Hi there,

So ... here goes, I just need to unload my frutration somewhere

For those not familiar with what Vinta is. In German it is called
"Vorzeitige Erteilung einer Niederlassungsbewilligung bei erfolgreicher Integration". Its a law that offers non-EU persons after 5 years of uninterrupted residency (holding a B Permit) in CH to apply for a C permit. You don't need to be married to any Swiss citizen or anything like it, ony five years B permit. The only requirements are:

- Clean criminal record
- Clean fanacial record (no debts, etc)
- Proof that you are financially independant (in other words, got a job and don't need social help)
- Proof of basic German (all family members)
- All family memebers must have 5 years of uninterrupted (legal) permancy in CH.

Note that you have the right to apply, but you are not entittled to it, in other words, you are lucky and the person who is processing your application is perhaps in a good mood

You can read more about it here: Aussies can get permit C after 5 years

or here
http://www.migration.lu.ch/vorzeitig...ntegration.pdf

If you haven't heard about it; no wonder, there is almost no information about it, and even the people at the Gemeinde have little or no knowledge about it. You can speculate if this is on purpose or not ....

Anyhow this is the story.

We tried to apply for this Vinta thing in our Gemeinde, answer: "Never heard of such thing, you need to wait 10 years". Fair enough, since we are all humans and make mistakes, and not been native German speakers, we though we misunderstood the information, so we called the Immigration Office in Bern, and got confirmation that such law does exist and yes, we are on our right to apply for it. Went back to the Gemeinde, this time with a printout of the law we found in Internet, talked to 3 different persons at the Gemeinde ... "No, such thing doesn't exist" was their answer again (even though she was reading the hardcopy I handed her). When such thing happens, it makes you wonder if they really want to be helpful. We called again the Immigration Office in Bern, explained the situation, and even though they couldn't believe what we said, they suggested to go to the Fremdspolizei and talk to someone there. Again, the person there, somehow shocked, could not understand the situation, however he was kind enough to give us an official signed/stamped paper instructing the Gemeinde to give us the forms. Off we went again to the Gemeinde, handed in the document: "certainly! here are the forms" very efficiently and quickly .... This was on January/2007 this year!

March same year my wife found a job (after almost 6 years of search), as a non-EU, the company needs to do the paperwork, which they (still after 9 months) are willing to do, however it is not possible because our B-Permits expired already and because of this Vinta process. The HR person called several times, and got no answer either: "you need to be patient", of course for the company "Patience" was not the problem, but having someone employed with no legal work permit. After several calls she managed a document from the Kanton stating that my wife is allowed to work even though she has no working permit ... sure.

Impressively, two weeks BEFORE my wife received her first salary, we received notice from the Gemeinde indicating our new tax bracket ...

So no worries then, we let time pass, 4-5-6 months and then started wondering why is it taking so long? We called a couple of times: "still processing", the HR person also called ... same answer. Now, by November I started to get a little nervous, in March/2007 (thinking that it could not take that long) we booked plane tickets, hotels, etc for having Christmas in Spain. So I called again, explained my concern, indicating that we are leaving CH for Holidays and we didn't want to have problems upon our return because of not having a valid residency permit. The person there, looked our case in the computer and the only thing she could say is that it is "still in process" and not to worry as for sure we will receive answer before December: "call again next week if dont receive a response via Post". This same conversation went on and on for about 6 weeks.

Today, one week before leaving to spain, I actually got a letter ... now for the for the grand "finale":

We need to provide before Monday 8.Jan.2008 (we leave to Spain on the 22.12.2007 and return on Friday 6.Jan.2008):

- Proof/Certificate that my wife is properly integrated
- Proof/Certificate that we are economically independant (no social help)
- Proof/Certificate that during all our stay in Switzerland I have always been employed.

Since both my wife and I work 100% and with a 2 year old son, we can, with some stress manage the requested documents ... in just 5 days

The most irritating part is the footnote that says:

"If you are unable to deliver these documents before the 8.Jan.2008 we will assume that you are no longer interested on taking this processing any further and therefore reject your application."

This is so humiliating! And the worst part is, that horrid feeling that I have, of not complaining or saying anything about it on the risk of being rejected. Only collect the requested documents and send them. BAH!

The more I think of it, I am even starting to consider that all the delays were on purpose

Sorry for the long post.

Now ... where did I put that bottle of scotch?