Finnish Residency and A-Status: Another Paperwork Headache

[cimorene]

As the cohabiting partner/legal spouse/registered same-sex partner of a Finnish citizen, I am automatically entitled to 'A' residence status¹. (Finland does not distinguish between the three categories: it doesn't matter if you're legally married, as long as you've been writing down that you're cohabiting partners on your legal forms; it's just that you have to have been documentedly living together 2 years before your status spontaneously converts to 'family member'.)

Normal residence permits have to be renewed once a year which can get a bit pricey, as each time you submit the paperwork it costs €120 now. (I think it was €80 when I moved here, but I could be wrong about that.) A-status qualifies one for permanent residence eventually, but you have to go through a test period before you can get a permanent permit: first a one-year permit, then a three-year permit, and then after you've had 4 years of unbroken A[wesome] Status, you get the coveted one that doesn't have to be renewed all the time. Well, except...

...that when you're renewing your permit yearly (when I moved to Finland it was originally on a student residence permit, which needs renewing yearly), and your application is late, the police are like "LOL, chill, hooka, NBD, nobody is deporting anybody!" and happily take your cash. (They don't take cards at the police station, which is where all this paperwork is processed.) But when you're playing with the A-Status boys, there cannot be a break at all. So I hadn't even been to the police station for three years, and I had a vague idea that my permit was coming up for renewal in August or September but time got away from me and it was only because another government office found an 'expired permit' flag when they ran my ID on their computer that I was reminded my application was late at all. In the end I turned it in 3 weeks late precisely.

The gorgeous Finnish policewoman² who accepted my application was apologetic, gracious, and very nice about it, but it seems that the "4 unbroken years of A-status" is quite important, and it doesn't count as 'unbroken' if your application is late. So instead of that fabled creature, the permanent residence permit, I will probably be issued a new fixed-term permit, this time for four years, at the end of which (if I renew it on time) I can get a permanent one at last. Okay, well. Great.

So I went back to the unemployment bureau with the receipt from the police that proves my passport is temporarily out of my custody and that my residency is more or less legal, which is what the appointment-making employee told me to do. But it turned out we weren't cool with that. My purpose in going there was twain:

1. To seek out the special department at the bureau where people who ~solve problems~ deal with people who have extra difficulty in getting a job, such as disabilities (a note from one's therapist will suffice). Dr. Petit-Chou the therapist has a friend who works there, and he swears they help people who don't speak Finnish too.


2. To try once again to register for the intensive Finnish language courses for immigrants which are only run through the unemployment bureau, because they have a monopoly on the demand so all the immigrants get funnelled to them and then they put them on a waiting list, which is where they draw the enrollment from in order. They also fund the classes, though, which means that in the age of chronic underfunding of the unemployment bureau due to a ginormous recession, they're never sure when the next time they can afford to actually HOLD one of the classes is ("It should be starting soon but we'll see").

Well, the lady put me on the waiting list for the second thing, but until my residence permit comes back I'm not legally eligible for Finnish social services³, which includes the services of the unemployment bureau. So she can't make an appointment for me with the job services people and if the 400 other non-Finnish speakers all dropped off the waiting list suddenly, she wouldn't be able to get me into the language course either - not until my permit comes back.

And the police are understaffed right now so there's a big sign in the station that says to expect long processing periods for paperwork - my passport-replacing receipt doesn't expire until December 23rd.

And I mean, I can't blame any of the people who apologized to me because obviously you should make sure that your residence permit doesn't expire. It's just that I know myself and I didn't have a snowball's chance in Muspelheim of remembering a date three years in advance. You can't even buy paper calendars or planners that last for three years in advance, so when the permit was issued I had no way of recording it! Of course, now I have matured in my knowledge of Linux and I can back up all my data automatically, so I could put something in my Mozilla Thunderbird/Lightning calendar on my desktop computer for four years from now which would then be backed up on Google Calendars and transferred for the foreseeable future to my phone, so it would survive even the replacement of my desktop and my phone alike (and I do hope I'll have a new desktop and a new phone in four years). But 3 years ago I was using like a 12-year-old grey brick Nokia with a single-color LCD display. And Windows. What was I supposed to do, write it in blood on the wallpaper? Why couldn't they send an automated reminder? (Both Dr. Petit-Chou and the very nice job office lady were a bit shocked that they don't.)

Actually it's probably because the police are too underfunded right now to afford the ink and paper. ;___;








1. This status carries the most swag: you don't have to prove that you're financially independent and you get all the social benefits which the welfare state extends to permanent residents - universal healthcare, unemployment and various other kinds of stipends, most relevantly.

2. As far as I can tell, this is redundant. I've never seen a Finnish policewoman who wasn't really hot. I suspect them all of being former Olympian or high school athletes and they usually have businesslike ponytails. It's a bit odd that this also applies to their office personnel as well, though.

3. In retrospect, it's a good thing my universal healthcare didn't expire as well, because then each visit with an ER doctor for my fractured elbow would have cost like €80-something, and they probably would've had to charge for the X-ray, too.

Comments

[krait]

...My only thought is to make a postdated LJ entry for a reminder. (Either "HEY YOU HAVE AN APPT TOMORROW REMEMBER?" if you are in the habit of looking at your own LJ, or "HEY FLIST IF YOU SEE THIS *REMIND* ME I HAVE AN APPT TOMORROW" if not.)

Best of luck, though, and all my sympathies regarding the not-quite-unbroken thing. *hugs*

[pierydys]

Gack, DECEMBER?! You totally should have come down here and renewed :-)

But yes, no worries -- I apply for mine about a month before you in three years, so I'll just start just start poking you early when I'm doing mine! :-D