Careful transfer to the Netherlands with his wife and mortgage. Part 2: document preparation and relocation
So, for about a year (May 2017 - February 2018), I, a C ++ programmer, found a job in Europe. I have responded dozens of times to vacancies in England, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and even Portugal. I talked twenty times on the phone, skype and other video communication systems with recruiters, and a little less - with technical experts. I traveled to Oslo, to Eindhoven, and three times to London for the final interviews. All this is described in detail here . In the end, I got one offer and accepted it.
This offer was from the Netherlands. It is relatively easy for employers in this country to invite an employee from abroad (not from the European Union), so there is little bureaucratic red tape, and the registration process takes only a few months.
')
But you can always create difficulties for yourself. What I did, than delayed his move for another month. If it is interesting to read about the troubles (no, not very pleasant) related to the relocation of the IT family to Western Europe - welcome under cat.
I do not know how standard I got an offer for Europe, but the main points in it are as follows (except for the salary, of course):
As I later learned from conversations with colleagues, such a relocation package is estimated at 10 thousand euros. Those. resigning in the first 2 years is costly, but some people quit (hence the fame of the amount).
30% ruling - this is the indulgence of foreign highly qualified specialists from the Dutch government. 30% of the income is not taxed. The amount of benefit depends on the salary, for an ordinary programmer it will be about 600-800 euros per month net, which is quite good.
From the documents I was required to:
With copies of passports, everything is simple - they are needed only by the HR service. Apparently, they are attached to the application for visas and residence permits. I did scans, emailed them, and they were not needed anywhere else.
For my visa and residence permit, all my diplomas are not needed. They were required to check me (background screening), which was commissioned by an employer by a certain British office. Interestingly, they did not need the translation, only scans of the originals.
Having sent the required, I decided to apostilize our diplomas just in case. Okay, I have already found a job, but it was assumed that the wife would also work there, and who knows what documents she would need.
The apostille is such an international stamp on a document that is valid in the countries that have signed the Hague Convention of 1961. Unlike documents issued at the registry office, diplomas can be apostilled, if not in any regional ministry of education, then in Moscow - for sure. And although diplomas issued in other cities are checked for longer (45 business days), it is still convenient.
At the end of February 2018, we gave 3 diplomas on an apostille, at the end of April we took it away. The most difficult thing is to wait and hope that the diplomas will not be lost.
Yes, the Dutch need exactly the birth certificates of adults. Such is their registration procedure. Moreover, we need an apostille for the originals of all these certificates, a translation of these documents (including an apostille), and an apostille for translation. And apostilles should not be older than 6 months - so I was told. Plus, I myself already nagulit that the Netherlands may not accept our birth certificates of the Soviet type, but the modern Russian ones - without any problems.
Yes, I read the story of JC_IIB , as he did in Russia only an apostille, and the translation is already in the Netherlands. There are so-called attorneys translators, the printing of which actually replaces the apostille. But, first of all, I wanted to arrive with fully prepared documents, and secondly, before the transfer I had to get an apostille to the original.
And it is troublesome. The apostille on documents issued at the registry office can be supplied only by the regional registry office of the region where the documents were actually issued.Where they received the card, go there. My wife and I are both from Saratov and the region, which, although not very far from Moscow, did not want to dangle because of the three seals. Therefore, I first turned to a certain office, which seems to be engaged in such matters. But their terms (in the first place) and the price (in the second) did not suit me at all.
Therefore, a plan was drawn up: the wife issues a power of attorney for me to go to the registry office, I take a few days off and go to Saratov, where I receive 2 new birth certificates, I give 3 certificates on apostilization, I wait, pick up, come back.
I called all the necessary registry offices in advance and clarified the schedule. There were no problems with the first three points (power of attorney, vacation, trip to Saratov). With the receipt of a new birth certificate for my wife too - I came to the registry office, wrote a statement about the loss (I did not invent it), paid the fee, received a new one. Given the break in the registry office for lunch, it took about 2 hours. They did not even ask about the old testimony, i.e. Now we have 2 birth certificates :)
For my new testimony, I went to the district center where I was born. There I, as the only visitor, in less than an hour, was given a new document. But the trouble is - it indicates another place of birth! Those. In my old certificate and in the archive of the registry office there are different settlements.
Both are related to me: the maternity hospital itself is in one, the parents at the time were registered in the other. By law, parents have the right to specify in the documents of any of these addresses. At first, parents were either chosen or left by default - one. A few days later (this is already from their words) decided to change to another. And the registrar employee simply took and corrected the address in the already issued certificate. But she didn’t even make changes to the archive. It turns out that I lived for 35 years with a fake document, and nothing :)
So, now the record in the archive can not be fixed, only by a court decision. Not only that once, so also the court is unlikely to find grounds for this. In my case all documents, including the marriage certificate and internal passport, indicate the same place of birth as in the old birth certificate. Those. they also have to change. You do not need to change your passport; the place of birth is indicated there very roughly: in Russian - “Saratov Region”, in English - and at all “USSR”.
By law, the exchange of marriage certificates is given up to 3 months, although the passport changes within 10 days. It is a long, very long time. In my contract the date of entry to work is indicated - May 1. In general, I had 2 options:
I almost went the first way, but - thanks to the head of the registry office. She promised to exchange the marriage certificate as soon as possible. I agreed with the HR service to transfer my release date to work a month in advance, issued a power of attorney for my father at the notary, passed the exchange certificate of marriage, paid all the fees in advance, left all the other documents in Saratov and returned to Moscow region.
