I kid you not. The subject heading is a direct quote from the immigration lawyer in Zürich. I am moving to Bern in June. I earn my living through freelance cinematography so have no job per se. My girlfriend is Swiss, and we are having a baby in August. My neighbor here in NJ is a corporate lawyer for Dow Jones and introduced me to a Swiss lawyer who he deals with. She told me there is a way for me to get a residence permit with work permission because I am fathering a Swiss child. My legal status would be "concubine with child!" How cool is that?

Has anyone heard of such a thing? Do I really need to pay exorbitant legal fees to get this through? Is 3000-5000 CHF a good estimate, and worthwhile, price for a residence permit?

Can anyone refer me to an immigration lawyer in Bern?

Thanks!

Tosh

This has been discussed lots of times. You can do a forum search for "concubin", "concubinat" (French words for it), "cohabitation" (the English word for it), "Konkubinat" (the German word for it) and probably several other terms as well.

(This is exactly why we urge people to post about this sort of thing using English terminology as far as possible... it's a nightmare finding stuff again otherwise.)

But "cohabitant" isn't nearly as fun sounding as "concubine"!

I know it may sound terribly old fashioned but what happened to marriage?