emerged under previous legislation (the 1984 and 1991 Aliens Acts). Comparisons between the old system and the new system should be avoided.


2. Although the new Aliens Act refers to "types" of fixed-period residence permit, these are merely labels for specific administrative decisions:

Type A = permit for a permanent purpose
Type B = permit for a temporary purpose

These permit types are exhaustively described in paragraph 2 of section 33 and paragraph 1 of section 34 of the new Act.

The A and B permit types should not be confused with the metaphysical non-appealable "status codes" that were previously used. Most importantly, the question of whether a permit is issued for a permanent or temporary purpose is now always an objective question that can be reviewed by an administrative court immediately. In other words, these matters are open to appeal.

I actually suggested to the parliamentary committee for administration that section 34 of the new Act (defining types A and B as mere labels) is completely unnecessary and would cause precisely the kind of confusion between the new "permit types" and the old "status codes" that has now emerged.


3. Now for the first genuine problem issue. A close reading of paragraph 2 of section 33 and of the government bill on the new Aliens Act (no. 28 of 2003) indicates that the authority is supposed to decide the permit type on the basis of the stated intentions of the applicant. This is especially clear from the government bill:

Pykälän 2 momentissa korostettaisiin sitä, että lupaviranomainen
ratkaisee hakijan maassa oleskelun tarkoituksen hakijan
oleskelulupahakemuksessaan esittämän tahdonilmaisun pohjalta.

One clear and obvious weakness of the present administrative arrangements surrounding the Aliens Act is that applicants are not asked to state their intentions. The application form simply does not include a question about the applicant's intentions, and so the authority usually "infers" these intentions from other details given in the application. In some cases these details were not even supplied by the applicant, but by e.g. an employer.

Native speakers of English should notice at once that the application forms now in use were prepared shoddily and in a great hurry. In any case they are clearly and obviously deficient in this crucial respect: they do not ask the applicant to specify the type of permit requested.

This does not prevent the applicant from writing on the form: "I request a type A permit for three years", and for many reasons I advise all applicants for fixed period renewal permits to do exactly this. It drives the police stations crazy, because it increases their workload, and they often try to bully applicants into changing this request so that it does not have to be processed as such. Such bullying is improper, by the way, and gives grounds for a formal complaint.

If the applicant does not state his or her intentions in this way, but then appeals against the decision to issue a type B permit (residence for a temporary purpose), then the authority will refer to its inference as to the applicant's intentions and specifically to the point that the applicant never expressed the intention to remain in Finland permanently. Provided that the legal minimum was issued, the appeal court cannot give an applicant more than the applicant originally requested. This is part of the background to my general advice to ask for the three-year type A maximum in all renewal applications (including, and most crucially, applications by former students).


4. In the case of a migrant worker (i.e. an applicant who wants to remain in Finland solely in order to work for an employer or to run a business) it is the nature and special circumstances of the work that will determine whether the permit type is A or B. The most essential justification for issuing a type B permit (residence for a temporary purpose) is that the work is temporary.

This often opens up a new can of worms about whether a job is temporary simply because the employment contract has an end-date, and about what to do when this happens (which is a question of labour law). However, it should at least be clear that if the employment contract has no enforceable end-date, then the residence permit issued to the worker should be of type A (residence for a permanent purpose). It is probably always worth appealing to the administrative court if a type B permit is issued to a worker with a permanent job, regardless of the type of work involved.

That will do for now.

Kind regards,

Daryl

baris
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Post by baris » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:37 pm

Thanks a lot to Daryl for very valuable and detailed information!

Daryl (and others), for my specific case what would you recommend me to do? I will definitely apply for A residence permit very soon but should I do something for the past (e.g. appealing?) or do you think that mentioning my situation (such as having a permanent contract for more than 3 years now) would be enough for the people deciding about the citizenship? At least, officer told me that they count just the period with A status in citizenship applications normally.

For the appealing case, they told that I lost the rights to appeal because it has to be in one month time after the decision is made.
Last edited by baris on Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Hank W.
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Post by Hank W. » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:42 pm

Ah, so thats what all the the shuffling around has been about.

BTW daryl, you're right on the spot on the police, especially Helsinki police, wanting to avoid work. I think they're still overwhelmed with the queues at Malmi, so someone applying at Nowheremäki where they call the people out from the coffee room to take a look at a real live forigner really has a treat (even Nowheremäki then might be a bleak place to live otherwise).

They'd seriously need more resources.
Cheers, Hank W.
sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.

sy
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Post by sy » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:48 pm

I think we need an example of court decisions that the old B-status is not the new B-type! Police and UVI never change their mind of B-status = B-type without the guidance from the administrative court!

That means when considering a permanent residence application, UVI or police should examine again the real nature of previous residence with B-status, not simply refer to the permit status itself.

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daryl
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Post by daryl » Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:54 pm

The ordinary appeal period is 30 days counted from the day after the appeal instructions were provided. I understand that in some cases the police simply hand back the passport with a permit stamp. The appeal period in these cases effectively remains open indefinitely, as appeal instructions have not been provided. In such cases a concerned party simply requests the missing appeal instructions and then has 30 days to appeal [section 16 of the Administrative Judicial Procedures Act].

The Helsinki police normally provide the appeal instructions in English.

It sounds to me as if dark should file an application for a type A (permanent purpose of residence) permit for three years. I recommend doing this at the employment office, not the police station, unless you enjoy taking major and inappropriate !"#¤% from junior police officiers about how "you can only apply for one year" etc.

If you really want to investigate the case in depth, dark, then request copies of all of the documents concerning you at the police station and at the Helsinki Metropolitan Area work permit unit (part of Vantaa Employment Office). These documents lay out the entire case from the authorities' point of view.

T: Daryl
dark wrote:
Daryl (and others), for my specific case what would you recommend me to do? I will definitely apply for A residence permit very soon but should I do something for the past (e.g. appealing?) or do you think that mentioning my situation (such as having a permanent contract for more than 3 years now) would be enough for the people deciding about the citizenship? At least, officer told me that they count just the period with A status in citizenship applications normally.

For the appealing case, they told that I lost the rights to appeal because it has to be in one month time after the decision is made.

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odon
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own experience!!

Post by odon » Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:11 pm

reading this thread i hope my experience helps...

I came here as a student B-visa and then when i got a job immediately i was refused by the helsinki police on the grounds that i had to go and apply from my own country, but it so happened my friend with the same background was given the Visa B3 for working, so i took them to court, ( there is free council advice and representation in pasila somewhere), i won and was then granded the B3, this took one year and i worked all along, by the time i got B3, i had moved on and had a permanent job, so they put this B3 only for 6 months and i applied for a A visa and i landed it!

So if u thing they have not handled it correctly, do take it up, because different people handle it in different ways, you can appeal at any time, there is always free legal advice in Pasila, and costs u nothing...!

Hoo...did I tell u that i got a writen note of apology.....and when i demanded to see the person who handled it the first time...surprise....he was on leave!!

:roll:

baris
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Post by baris » Thu Oct 20, 2005 6:02 pm

odon, can you tell at what time did you apply for this A? I just wanted to know if the new law was applied there because it seems like under the new law, the state is more generous for some cases.

Also, could you give a link about the free council advice since I might need it soon?


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