At the civilian registry offices, they really did everything very quickly - for two and a half weeks they exchanged the marriage certificate, and another 4 days were spent on apostilization. At the end of March 2018 my father came to Moscow on business and brought me all the ready documents. The rest was relatively simple and uninteresting: I ordered a translation into English at the agency, I received an apostille for translation at the Moscow Justice Ministry. It took a week and a half. Total each A5 leaflet of the certificate turned into 5 A4 sheets, stamped and signed on all sides.
Exchanged through state services. Everything was promised: a week after submitting the application, I received a letter saying that I can get a new passport at my local Ministry of the Interior. True, the Ministry of Internal Affairs does passports only 2 days a week, so I received a passport on the 18th day after the application.
Residence permit, work permit - it's all good, but then. First you have to come to the country. And for this you need a visa.
When I finally collected all the necessary documents, I scanned them and sent HRs. It is good that in the Netherlands the usual scans have the same legal force as the originals, I did not have to send documents physically. HR-s have applied to the migration service. Migration Service after 3 weeks gave a positive response. Now my wife and I could get visas at the Netherlands Embassy in Moscow.
So, in the courtyard of the middle of May, I have to start work in Eindhoven on June 1. But all that was left was to stick a visa into a passport, collect a suitcase and fly. How to get to the embassy? We must make an appointment on their website. OK, when is the nearest date? In the middle of July?!
I was not even worried after the adventures with documents. I just started calling the embassy. The tube did not take. I found a useful autodial feature on my phone. A few hours later I phoned and explained the situation. My problem was solved in a few minutes - my wife and I made an appointment after 3 days.
Of the documents, the embassy needed passports, photographs, completed application forms and a signed labor contract. We had all this. But for some reason did not come photo wife. None of the three options. We were ordered to do the fourth in the house opposite. Photos made and even took it at an exorbitant price, not even twice :)
By evening, I took our passports with multi-visas for 3 months. Everything, you can choose a flight and fly.
The employer paid me transportation of things. The international office is engaged in the transportation itself, the HRs have communicated with it in the Netherlands, and I - with its representatives in Russia.
A month and a half before my departure, a woman from this office came to our house to assess the volume of things transported. We decided to go relatively light - no furniture, the hardest thing is my desktop (and the one without a monitor). But we took a bunch of things, shoes and cosmetics.
From again documents from me the power of attorney was necessary for passage of customs. It is interesting that it is impossible to take pictures out of Russia without expert opinion, even if it is just a sketch you made. My wife is engaged in painting a little, but we did not take any pictures or drawings, we left everything in the apartment. In his (albeit mortgage) apartment. If we were leaving "completely" or from rental housing, it would be one problem more.
A week before departure, 3 packers arrived at the appointed time. And very quickly, very nicely packed all our junk. It turned out 13 boxes of different sizes, on average - somewhere 40x50x60 cm. I gave the power of attorney, received a list of boxes and was left without a computer, with only a laptop for the next 6 weeks.
We had the following relocation plan: at first, only I am treating myself, settling there, renting permanent housing, going through a probationary period. If all is well, I return for my wife, and together we fly to the Netherlands.
The first difficulty I encountered upon arrival is how to call the Dutch number? All contacts were given to me in the format +31 (0) xxxxxxxxx, but on my attempts to dial + 310xxxxxxxxx I received the “Wrong number” robo-answer. Well, that at the airport was free wifi. I googled and figured out: you need to dial either + 31xxxxxxxxx (international format) or 0xxxxxxxxx (internal). Trifle, but I had to attend to this before arrival.
For the first month I was placed in a rented apartment. Bedroom, kitchen combined with living room, shower, washing machine and dishwasher, refrigerator, iron - for one person the thing. I didn't even have to sort the trash. Only the house manager forbade throwing out glass into general garbage, so for the whole first month I carefully avoided buying anything in glass containers.
The next day after my arrival, I met Karen, my guide to the world of the Dutch bureaucracy and part-time real estate agent. She arranged for me to meet in the bank and expat center in advance.
Everything was very simple in the bank. “You want to open an account with us, but you are not registered in the Netherlands yet, and you do not have a BSN? Not a problem, now we'll do everything, and then just update the data in your profile on our website. ” I suspect that this attitude was facilitated by a signed contract with my employer. Another bank sold me liability insurance - insurance in case I break someone else's thing. The bank promised to send a plastic card of the local system by regular mail within a week. And he sent - first the pin-code in the envelope, after 2 days - the card itself.
About plastic cards. Even when my wife and I came to look at the Netherlands in the fall, we experienced it for ourselves - Visa and Mastercard are accepted here as not everywhere. These cards are considered credit here (although we had them debit cards) and many stores simply don’t contact them (due to the payment for acquiring? I don’t know). The Netherlands has its own type of debit card and its own online payment system iDeal. From my own experience I can say that at least in Germany and Belgium, these cards also accept.
The expat center is a kind of lightweight version of the migration service, where I was officially registered at a temporary address, BSN was issued - the main number of the resident of the Netherlands (the closest analogue in Russia is the TIN) and was told to come for a view of work and residence several days later. By the way, my heap of documents (apostille, translation, apostille for translation) caused a slight surprise, I had to explain what is what. By the way, number two - Sovjet-Unie is listed as the country of birth in my Netherlands documents, and Rusland is the country of arrival. Those. at least local clerks are aware of this metamorphosis of our state.
