(Again, check out here to catch up on the ongoings so far)As we now found ourselves with the issue of finishing up and submitting a "permanent residence" visa application to the immigration office within just a few days in order to secure the loan that we had filed for, things were a bit tense in the Salaryman household. Since neither of use had any experience in putting together such an application and the amount of documents are quite significant, it seemed like an almost impossible proposition for us to manage within just a few days, and to add to that, working days for me where I would had to spend most of the time toiling away in the office.
While my outlook was basically that of quite defeatism, Mrs. Sunshine had a burst of energy and located a lawyer working with things like this, relatively close to our previous apartment in Ikebukuro and as I came home after an exhausting day in the office, basically resigned to the fact that we would never get the application done and submitted and that we would have to give up the dream house we had seen the previous day, she had located a small one man law office.
(The conversation we had when I came home could've been taken from the movie Aliens, where I would play the part of Hudson and Sunshine that of Ripley:
Hudson: "That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?"
Ripley: "You better just start dealing with it, Hudson! Listen to me! Hudson, just deal with it, because we need you and I'm sick of your bullshit.")
So, as the phonecall was placed around 9PM and we explained the situation, to our surprise the lawyer said "Sure, we can do this, can you come over now immediately so I can start working, I'll be here all night?". As we headed out into the night with our documents towards the middle of the most sleazy area in Ikebukuro to have this midnight meeting with this lawyer, the real excitement started, but that's for the next post.
(Educational Piece: I think that most people put together their own applications for the "permanent residence" visa based on the instructions from the immigration office instead of paying an external person to handle this and assuming that time is available this is probably the best way to go. If you google around a bit I'm sure that you can find several homepages that give advice and instructions on how to do this)
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5 comments:
Is this the infamous Japanese bureaucracy at work? More paperwork is never enough?
While it was good the lawyer was working at such a late hour, surely that is not good for his long term health and well being? As long as he lasted till you had your application done I guess....
And his office is in the middle of the dodgy area? A good excuse to tell the wife!
Getting PR is quite easy.
There are some forms to gather up but once you know what they are and how to get them it is not that difficult. I think I had to get 2 docs from my company, and my wife picked up a few docs from city office etc and we were done.
How your lawyer did all that at the last minute is beyond me!
Aimless - It's not that bad actually, but there are some "qualitative" pieces where you have to explain why you are so great and why Japan would benefit so much from having you stay in the country. I thought it would be best to have pro do that since it would require more time and research to do at home
Jlpt - Yeah, don't think it's that a bit deal if you have a couple of weeks to do things and know that you fit the requirements
So you didn't feel that the Japanese bureaucracy would appreciate you your extolling your own virtues at length? So they won't accept amateur shoveling, but they accept professional shoveling?
We have been looking for a house/land in Suginami- we dropped the ball on one very good property but since then we have had one particular annoying problem. I am wondering if you experienced this.
We have our own great Realtor but we often find properties listed by other Realtors. When we try to reserve the property for purchase they give us the run around. Like tell us to show them how much money we have or one wanted a house plan for the lot- we contacted our architect and the property was gone within 2 days. My guess is they wanted a development company to buy the property and didn't want to deal with individuals. Its really pissing me off. Maybe its because we are going through another Realtor other than the property's original lister.
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