A Visit With The Police

Ah, it's December...and that means for my family, residence permit application time.
It just sucks the life out of the holiday spirit for me personally - but ah well - it has to be done, it's only once a year and it's worth the paperwork and costs because we really enjoy living in Finland.

Actually, I was quite optimistic this year because we were told LAST year that we could (my husband and I) apply for our PERMANENT residence permits this time!
Meaning, we've lived here for four years and a bit - and then we'd never have to do it again...or at least not every year - something like that.

I woke up bright and early (okay - I'm lying - it's still dark at 7am) - threw my kid in his taxi and raced downtown by bus to make it to the police station for 8am last Tuesday.
I got there at 8:03am and was excited to be one of the first foreigners there because the line ups after 10am are ridiculous.  Sure they have lots of chairs to sit in and a water cooler...and I packed my knitting AND a book with me just in case...
But the door wouldn't freaking open!
I tried - I yanked and pulled and looked up with groggy eyes to see "8.00" and only that part...and couldn't figure out what the heck was going on.
The lady behind me had an electronic key to get in and pointed out that it was Tuesday.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8.00 is the opening time.
Tuesday and Thursday they open at 9.00.
What a cruel joke...honestly.

I lounge about at the post office getting some empty packages so I can send stuff overseas later on and still had twenty-five minutes to kill.  After a cup of tea and a piece of cake, I rush back to the police station.
I punched a button for services for foreigners and grabbed a chair and waited.
I waited for less than 2 minutes before my number "F00" popped up.  Honestly, I've never had a "00" number before!!!  Normally it's something more depressing like "F182" or "F59" and either way there's at least 10 people ahead of me.
The day was looking good.

I had done some research beforehand and wasn't sure what fees we were supposed to pay.
According to their site with prices listed for 2013:

Residence permit
Residence permit	156 �
Students, minors	116 �
Renewal of the residence permit card	76 �

Right - so looking at this - I got excited!
"HONEY! We're going to save money this year for us! We already have the residence permit cards...so they probably just take them back and change the expiry dates on it then send it back - because there's a "Renewal" fee...surely that's what it means?"

Husband was skeptical and of course as it turns out, rightfully so.

All of my Finnish friends - even one who is half Finnish and works in the other department of the police licensing office thought we'd be paying the Renewal fees and not the Residence Permit fees.

Well, guess what?

That wording is freaking awful.  

I went in and provided my ID and residence permit card and told the lady (whom I have never dealt with before) that I needed an appointment made (the internet appointment system was saying it was full or not available) for my family as we needed to renew our residence permits.

2 adults and 2 kids - yep.

She kindly printed off all of the paperwork we needed (my forms and the kids are the same, since my husband is the one with the contract) and informed me that we needed to bring with us:

• Recent photos of all of us (passport style)
• The paperwork filled out
• Husband's work contract
• Husband's pay slips (the last 3...why I don't know because the salary has a change with the new contract - which was clearly listed - but anyways)
• My paper work confirming the various benefits we get for our son. (Even though she said she can see most of it on the computer via Kela's system.)
• Our passports
• The kids
• Current residence permit cards
• The fee - as you have to pay when you drop off the applications.
• Also, my husband and I have to get fingerprinted (it's digital) but the kids don't have to because they're under the age of 6.

So I asked her what fee are we paying because it says online "Renewal of the Residence Permit Card".  She referred to her chart and said, "Oh that!!! No - that's if you lose your card or it gets so badly damaged you need a new one."

WHY DOESN'T IT SAY "REPLACEMENT" instead?!  I may have to make a suggestion and drop it off in their suggestion box if they have one...because that's so misleading in the English language - really.

Fine - so we're stuck paying 544� and then I remembered the possibility of a permanent residence permit for my husband and I.

"Oh one more question - because we've lived here for four years now, are we able to qualify for the permanent residence permits? This way we don't have to do this every year for my husband and I?"

"Yes you have lived here for that time - right...let me look...no.  Because you have to have 'A-Status' residence permit for four years...so NEXT year you can definitely apply for that and then you won't have to do this again.  Because when you first got here - you were 'B-Status' only.  So you've been B for one year then A for three." 

That's not what the officer told us last year...oh well.

When I got home and updated my Facebook status to reflect this disappointment in non-consistent information, an American friend said that was even technically wrong - because there's some point system involved.

B-status = � a point

A-Status = 1 point

You need 4 points (minimum 1 year of A-status) to qualify for the permanent residence permit status apparently.

Well, first we've ever heard of this points system but yes, it still works out that we have 3.5 points and need to wait until next year (anytime after August) to apply.

Thankfully our police station accepts bank card/credit card payments now (they did last year too) - because carrying around over 500� in cash is NOT my cup of tea.  Not that I am worried in the slightest about robbery or pick-pocketing - also something that doesn't happen here (it's more of a bicycle-stealing city - and even then, it's usually drunks trying to get home) and I hate carrying cash of any amount.

And Finland doesn't use bank cheques at all and haven't in over twenty years.

Needless to say, it'll be a fairly quiet and simple Christmas for us!
Happy Holidays from our family to yours and thanks for checking out my blog!!!
Learning About Finland