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

6 Fingers & 2 Thumbs

Today is the 27th of December and for many that means waiting in massive line ups for all the wonderful Boxing Day sales (Boxing Day is the 26th of December and way-back-when rich people would box up their gifts they did not like and give them to their servants/hired help) and returning the gifts they didn't like or had duplicates of already.
Today my family got to hang out for a few hours at the police station so we could renew our residence permits (3/4 of us) and apply for a Finnish ID card for the husband so he can get a loan here.
After a lengthy wait and once my husband was finished his share of the process - it was just me and the officer in a cozy office getting my share of the paper work completed.

What's new this year is that the Finnish Residence Permits are no longer pieces of paper with your photo and  some info on it glued into your passport.
This time the Finns are going all high-tech!
The Finnish R.P. look like an ID card of sorts (we won't get ours for awhile so I'm sorry I can't describe it properly) but is not an official piece of identification.  It's merely a permit saying yep we live in Finland.
In this RP there is a microchip and that contains a copy of our finger prints and our signature along with other stuff I'm sure.

A child under the age of 6 does not have to have their finger prints taken.  (Thank goodness!)

And it's all digital....there's no more ink and paper and rolling your fingers this way and that on the ink pad.
Your prints will be taken from both hands - right hand first and beginning with the thumb and each finger is printed twice (you lift your finger between prints) to "ensure quality prints" for their records.
Now because it is winter time and I am TERRIBLE at moisturizing my hands - the scanner was not able to pick up some of my prints.  So I had to rub my fingers onto my skin to get some oil to help make the print clearer.
Good thing I had an apple and lots of peanut butter for breakfast at least 5 hours prior (and nothing else since)...my face was a little oily...not that you care or needed to know that!

Oh!  You're wondering why my title is "6 Fingers & 2 Thumbs"?
My pinky fingers couldn't leave a print because they were "too small".  Alright - not sure if he'll put on my file "She has small baby fingers - no prints available...but she DOES have all 10 digits!" or not - but I found it amusing but didn't ask if he felt the same.

Oh and some friends of ours had to fly to Ottawa to access this machine to get their RPs before moving here - because Ottawa had the only Finnish Embassy that contained a digital finger print scanner...GO CANADA!

Then came the interesting part.

It turns out that my oldest son's RP had expired back in September.  Why it was a different date than ours - I don't know.  Ours typically expired in August but because of this new system - we were advised they would extend the date on our RPs and we had to renew it before 2013 and that we could renew the child's at the same time.  So maybe they didn't extend his??
I apologized profusely and said that I thought we could renew the 3 RPs at the same time and that our expiry dates were all the same - oops - seriously.  That and the lady that we normally dealt with was in the next room - I didn't want to point fingers and play the blame-game...anyways...
He informed me that this was illegal but because he is an under-aged child (he's 3-years old) there won't be any fines.
I advised him that if it was such an issue to be a little late on a RP renewal - why weren't we contacted??
"Well, we don't send notices like that."
"Obviously a 3-year old is not a major threat if his residence permit application wasn't submitted on time and nobody contacted us about it..." - was my grouchy thought...
BUT!  I have received notices - FROM THE POLICE/IMMIGRATION SERVICES in the past - when a residence permit was due for renewal or past due because we were waiting on a proof of contract renewal etc.
Interesting!

THEN!  I realized that the youngest one doesn't have a RP in his passport because we only applied for it in October and it was the first one for him - so it's still being processed in Helsinki at the Immigration's office there.  I informed Mr. Officer this and he asked if we had been in contact with the Immigration's Office - I advised him no, they're probably waiting to see proof of us getting our RPs renewed before they send it back to us or finish the process.
NOW I'm looking like a sneaky suspect because it sounds JUST like something that would happen in Finland and because I sound calm yet like I have experience.  I mentioned that it had happened in the past with our first son - so that is probably what's happening.
And why would the Immigration's Office contact us about submitting OUR RP applications when they/the Police cannot contact us inquiring about an expired "under-aged child's" residence permit??? HMMMMMMMMM!

After showing his paper work to a colleague and coming back to see if I still had that "WTF" look on my face - he then decided to play good cop and ask me why I gave my boys Finnish names...and if my Canadian friends/family can pronounce them....

And there you have it.  My first taste of illegal activity in Finland.