Hi,
my name is Barbara and I am Hungarian living in Singapore. Moved away from Hungary in 1998 and now, after living in many countries decided to move back.
I got married in 2010 in Hungary (it is not easy to marry in Hungary...) and my husband is Australian.
So our plan is to move back in the end of the year. I have tried to look into the whole residence permit questions for him and of course it is both straight forward and very confusing.
We will move back without having a job, one of the reason why we move back is that we can live cheaper in Hungary in our own place and start a company ourselves. However, I have to prove that I can 'take care' of my husband. I understand that it can be done via showing bank accounts and having a property, but it would be great to know how much money we need to have in order to be sure we get the permission. I understand that most people move to another country with a job offer, but we also need a little time to regroup after years and years of not even having holidays.
So if anybody has tried getting residence permit for a non-EU citizen and can give me some advice (do we really need to submit pictures of ourselves doing things together? do they really come and check out our home?) it would be appreciated.
Kind Regards
Barbara
Getting residence permit for my Australian husband
Can not say "how much" is enough in a bank account. But it should be enough to show your husband would not become a social burden on the state.
From my personal experience (7 years ago, so things may have changed -- in fact some issues have changed in areas such as health care):
- Yes they came to our home for an inspection (my wife owns the property since as a US citizen I can not own the property where we live).
- We did not have to show photos of ourselves together, but of course we had to provide our marriage certificate.
- I provided the most recent and original bank account information showing monthly income. I also stated how I planed to have income in Hungary.
- My wife had to state in writing she would "let me live in her house" and essentially agree to "take fiscal responsibility for me".
- etc. etc. etc.. The file my wife built up for me with paperwork and documents we provided on this issue is about 3 cm thick.
klsallee wrote:- Yes they came to our home for an inspection (my wife owns the property since as a US citizen I can not own the property where we live).
National park?
fluffy2560 wrote:National park?
Correct. 
klsallee wrote:fluffy2560 wrote:National park?
Correct.
Same in Austria. One needs permission even if an EU/EEA citizen or an Austrian there. Not the same outside of the national parks.
And how do they initiate the visit?
I know that I am worrying about something which has not happened yet, but if we put all our stuff in a container, it will take up to 12 weeks to get it. So in the beginning we won't have much of our own things to show a real home...
And how do they know when we are at home? Or they just keep trying?
I know that we need to sign up to the healthcare (Tarsadalombiztositas) or have to have a real health insurance, but that is also OK I think.
Did you have an interview with them? Was your wife allowed to translate for you or you needed an official translator?
Sorry for the extra questions, just trying to be as prepared as possible...
barbiegood wrote:And how do they initiate the visit?
They informed us they were coming in advance at what day and time. Two officials showed up for the house tour.
barbiegood wrote:I know that I am worrying about something which has not happened yet, but if we put all our stuff in a container, it will take up to 12 weeks to get it. So in the beginning we won't have much of our own things to show a real home...
Most of our "stuff" was still abroad as well at that time. I have no idea what they look for exactly. My wife and I just acted normally and answered all questions and gave them the house tour.
barbiegood wrote:Did you have an interview with them? Was your wife allowed to translate for you or you needed an official translator?
We were both interviewed. My wife translated for me.
I think the fact that you married in Hungary is a big help with a resident permit.
My son married a Hungarian lady over 10 years back here in Budapest, he was a dual citizen. Even so he had to pay out of the nose for paperwork etc. ( He is now divorced but still legally married in HU?)
I received a resident permit about 4 years back. I am American and my husband is Hungarian by birth and also has Naturalized US citizenship.
We own a flat in Budapest, in his name, have bank accounts in both HU and the US. Plus my husband receives monthly income from retirement from the US.
I don't remember exactly how much we had in the HU bank when I was going through my immigration hassles in HU. Over a million forint plus a few thousand in the states.It was enough probably because of his monthly income being more then most workers get over here.
We have a fully paid off flat in HU and immigration had paperwork on hand about my son being married in HU, sort of proving I am his mother, the mother of citizen and the wife of a HU citizen right there on their files.
Even so it got to the point where they made me pay for a visa extention or have 90 days to leave HU.