I received a residence permit with a right to work as a highly qualified specialist (eng. Highly skilled migrant, nen. Kennismigrant) in about 3 working days. Such a delay had no effect on work — my three-month visa allowed me to work. I can change jobs, but I have to remain just such a specialist. Those. My salary must be at least a certain amount. For 2019, this is € 58,320 for people over thirty.
I bought a local SIM card by myself. Karen advised me to the operator (KPN) and where to find his store. Because I did not have a financial history in a local bank, they would not have concluded a contract with me, they just sold a prepaid SIM card. I was lucky and the store accepted Visa, I paid with a Russian bank card. Looking ahead to say that I still use this prepaid map. I studied the tariffs of this and other operators, and decided that it was prepaid that suits me best.
As someone who came from a not very prosperous country, I needed to undergo fluorography. Record for 2 weeks (in the Netherlands in general, compared with Moscow, everything is not very fast), almost 50 euros, and if they do not call me in a week, then everything is fine. Do not call :)
Of course, I also watched apartments for rent from Russia, but on the spot I had to quickly part with the hope of finding accommodation within, if not € 700, then at least € 1,000 (including a communal apartment). About 10 days after my arrival, Karen sent me links to a couple of dozen ads. I chose from them 5 or 6, and the next day she took me to watch them.
In general, in the Netherlands it is common practice to rent housing not only without furniture, which I can still understand, but also without sex — that is, without laminate, linoleum and other things, just bare concrete. This is what I do not understand. The tenants take the floor when they move out, but what is the use of another apartment? In general, the furnished apartments are few, which somewhat complicated my task. But on the other hand, 5 views per day is just a fairy tale compared to Dublin or Stockholm.
The main drawback of the Dutch apartments is the irrational, in my opinion, use of the square. Apartments are different, from 30 to several hundred square meters, but I, of course, were interested in inexpensive ones, i.e. small. And here, for example, I look at an apartment of 45 squares. There is a corridor, a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen combined with a living room - that's all. The constant feeling of being cramped, we simply have nowhere to put the two desktops we need. On the other hand, I remember very well how my family of 4 people lived well in a standard Khrushchev 44 meters.
Even the Dutch have other ideas about thermal comfort. In that apartment, for example, the front door is just a single layer of glass, and from the apartment it leads directly to the street. There are also apartments in old houses, there is generally a single-layer glazing. And you can not change anything, because the house is a monument of architecture. If it seems to someone that the winters in the Netherlands are mild, this is true, but there is no central heating, and the locals can keep at home +20 and walk in the same T-shirt. But my wife and I, as it turned out, cannot. We hold more degrees and dress warmer.
However, I was distracted. Of the 5 options, I chose one: 3 rooms, 75 meters, obviously not new, as we would have written - “without a European-style repair” (ironically, yes?). He signed a contract, paid for the first month, paid a deposit in the amount of a monthly fee and something about € 250 to the realtor from the landlady. These € 250 I then reimbursed the employer.
The rental market for apartments, as I understand it, is regulated by the state. For example, my contract (officially - in Dutch, but there is a translation into English) consists of only a few villages, which mainly lists personal data and differences from a standard, officially approved contract. By law, the landlord can not raise fees more than 6 or 7 percent per year. For me, for example, in the second year the price was raised by only 2.8%. By the way, the owner of my rented apartment is one of the very few people I have met here who speak English very poorly. But after signing the contract, I never saw her again, just congratulated each other on Christmas and New Year in Whatsapp, and that’s all.
I also note that housing here becomes more expensive from year to year - both rent and purchase. For example, one of his colleagues vacated an apartment, which he rented for about € 800 for several years and wanted to offer to rent it to his friend. But for a friend the price was already € 1,200.
In the rented apartment was not the most important thing - the Internet. If you google, there are a lot of providers here, most are connected via fiber. But: not everywhere is this fiber already, and several (up to six!) Weeks pass from the application to the connection. My house, as it turned out, is deprived of this good civilization. To connect via this provider, I need to work - naturally! - time to wait for the installer. And having cooperated with all the neighbors below, since cable stretches from the ground floor. I decided that I was not ready for such adventures and canceled the application.
As a result, I connected the Internet from Ziggo - via a TV cable, with a return rate of 10 times less than the download speed, one and a half times more expensive, but without the installer even after 3 days. They just sent me an entire set of equipment, which I connected myself. Since then everything works, the speed is quite stable, we have enough.
I found a place to live, there were no problems at work, so according to the plan I went to get my wife in early August. My employer bought her a ticket, I bought myself a ticket for the same flight.
I recorded it in advance at the reception at the bank and the expat center, nothing complicated about it. She just opened the account and issued a residence permit and work permit. Moreover, unlike me, she has the right to get any job, not necessarily as a highly qualified specialist.
Then she registered herself in the local municipality and did a photofluorography.
Every resident of the Netherlands is obliged to have medical insurance and pay for it at least a hundred or something euros per month. New arrivals are required to take out insurance for four months, it seems. If they do not, they are automatically assigned insurance by default.
After the first month in the Netherlands I chose insurance for myself and my wife, but it was not very easy to arrange it. Did I already say that the Dutch are unhurried people? Every few weeks they asked me for personal data, documents, then something else. As a result, insurance my wife and I have issued only in late August.
For the first two months, I realized how inconvenient the local debit card is. On the Internet, it can pay only where there is iDeal. Those. only on the Dutch sites. Neither pay Uber, for example, nor buy a ticket on the Aeroflot website will work. I needed a normal card - Visa or Mastercard.Well Mastercard, of course. Europe is the same.
