Tag Archives: Swiss

Switzerland

Initial Facilitated Naturalization Application

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Last summer I received my packet of papers from the Bundesamt für Migration. All in German, the application check list went something like this:

  1. Application Form
  2. Marriage certificate, no less than six months old from the Heimatort
  3. Wohnsitzbestätigung (residency certificate) from the last five years in Switzerland, no older than 2-3 months.
  4. Residency Permit photocopies

The application form asked similar questions to our marriage application form. Things like parents’ names and dates of birth and checking a box to note that Kay had his citizenship from birth. If Kay had gained his citizenship through marriage, I would not be eligible for facilitated naturalization and would have to do it the harder way with regular naturalization.

There were also some forms in the application promising that I am not a criminal and some papers that Kay needed to sign stating that we have a valid, honest marriage.

October-November 2013:

From October to November I went about ordering the marriage certificate and the residency certificates from all four towns or cities that I have lived in during the last six years.

Neither Kay or I have ever been to his Heimatort, the town that takes you back and takes care of you when you are bankrupt, so it was a bit funny ordering something from them, but they had an easy online site to use to order the marriage certificate. Also… how weird is it that we’ve only been married for three years and I already need to order a fresh marriage certificate for this? It’s a little over the top.

The residency certificates were easier. They all came at about 30 a pop, whereas the marriage certificate was 35.

December 2013:

The Migrationsamt (Migration office) told me on the telephone and wrote me a confirmation email that it was OK to turn my application in 1-2 weeks before my five year residency was completed, so 1.5 weeks before the end of the year, I went to the post office and sent my bundle of love in the mail.

I was pretty excited.

IMG_4068The day before we left for our New Year holiday in Oman and Thailand, I received a letter from the Migrationsamt stating that they had received my application and that it would take at least 1-2 years to process, possibly more if they are very busy.

Kay was dismayed that they said it would take so long, but it was exactly what I expected. They had my application and just wanted to let me know that they will take as long as they want to process it, which you can’t do anything about. 🙂

The waiting had begun!

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Facilitated Swiss Naturalisation Part I

Switzerland

Facilitated Swiss Naturalisation Part I

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Facilitated naturalization, or erleichterte Einbürgerung, is most commonly sought by spouses of Swiss nationals. Children are also eligible for facilitated naturalization if their Swiss citizenship was not claimed at birth. There are lots of different rules if you are living abroad or if you are married or have a Swiss parent, so I am only going to talk about facilitated naturalization for married people living in Switzerland.

Basic requirements:

  • Lived in Switzerland for a total of five years, including the last twelve months
  • Three years married

You also need to demonstrate basic integration and prove that you don’t pose a risk to others. That means speak the local language and no criminals, please.

I originally came to Switzerland in 2007, but as I was only here for less than three months on a travel visa, I did not need to register with the local authorities, thus that time period does not count towards my five years. I “officially” moved to Switzerland with a permit on November 6, 2008… but my five years in the country was delayed because during the summer of 2009, I needed to remain outside of the country for 2.5 months while I waited for a new visa and permit to process.

Soo… with all that time traveling across the pond, my five years on paper would have been some time in December 2013. By then, Kay and I would have already been married for over three years and of course have spent the last twelve months here.

But I was a little worried because last July we were changing residences and sometimes changing towns can affect your naturalization requirements. With regular naturalization, people need to live in their town or village usually for at least 2-5 of the last years, so I made sure to check when we registered  our new address at our local Gemeindehaus.

Anything to do with bureaucracy (or should I say bureaucrazy) is wrought with confusion here. My local town’s contact person  told me that I would need to wait an entire year in my new town before applying. He told me to call him again in a year to make an appointment about our next steps. I was disheartened. That would delay my application by almost a year. It didn’t sound right either… I knew I would have to apply for facilitated naturalization directly at the federal level, so I was confused why this local man was telling me there were cantonal requirements about how long I had lived somewhere. It contradicted everything I’d read about facilitated naturalization online.

Seriously, when in doubt here, call someone else. I went to the federal level directly and the nice man from the Bundesamt für Migration told me the local guy was off his rocker and that I had it right. Five years in Switzerland, three years married, apply directly to the BfM. Do not pass go, do not collect 200, do not call the local guy again.

I asked the federal guy to send me the application form so I could prepare to send it in as soon as I had reached my accumulation of five years in Switzerland. Hoorah for not listening to bureaucrats!

Up next… I take on the application auf Deutsch.


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Swiss Features: Rolling blinds

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There are a few features in our new house that I feel are fairly Swiss or European compared to US homes, so I wanted highlight them as I have time to take some photos.

First up are our automatic rolling blinds.