It probably became more of an insane nightmare with immigration because on one hand my husband did the paperwork himself refusing to hire an immigration lawyer( their office in Budapest if full of lawyers, you can find one easy by just going inside the building, like vultures...)and the fact that I was doing the paperwork in HU and not doing it from the US.
Had to prove we were married, they didn't like the looks of my marriage certificate from the US so we had to have another one sent from the US with more written details on it.Good enough for all legal issues in the US but not in tiny little Hungary... oh well, they love to make people nervous over here.
After around 6 months of extentions, running all over Budapest getting translations, seals, stamps etc. I got my 5 year resident permit.
The weird thing is that really did upset me was in HU if you can prove you have lived without marriage to a HU citizen for somewhere like one year, then that counts as marriage but my 40 years of actually being legally married to a HU citizen wasn't worth much to them at immigration. We were a bit insulted by the way they treated us which made my stubborn husband more willing to prove them wrong and not to hire a lawyer, all a big game here if you have the money to waste you may even get a resident permit on your first visit into immigration just like so many from Asia did, we saw a group of over 40 people getting their permits with one lawyer handling them all at one time.
That upset my husband more then anything seeing people with no roots in HU getting permits so easy because they paid the lawyers to move things along fast and easy.Money talks over here! Let's just say I am not looking forward to going in again next year to renew my permit.
Long story short, do the paperwork before entering Hungary.
In our case they did not come to our home to do an inspection but we had to get the title to our flat, owners papers from the Land Management Office and show them.
All translations had to be done at the one and only "official translation office" in Budapest.
This was my birth paperwork, marriage paperwork. Their prices are set according to their own rules.
My husband was nearly tossed out when he screamed how unjust their price setting was.
He had been talking to a HU man from Romania who was in the office for the same thing my husband was in for.
To have a short translation of his marriage paperwork. They got to talking and the RO guy was going to pay only 3,000 forints while they wanted over 30,000 from my husband. Guess they figured an American can pay more for the same thing!
He paid all the while screaming at them, 2 weeks later when he went into collect the translation they gave him a 10,000 rebate, How nice of them!!?
This is the stonewalling BS we went through for 6 months.
At that point when I got my permit, I was mentally ready to pack it up and never return to HU, sort of put a damper on my excitement of living here, still waiting to be tossed out if they decide to play games next visit.
After 4 years my bags are still half packed to leave!
I hope I don't come off a racist about the huge group of Asians just being expected like nothing, my current DIL is Asian and just great. In fact after my son's horrible divorced from the HU he dated ladies from the entire Pacific Rim.
( Yes, sadly his HU wife turned out to be only after her US green card, fooled again!)
Maybe it would help your case if you someone got your business set up here in HU first.
We had an import/export set up in HU back in 1989, right after the change. A total nightmare to do business here at least for us, we had several businesses in the US but in HU it was not too easy, mostly again stupid rules and sometimes stupid people. Perhaps we are just not good business people, we would NEVER work in HU.
When we first decided to retire in HU back in 2000 things really were cheaper then in the US, Lately HU has high EU prices on allot of things.
The weather is not like in Cal. or Hawaii where I am from and it isn't so cheap once you settle in and realize what you are getting here for your money.
If you work here, you will soon see how low the wages are for your time and energy.
The only reason we are here is because we don't have to work here where in the US we would need part-time jobs to live in Hawaii.
Maybe if your husband has not lived here for a bit of time he should try it out before you move to stay.
We brought over about 12 boxes from the US when we moved here for good.
As a HU citizen you are suppose to be able to bring your household and a car over without taxes with customs.
No taxes for us but another set of insanity. Got to bring my boxes into our flat but customs put a tag on all of the boxes and we were not allowed to open them up until they said we could, a week later. Every turn here there was some sort of hassle, really gave us the mind set of negative vibes towards anything official here.
We have even bought the cheapest cars in HU because we never feel settled enough to invest over here with anything. Don't buy new furniture and have still not remodeled our flat because we don't trust this place even after all these years being here. Perhaps it is something from our generation, husband grew up in communist HU and at times he says nothing here as changed at all, even if the EU flag is waving.
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