And here it is only credit cards. And they are not engaged in issuing the bank itself, but a certain national office. In early August, I sent an application for a credit card from my personal account on the bank's website. A few weeks later I was refused on the grounds that I had been working for a short time in my current job. I asked in the reply letter, but how much is needed? A month later, I was suddenly approved of a credit card and sent by mail within a couple of weeks.
30% ruling is a great thing. But to get it you need to be a kennismigrant for the last 18 months before arriving in the Netherlands to live further 150 km from the Netherlands. It is a pity that the ruling is given less and less - once it was issued for 10 years, then at 8, now it is only at 5.
My employer pays for the services of an intermediary office, which also submits to the local tax application for my taxi. As my colleagues told me, it usually takes 2-3 months, after which the “net” salary becomes much higher (and the amount paid for the months is paid without ruling).
I filled out the questionnaire and sent the documents in early June. Tax responded that now they are switching to electronic document circulation, and therefore approval of the ruling may take more time. OK.After 3 months, I started kicking the proxy office. The office sluggishly transferred the kicks to the tax and back to me. In early September, I was sent a letter from the tax in which I was asked to provide proof that I did not live in the Netherlands 18 months before April 2018.
Coincidence? I do not think.It was in April that I received my new civil passport. I don’t remember exactly now, but it seems that a passport scan was attached to the application for taxiing. As evidence, you can show bills for communal in my name. Again, it’s good that I lived in my apartment for several years now, and all the bills came to my name. And I keep them all :) Relatives sent me photos of the necessary accounts, and I sent them (with an explanation of what is what) to the intermediary office.
Again I received a notice that the tax transfer to electronic document flow, and the consideration of the application will take more time. In November, I again started kicking the middleman, and kicked him until mid-December, when I was finally approved of the taxi. He began to influence my salary in January, i.e. It took me 7 months to arrange a ruling.
Here, too, everything went according to plan. My wife is a software tester with 4 years experience. The first few months she continued to work for her Moscow employer. Separate thanks to him for allowing him to switch to completely remote work. The advantage of such a decision: do not rush headlong into an unfamiliar environment and earn yourself extra stress.
Minus: as it turned out, since the registration here the wife is the tax resident of the Netherlands. Accordingly, must pay taxes on any income. Perhaps the local tax authority would not have known about these revenues, and perhaps it would have found out (since 2019, the automatic exchange of tax data between Russia and European countries began). In general, we decided not to take risks and indicated this income in the tax return. How much to pay - is still unknown, the declaration is in the process of filing.
Somewhere in November, my wife began to look for work here. There are few software testers and QA Engineers jobs, but they are there. In the overwhelming majority of cases, ISTQB and / or Tmap certificates are required. She has neither the one nor the other. As I understand from her words, in Russia there is much more talk about it than real need.
As a result, his wife was twice refused, even without inviting for an interview. The third attempt was more successful - in early December, she was called for an interview. The interview itself lasted just over an hour and was held in a “talk for life” format: they asked what it was doing, how it handled such and such situations. Few asked about the experience in automation (there is, but very small), there were no technical questions. All this is just over an hour and in English, of course. This was her first experience of passing an interview in a foreign language.
A couple of weeks later they called for a second interview - with the owner and part-time director of the company. The same format, the same topics, another hour of talk. A couple of weeks later they said they were ready to make an offer. Began to discuss the details. I, remembering my relatively successful experience, advised to bargain a little. It turned out here.
The offer itself is a contract for 1 year with the prospect of transition to a permanent one, if all goes well. Very useful permission for any work, because on the salary, the wife does not hold out to kennismigrant yet. And she was not allowed to roll, because she has been living in the Netherlands for several months.
As a result, since February 2019, the wife has been fully working as a software tester in a local company.
My status as a kennismigrant aside from ruling gives me the right to exchange Russian rights for local ones without passing the exam. This is also a big savings, because driving lessons and the exam itself will cost several thousand euros. And it will all be in Dutch.
Now that I’ve got a taxi, I’ve started sharing rights. On the CBR website - a local analogue of traffic police - I paid 37 euros for a medical questionnaire, where I simply said that I had no health problems (I always wear glasses, but there was nothing about glasses, only I see with both eyes). BecauseI have a taxi and I exchange category B rights; I did not need a medical examination. After 2 weeks, I received a letter saying that the CBR approves of the exchange of rights. With this letter and other documents, I went to my local municipality, where I would pay another 35 euros and give my Russian rights (without translation).
After another 2 weeks I was notified that the new rights are ready. I took them in the same municipality. I had Russian rights until 2021, but the Dutch issued for 10 years - until 2029. Plus, in addition to category B, they include AM (mopeds) and T (tractor!).
The Dutch will send the Russian rights to our consulate, and the consulate will send them to Russia at the end of the year. Those. I have a few months to intercept the rights in The Hague, so that later not to look for them in the MREO - either in Saratov, or in Moscow.
At this point, our process of moving and arranging is considered complete. Plans for the next few years - to live and work in peace. In the next and last part I will talk about the household and work aspects of life in the Netherlands.
Part 3
This offer was from the Netherlands. It is relatively easy for employers in this country to invite an employee from abroad (not from the European Union), so there is little bureaucratic red tape, and the registration process takes only a few months.