I had these at the first house I moved into in Switzerland but I have not had them in every house or flat I’ve lived in. I consider them kind of luxurious. They are basically big blinds on the outside of your house so you don’t have to deal with all the muck and dust on blinds within your home… and they are a lot more sturdy and hard-wearing than traditional American blinds.

Some Swiss houses have manual rolling shutters that you have to crank by hand, but these ones have buttons for up, down and stop in the middle of the switch. They are sooo convenient and I kind of love them.

I honestly wish we had had the option to have them in the bedroom because it would be SO much darker with them. They are really great for blocking out light.

My only complaint with ours are that there are two sets of shutters in the living room and the switches are not together so if you want to open or close both of them, you need to walk the length of the hallway and switch each shutter individually, which can be slightly annoying if you are heading out of the flat and want to shut off everything from the door.

We also have two for each set of windows in the kitchen. If we had gotten a flat on the side of the complex we actually would have these shutters everywhere, but we strangely landed on the side of the building with green plantation shutters on the bedroom side of the units. More on how those work later!

How do you shut out light in your house? Do you have different treatments for different rooms?

Health

Spinning

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Today I woke up early enough to catch the 6:30 train and get to the gym on time for the start of spinning class at 6:45am. I told Kay I was feeling pretty nervous because it was my first class and it would be all in Swiss German.

It definitely was kind of terrifying at times, because anything new in a foreign language always freaks me out a bit, no matter how long I’ve been here. And indeed half the time I was either too tired to really understand what the teacher was saying or I didn’t really get what his Swiss German meant exactly… but he was very nice and showed me how to set up my bike and gave me some tips during class to try and make sure I wasn’t making any incorrect movements.

I almost thought I wouldn’t make it at times and wondered in some moments if each “Nochmal uefe!” (Up again!) was some variation of never-ending hell, but I persevered. I sweated like I haven’t sweat in months and I made my muscles nice and sore.

Kay was proud I made it through the whole spinning class when I texted him later and that I even have the willpower to get myself to the gym that early in the morning. And I have to say, there is something really satisfying about going to work at 8:45am and knowing that I am the only one in the office who has worked out for an hour already that day. Huzzah!

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Tricky Swiss Realty Ads

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As an expat in Switzerland, navigating the realty here can be intimidating in the beginning. It is easy to feel confused when searching through listings in German.

After living here for several years and searching for both rentals and houses for sale, I have noticed a couple points about the listing titles. Here are a few rough translations to explain.

This means that the apartment is really pretty small, but supposedly “nice”. Often you can find nice little luxury apartments or well kept spaces, but in general “Klein aber fein” means overpriced for how small it is.

I would definitely use this term to describe our $3000 a month one bedroom. It was beautiful and well-equipped and the view and luxury are worth it to some, but in our case I was ready to move on.

This generally means the house is in poor or terrible condition, but you can renovate it if you have the stomach for Swiss labor costs.

They are not always awful and sometimes you can find a great deal on a nice forever house, but most of the time they are so outdated or in bad repair that you wonder how people live in them.

Once I saw a house with a bathroom (bathtub and toilet) in the kitchen – a throwback to the olden days when the kitchen was the only room in the house with water pipes. But I don’t need a toilet in my food prep space, thank you.

Kay didn’t want to look at anything with Ausbaupotential because we were not planning on getting involved with any renovation projects at the moment. Or maybe ever. I don’t see Kay ever being that keen on self renovation or an old house.

This basically means that the place is overpriced and probably not affordable for you. Unless you happen to earn over a million a year or have several millions saved up in your account for the deposit, just look away.

Don’t spend too much time ogling luxury villas like I do.

Unlike “Toplage” listings, it’s usually a good thing when a listing is right on top of a public transportation stop. You will pay more money to be next to a train station. Prices go down if you are only next to a tram, even less for buses and if the listing requires a car to get to and from work, it had better be darn well cheap!

Those are just a few of the common listing terms I saw when I was searching to buy our home. If you are looking up rentals you need to watch out for three important things:

  1. “möblierte” apartments are furnished. Watch out if you are not looking for a furnished flat. There are plenty of them around.
  2. “WG” which stands for “Wohngemeinschaft” and means a shared flat. If you found a great price (1200CHF) on a four bedroom in downtown Zürich, it probably means that is the price for one of the rooms, not the whole flat.
  3. “Befristet” apartments. Chances are that flat is a great price because it is either being subleased for a limited period or it is due for a renovation. Either way, the leases on temporary apartments are usually 1-11 months. That can be good if you are looking for a temporary solution, but don’t fall in love and move into a flat that you’ll have to move out of in a couple months.

Do you notice any common listing terms on the realty around you?