My personal experience with RP

Zoll · Post by **Zoll** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:06 am

Hello everyone

I am from bangladesh. I was living in bangladesh and was in relationship with finnish citizen. We never lived together at all. Then we decided to live together in finland. So I applied for visa. For my visa application, I had to show bank statement for last six months. I was not exempt for this thing cuz tat time i was not married with finnish citizen. so normal law applied. In my visa application form, I mentioned that purpose of visit is to get married in finland and apply for residence permit. They gave me 14 days time. After 14 days, i got visa. So i came to finland. I was started living in shared room because my girlfriend was living with her family. Well we started to look for apartment and after 1 month, we found one. My girlfriend made rental contract on her name and we moved in. After that we went to maistraatti and get married. (simplest and normal one, with no witnesses). after that i asked maistraatti that i want to register my address as im gonna apply for residence permit and i want to show in residence permit application form that we are living together. They replied that they cannot register me and right process is that first i have to apply for residence permit and then i should come to them again with receipt that ive paid for residence permit then they can register me and i can put in application form that i am living with my finnish wife and police can see it in their computer records too after i will be registered. so i did the same. I applied for residence permit on the basis of family ties and entered in form my address and i told the person who took my application that im gonna register in maistratti tomorrow with the address i mentioned. So next day i went to maistraatti with reciept and they registered me, but registration was temporary and they said that once i will receive residence permit, i have to come again and change to permanent. so i took extract of mine and my wife's with the same living address and went to police again and submitted em. that was the whole process. on my reciept (paper given by police when i applied for residence permit) it was mentioned that estimated processing time is 4 months.

I called every month and get always same answer that application is in processing. The exact date when 4 months completed, it was sunday. so on monday, i called police and this time they said that they already ordered my residence permit card and i will receive in about one and a half week. i was very surprised and i almost 3 times asked the officer that really decision has been made, and it was approved etc etc and he said that yes you got permit. and normally it takes 2 to 3 weeks for making of card but we already ordered your card about week ago so you will receive it in one and a half week.
and then after 2 weeks i received my card

I was very nervous because of many many posts on this forums. I was from backward country, i never lived together with my wife, and during those 4 months waiting time, 2 times my wife had to go to Social office for benifit cuz we newly moved and there was financial problem. But yet i got my permit.

So this was my experience and according to this, and according to my experience, i found out that when everything is according to law and in documentation, there was no reason of rejection, the decision was positive.

**Sponsor:**

dev · Post by **dev** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 8:35 am

wow, you never lived together before and got married straight away? You're a legend.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:43 am

dev wrote:wow, you never lived together before and got married straight away? You're a legend.

Well, he can clarify if he wants. I take they have "seen each other" a some number of times (as the permit was directly approved). What one classifies as "living together" is matter of taste. I assume quite large, even majority, fraction of those (non-EU people) applying for residence permit based marriage haven't had much co-habitation, as that is bit difficult to do if at least one of the spouses does not have a residence permit (to some country) to begin with.

rinso · Post by **rinso** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:58 am

It is a remarkable positive experience.
Maybe you could tell us where in Finland it happened.
There might be a big difference between small towns where they don't get many "exotic" cases and Helsinki.

Kaarina91 · Post by **Kaarina91** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 1:16 pm

I think because your spouse is a Finnish citizen that other rules apply, and there is more "leniency." When I got my first negative it was because of financial issues, and the person that gave us our decision he said if my husband was a Finnish citizen things would have been different. :/

Rara · Post by **Rara** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 1:18 pm

Congratulation for u!,
You are the lucky one.
But may i know which city that u applied for RP??
cause if in Helsinki , it wouldnt easy like that.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 1:47 pm

Kaarina91 wrote:I think because your spouse is a Finnish citizen that other rules apply, and there is more "leniency." When I got my first negative it was because of financial issues, and the person that gave us our decision he said if my husband was a Finnish citizen things would have been different. :/

That there is no income requirement for family members of citizens is explicitly stated in the law. I do not think you can draw from that conclusion that the process would be more lenient in general.

Zoll · Post by **Zoll** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:12 pm

wow, you never lived together before and got married straight away? You're a legend.

We never lived together cuz like Rip said, it is very difficult for NON EU citizen to live with EU citizen without any type of permit etc,,,, and other than that, we were in relationship for about three years and YES we saw each other plenty of times like tourism etc etc. But that seeing has no value in the eye law I assume.

It is a remarkable positive experience.
Maybe you could tell us where in Finland it happened.
There might be a big difference between small towns where they don't get many "exotic" cases and Helsinki.

Yes it was a remarkable experience. And it happened in Helsinki. we lived together (and are living together) in Malmi. The time I applied for my permit, that time immigration police office was also in Malmi. But later when I had to submit my Criminal Record certificate (which was not a requirment but I did it cuz I thought it might will have a positive effect, cuz in application form there was an area where they asked if ive ever been sentenced or been suspect in some criminal case etc. and my record was clean, so I submit that official certificate issued by authorities of my country) , that time office moved to somewhere else. Pasila i think.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 9:47 pm

Zoll wrote:and YES we saw each other plenty of times like tourism etc etc. But that seeing has no value in the eye law I assume.

It is not sufficient alone, but it makes the subsequent marriage look much more genuine than otherwise would be the case.

Flossy1978 · Post by **Flossy1978** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 7:44 am

I think it is simply because of the three year history. It was enough to prove you were in a real relationship.

olangam · Post by **olangam** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:55 pm

Wow,your experience is such an encouragement...ome posts here on the same can really discourage a soul.

Flossy1978 · Post by **Flossy1978** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:10 pm

Yes, they can be. But they are reality.

This poster who got the permit, I assume got it because even though they didn't live together, there was a LOOOOOOONG history. Not, he just turned up in Finland without any history or anything.

Zoll · Post by **Zoll** » Thu Aug 23, 2012 9:11 pm

Yes, they can be. But they are reality.

This poster who got the permit, I assume got it because even though they didn't live together, there was a LOOOOOOONG history. Not, he just turned up in Finland without any history or anything.

Yes there was for sure a long history. we were in relationship for about more than three years and saw each other quite many times, and I always had this believe that this relationship history will have a positive effect on the application processing. But at the same time, many people also told me this thing that as long as a person cannot document his true nature of relationship for example living together and bills in both names etc etc, the relationship history does not matters and finns dont care about it. They always take documentation solidly. That was what ive been told. Well i dont know what the reality is and how that person think and take things who made decision.

And other than that, ive met few persons who also had residence permit after a long processing and they said that they applied for permit and after months when authorities came on some decision, they called them to come and give finger prints. But in my case, they took my finger prints right on spot when I applied for permit.

So thats the thing and my experience. And when i see many other cases with long processing and even denial after long processing, I dont have any idea how things move. May be people who got denied or got permits after long processings, must would have complex cases etc.

Flossy1978 · Post by **Flossy1978** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 6:12 am

Did you mean 'can'? Not 'cannot'??? No one is going to give a permit if you 'cannot' show any proof.

Everyone's permit application is different. It could also be you applied during a quiet time? Who knows.

I never had to give fingerprints or prove any criminal background or anything. But then again, I come from a wealthy 'western' country, so maybe it's different for me.

Oombongo · Post by **Oombongo** » Fri Aug 24, 2012 8:44 am

congrats on your success..and 6 years

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