')
But you can always create difficulties for yourself. What I did, than delayed his move for another month. If it is interesting to read about the troubles (no, not very pleasant) related to the relocation of the IT family to Western Europe - welcome under cat.
Offer
I do not know how standard I got an offer for Europe, but the main points in it are as follows (except for the salary, of course):
- open-ended contract
- probationary period of 2 months
- 40 working hours per week
- 25 vacation days per year
- 30% taxi (see below)
- payment of all documents (visas, residence permits) for the whole family
- One-way ticket payment for the whole family
- payment for transportation of things and furniture
- payment of temporary housing for the first month
- help finding a permanent home
- assistance in opening a bank account in the Netherlands
- assistance in filing the first tax return
- if they fire me in the first year, they also relocate me to Russia for free
- if I take the time to resign in the first 18 months, I must refund half of the cost of my relocation package, if I quit between 18 and 24 months - then a quarter
As I later learned from conversations with colleagues, such a relocation package is estimated at 10 thousand euros. Those. resigning in the first 2 years is costly, but some people quit (hence the fame of the amount).
30% ruling - this is the indulgence of foreign highly qualified specialists from the Dutch government. 30% of the income is not taxed. The amount of benefit depends on the salary, for an ordinary programmer it will be about 600-800 euros per month net, which is quite good.
Documents
From the documents I was required to:
- translated and apostilled birth certificates (mine and wives)
- translated and apostilled marriage certificate
- copies of my diplomas
- copies of our passports
With copies of passports, everything is simple - they are needed only by the HR service. Apparently, they are attached to the application for visas and residence permits. I did scans, emailed them, and they were not needed anywhere else.
Diplomas of Education
For my visa and residence permit, all my diplomas are not needed. They were required to check me (background screening), which was commissioned by an employer by a certain British office. Interestingly, they did not need the translation, only scans of the originals.
Having sent the required, I decided to apostilize our diplomas just in case. Okay, I have already found a job, but it was assumed that the wife would also work there, and who knows what documents she would need.
The apostille is such an international stamp on a document that is valid in the countries that have signed the Hague Convention of 1961. Unlike documents issued at the registry office, diplomas can be apostilled, if not in any regional ministry of education, then in Moscow - for sure. And although diplomas issued in other cities are checked for longer (45 business days), it is still convenient.
At the end of February 2018, we gave 3 diplomas on an apostille, at the end of April we took it away. The most difficult thing is to wait and hope that the diplomas will not be lost.
Birth and Marriage Certificates
Yes, the Dutch need exactly the birth certificates of adults. Such is their registration procedure. Moreover, we need an apostille for the originals of all these certificates, a translation of these documents (including an apostille), and an apostille for translation. And apostilles should not be older than 6 months - so I was told. Plus, I myself already nagulit that the Netherlands may not accept our birth certificates of the Soviet type, but the modern Russian ones - without any problems.
Yes, I read the story of JC_IIB , as he did in Russia only an apostille, and the translation is already in the Netherlands. There are so-called attorneys translators, the printing of which actually replaces the apostille. But, first of all, I wanted to arrive with fully prepared documents, and secondly, before the transfer I had to get an apostille to the original.
And it is troublesome. The apostille on documents issued at the registry office can be supplied only by the regional registry office of the region where the documents were actually issued.
Therefore, a plan was drawn up: the wife issues a power of attorney for me to go to the registry office, I take a few days off and go to Saratov, where I receive 2 new birth certificates, I give 3 certificates on apostilization, I wait, pick up, come back.
I called all the necessary registry offices in advance and clarified the schedule. There were no problems with the first three points (power of attorney, vacation, trip to Saratov). With the receipt of a new birth certificate for my wife too - I came to the registry office, wrote a statement about the loss (I did not invent it), paid the fee, received a new one. Given the break in the registry office for lunch, it took about 2 hours. They did not even ask about the old testimony, i.e. Now we have 2 birth certificates :)
For my new testimony, I went to the district center where I was born. There I, as the only visitor, in less than an hour, was given a new document. But the trouble is - it indicates another place of birth! Those. In my old certificate and in the archive of the registry office there are different settlements.
Both are related to me: the maternity hospital itself is in one, the parents at the time were registered in the other. By law, parents have the right to specify in the documents of any of these addresses. At first, parents were either chosen or left by default - one. A few days later (this is already from their words) decided to change to another. And the registrar employee simply took and corrected the address in the already issued certificate. But she didn’t even make changes to the archive. It turns out that I lived for 35 years with a fake document, and nothing :)
So, now the record in the archive can not be fixed, only by a court decision. Not only that once, so also the court is unlikely to find grounds for this. In my case all documents, including the marriage certificate and internal passport, indicate the same place of birth as in the old birth certificate. Those. they also have to change. You do not need to change your passport; the place of birth is indicated there very roughly: in Russian - “Saratov Region”, in English - and at all “USSR”.
By law, the exchange of marriage certificates is given up to 3 months, although the passport changes within 10 days. It is a long, very long time. In my contract the date of entry to work is indicated - May 1. In general, I had 2 options:
- hope that the regional registry office will not ask for confirmation from the district and will put an apostille on my old certificate, and the Dutch will accept it
- change marriage certificate and passport
I almost went the first way, but - thanks to the head of the registry office. She promised to exchange the marriage certificate as soon as possible. I agreed with the HR service to transfer my release date to work a month in advance, issued a power of attorney for my father at the notary, passed the exchange certificate of marriage, paid all the fees in advance, left all the other documents in Saratov and returned to Moscow region.
At the civilian registry offices, they really did everything very quickly - for two and a half weeks they exchanged the marriage certificate, and another 4 days were spent on apostilization. At the end of March 2018 my father came to Moscow on business and brought me all the ready documents. The rest was relatively simple and uninteresting: I ordered a translation into English at the agency, I received an apostille for translation at the Moscow Justice Ministry. It took a week and a half. Total each A5 leaflet of the certificate turned into 5 A4 sheets, stamped and signed on all sides.
Passport
Exchanged through state services. Everything was promised: a week after submitting the application, I received a letter saying that I can get a new passport at my local Ministry of the Interior. True, the Ministry of Internal Affairs does passports only 2 days a week, so I received a passport on the 18th day after the application.
Visas
Residence permit, work permit - it's all good, but then. First you have to come to the country. And for this you need a visa.
When I finally collected all the necessary documents, I scanned them and sent HRs. It is good that in the Netherlands the usual scans have the same legal force as the originals, I did not have to send documents physically. HR-s have applied to the migration service. Migration Service after 3 weeks gave a positive response. Now my wife and I could get visas at the Netherlands Embassy in Moscow.
So, in the courtyard of the middle of May, I have to start work in Eindhoven on June 1. But all that was left was to stick a visa into a passport, collect a suitcase and fly. How to get to the embassy? We must make an appointment on their website. OK, when is the nearest date? In the middle of July?!
I was not even worried after the adventures with documents. I just started calling the embassy. The tube did not take. I found a useful autodial feature on my phone. A few hours later I phoned and explained the situation. My problem was solved in a few minutes - my wife and I made an appointment after 3 days.
Of the documents, the embassy needed passports, photographs, completed application forms and a signed labor contract. We had all this. But for some reason did not come photo wife. None of the three options. We were ordered to do the fourth in the house opposite. Photos made and even took it at an exorbitant price, not even twice :)
By evening, I took our passports with multi-visas for 3 months. Everything, you can choose a flight and fly.
Things
The employer paid me transportation of things. The international office is engaged in the transportation itself, the HRs have communicated with it in the Netherlands, and I - with its representatives in Russia.
A month and a half before my departure, a woman from this office came to our house to assess the volume of things transported. We decided to go relatively light - no furniture, the hardest thing is my desktop (and the one without a monitor). But we took a bunch of things, shoes and cosmetics.
From again documents from me the power of attorney was necessary for passage of customs. It is interesting that it is impossible to take pictures out of Russia without expert opinion, even if it is just a sketch you made. My wife is engaged in painting a little, but we did not take any pictures or drawings, we left everything in the apartment. In his (albeit mortgage) apartment. If we were leaving "completely" or from rental housing, it would be one problem more.
A week before departure, 3 packers arrived at the appointed time. And very quickly, very nicely packed all our junk. It turned out 13 boxes of different sizes, on average - somewhere 40x50x60 cm. I gave the power of attorney, received a list of boxes and was left without a computer, with only a laptop for the next 6 weeks.
Accommodation in the Netherlands
We had the following relocation plan: at first, only I am treating myself, settling there, renting permanent housing, going through a probationary period. If all is well, I return for my wife, and together we fly to the Netherlands.
The first difficulty I encountered upon arrival is how to call the Dutch number? All contacts were given to me in the format +31 (0) xxxxxxxxx, but on my attempts to dial + 310xxxxxxxxx I received the “Wrong number” robo-answer. Well, that at the airport was free wifi. I googled and figured out: you need to dial either + 31xxxxxxxxx (international format) or 0xxxxxxxxx (internal). Trifle, but I had to attend to this before arrival.
For the first month I was placed in a rented apartment. Bedroom, kitchen combined with living room, shower, washing machine and dishwasher, refrigerator, iron - for one person the thing. I didn't even have to sort the trash. Only the house manager forbade throwing out glass into general garbage, so for the whole first month I carefully avoided buying anything in glass containers.
The next day after my arrival, I met Karen, my guide to the world of the Dutch bureaucracy and part-time real estate agent. She arranged for me to meet in the bank and expat center in advance.
Bank account
Everything was very simple in the bank. “You want to open an account with us, but you are not registered in the Netherlands yet, and you do not have a BSN? Not a problem, now we'll do everything, and then just update the data in your profile on our website. ” I suspect that this attitude was facilitated by a signed contract with my employer. Another bank sold me liability insurance - insurance in case I break someone else's thing. The bank promised to send a plastic card of the local system by regular mail within a week. And he sent - first the pin-code in the envelope, after 2 days - the card itself.
About plastic cards. Even when my wife and I came to look at the Netherlands in the fall, we experienced it for ourselves - Visa and Mastercard are accepted here as not everywhere. These cards are considered credit here (although we had them debit cards) and many stores simply don’t contact them (due to the payment for acquiring? I don’t know). The Netherlands has its own type of debit card and its own online payment system iDeal. From my own experience I can say that at least in Germany and Belgium, these cards also accept.
Residence
The expat center is a kind of lightweight version of the migration service, where I was officially registered at a temporary address, BSN was issued - the main number of the resident of the Netherlands (the closest analogue in Russia is the TIN) and was told to come for a view of work and residence several days later. By the way, my heap of documents (apostille, translation, apostille for translation) caused a slight surprise, I had to explain what is what. By the way, number two - Sovjet-Unie is listed as the country of birth in my Netherlands documents, and Rusland is the country of arrival. Those. at least local clerks are aware of this metamorphosis of our state.
I received a residence permit with a right to work as a highly qualified specialist (eng. Highly skilled migrant, nen. Kennismigrant) in about 3 working days. Such a delay had no effect on work — my three-month visa allowed me to work. I can change jobs, but I have to remain just such a specialist. Those. My salary must be at least a certain amount. For 2019, this is € 58,320 for people over thirty.
cellular
I bought a local SIM card by myself. Karen advised me to the operator (KPN) and where to find his store. Because I did not have a financial history in a local bank, they would not have concluded a contract with me, they just sold a prepaid SIM card. I was lucky and the store accepted Visa, I paid with a Russian bank card. Looking ahead to say that I still use this prepaid map. I studied the tariffs of this and other operators, and decided that it was prepaid that suits me best.
Medical check
As someone who came from a not very prosperous country, I needed to undergo fluorography. Record for 2 weeks (in the Netherlands in general, compared with Moscow, everything is not very fast), almost 50 euros, and if they do not call me in a week, then everything is fine. Do not call :)
Search for rental housing
Of course, I also watched apartments for rent from Russia, but on the spot I had to quickly part with the hope of finding accommodation within, if not € 700, then at least € 1,000 (including a communal apartment). About 10 days after my arrival, Karen sent me links to a couple of dozen ads. I chose from them 5 or 6, and the next day she took me to watch them.
In general, in the Netherlands it is common practice to rent housing not only without furniture, which I can still understand, but also without sex — that is, without laminate, linoleum and other things, just bare concrete. This is what I do not understand. The tenants take the floor when they move out, but what is the use of another apartment? In general, the furnished apartments are few, which somewhat complicated my task. But on the other hand, 5 views per day is just a fairy tale compared to Dublin or Stockholm.
The main drawback of the Dutch apartments is the irrational, in my opinion, use of the square. Apartments are different, from 30 to several hundred square meters, but I, of course, were interested in inexpensive ones, i.e. small. And here, for example, I look at an apartment of 45 squares. There is a corridor, a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen combined with a living room - that's all. The constant feeling of being cramped, we simply have nowhere to put the two desktops we need. On the other hand, I remember very well how my family of 4 people lived well in a standard Khrushchev 44 meters.
Even the Dutch have other ideas about thermal comfort. In that apartment, for example, the front door is just a single layer of glass, and from the apartment it leads directly to the street. There are also apartments in old houses, there is generally a single-layer glazing. And you can not change anything, because the house is a monument of architecture. If it seems to someone that the winters in the Netherlands are mild, this is true, but there is no central heating, and the locals can keep at home +20 and walk in the same T-shirt. But my wife and I, as it turned out, cannot. We hold more degrees and dress warmer.
However, I was distracted. Of the 5 options, I chose one: 3 rooms, 75 meters, obviously not new, as we would have written - “without a European-style repair” (ironically, yes?). He signed a contract, paid for the first month, paid a deposit in the amount of a monthly fee and something about € 250 to the realtor from the landlady. These € 250 I then reimbursed the employer.
The rental market for apartments, as I understand it, is regulated by the state. For example, my contract (officially - in Dutch, but there is a translation into English) consists of only a few villages, which mainly lists personal data and differences from a standard, officially approved contract. By law, the landlord can not raise fees more than 6 or 7 percent per year. For me, for example, in the second year the price was raised by only 2.8%. By the way, the owner of my rented apartment is one of the very few people I have met here who speak English very poorly. But after signing the contract, I never saw her again, just congratulated each other on Christmas and New Year in Whatsapp, and that’s all.
I also note that housing here becomes more expensive from year to year - both rent and purchase. For example, one of his colleagues vacated an apartment, which he rented for about € 800 for several years and wanted to offer to rent it to his friend. But for a friend the price was already € 1,200.
the Internet
In the rented apartment was not the most important thing - the Internet. If you google, there are a lot of providers here, most are connected via fiber. But: not everywhere is this fiber already, and several (up to six!) Weeks pass from the application to the connection. My house, as it turned out, is deprived of this good civilization. To connect via this provider, I need to work - naturally! - time to wait for the installer. And having cooperated with all the neighbors below, since cable stretches from the ground floor. I decided that I was not ready for such adventures and canceled the application.
As a result, I connected the Internet from Ziggo - via a TV cable, with a return rate of 10 times less than the download speed, one and a half times more expensive, but without the installer even after 3 days. They just sent me an entire set of equipment, which I connected myself. Since then everything works, the speed is quite stable, we have enough.
Wife's move
I found a place to live, there were no problems at work, so according to the plan I went to get my wife in early August. My employer bought her a ticket, I bought myself a ticket for the same flight.
I recorded it in advance at the reception at the bank and the expat center, nothing complicated about it. She just opened the account and issued a residence permit and work permit. Moreover, unlike me, she has the right to get any job, not necessarily as a highly qualified specialist.
Then she registered herself in the local municipality and did a photofluorography.
Medical insurance
Every resident of the Netherlands is obliged to have medical insurance and pay for it at least a hundred or something euros per month. New arrivals are required to take out insurance for four months, it seems. If they do not, they are automatically assigned insurance by default.
After the first month in the Netherlands I chose insurance for myself and my wife, but it was not very easy to arrange it. Did I already say that the Dutch are unhurried people? Every few weeks they asked me for personal data, documents, then something else. As a result, insurance my wife and I have issued only in late August.
Credit card
For the first two months, I realized how inconvenient the local debit card is. On the Internet, it can pay only where there is iDeal. Those. only on the Dutch sites. Neither pay Uber, for example, nor buy a ticket on the Aeroflot website will work. I needed a normal card - Visa or Mastercard.Well Mastercard, of course. Europe is the same.
And here it is only credit cards. And they are not engaged in issuing the bank itself, but a certain national office. In early August, I sent an application for a credit card from my personal account on the bank's website. A few weeks later I was refused on the grounds that I had been working for a short time in my current job. I asked in the reply letter, but how much is needed? A month later, I was suddenly approved of a credit card and sent by mail within a couple of weeks.
Ruling
30% ruling is a great thing. But to get it you need to be a kennismigrant for the last 18 months before arriving in the Netherlands to live further 150 km from the Netherlands. It is a pity that the ruling is given less and less - once it was issued for 10 years, then at 8, now it is only at 5.
My employer pays for the services of an intermediary office, which also submits to the local tax application for my taxi. As my colleagues told me, it usually takes 2-3 months, after which the “net” salary becomes much higher (and the amount paid for the months is paid without ruling).
I filled out the questionnaire and sent the documents in early June. Tax responded that now they are switching to electronic document circulation, and therefore approval of the ruling may take more time. OK.After 3 months, I started kicking the proxy office. The office sluggishly transferred the kicks to the tax and back to me. In early September, I was sent a letter from the tax in which I was asked to provide proof that I did not live in the Netherlands 18 months before April 2018.
Coincidence? I do not think.It was in April that I received my new civil passport. I don’t remember exactly now, but it seems that a passport scan was attached to the application for taxiing. As evidence, you can show bills for communal in my name. Again, it’s good that I lived in my apartment for several years now, and all the bills came to my name. And I keep them all :) Relatives sent me photos of the necessary accounts, and I sent them (with an explanation of what is what) to the intermediary office.
Again I received a notice that the tax transfer to electronic document flow, and the consideration of the application will take more time. In November, I again started kicking the middleman, and kicked him until mid-December, when I was finally approved of the taxi. He began to influence my salary in January, i.e. It took me 7 months to arrange a ruling.
Wife finds work
Here, too, everything went according to plan. My wife is a software tester with 4 years experience. The first few months she continued to work for her Moscow employer. Separate thanks to him for allowing him to switch to completely remote work. The advantage of such a decision: do not rush headlong into an unfamiliar environment and earn yourself extra stress.
Minus: as it turned out, since the registration here the wife is the tax resident of the Netherlands. Accordingly, must pay taxes on any income. Perhaps the local tax authority would not have known about these revenues, and perhaps it would have found out (since 2019, the automatic exchange of tax data between Russia and European countries began). In general, we decided not to take risks and indicated this income in the tax return. How much to pay - is still unknown, the declaration is in the process of filing.
Somewhere in November, my wife began to look for work here. There are few software testers and QA Engineers jobs, but they are there. In the overwhelming majority of cases, ISTQB and / or Tmap certificates are required. She has neither the one nor the other. As I understand from her words, in Russia there is much more talk about it than real need.
As a result, his wife was twice refused, even without inviting for an interview. The third attempt was more successful - in early December, she was called for an interview. The interview itself lasted just over an hour and was held in a “talk for life” format: they asked what it was doing, how it handled such and such situations. Few asked about the experience in automation (there is, but very small), there were no technical questions. All this is just over an hour and in English, of course. This was her first experience of passing an interview in a foreign language.
A couple of weeks later they called for a second interview - with the owner and part-time director of the company. The same format, the same topics, another hour of talk. A couple of weeks later they said they were ready to make an offer. Began to discuss the details. I, remembering my relatively successful experience, advised to bargain a little. It turned out here.
The offer itself is a contract for 1 year with the prospect of transition to a permanent one, if all goes well. Very useful permission for any work, because on the salary, the wife does not hold out to kennismigrant yet. And she was not allowed to roll, because she has been living in the Netherlands for several months.
As a result, since February 2019, the wife has been fully working as a software tester in a local company.
Local rights
My status as a kennismigrant aside from ruling gives me the right to exchange Russian rights for local ones without passing the exam. This is also a big savings, because driving lessons and the exam itself will cost several thousand euros. And it will all be in Dutch.
Now that I’ve got a taxi, I’ve started sharing rights. On the CBR website - a local analogue of traffic police - I paid 37 euros for a medical questionnaire, where I simply said that I had no health problems (I always wear glasses, but there was nothing about glasses, only I see with both eyes). BecauseI have a taxi and I exchange category B rights; I did not need a medical examination. After 2 weeks, I received a letter saying that the CBR approves of the exchange of rights. With this letter and other documents, I went to my local municipality, where I would pay another 35 euros and give my Russian rights (without translation).
After another 2 weeks I was notified that the new rights are ready. I took them in the same municipality. I had Russian rights until 2021, but the Dutch issued for 10 years - until 2029. Plus, in addition to category B, they include AM (mopeds) and T (tractor!).
The Dutch will send the Russian rights to our consulate, and the consulate will send them to Russia at the end of the year. Those. I have a few months to intercept the rights in The Hague, so that later not to look for them in the MREO - either in Saratov, or in Moscow.
Conclusion
At this point, our process of moving and arranging is considered complete. Plans for the next few years - to live and work in peace. In the next and last part I will talk about the household and work aspects of life in the Netherlands.
Part 3
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/454840/
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