REVEALED: OUR LONG STAY VISA APPOINTMENT EXPERIENCE!
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- Опубликовано: 2 мар 2024
- WELL! The day finally arrived! Jeff and I went to the Miami office of VFS for our "in-person" Long Stay Visa Interview appointment. Two people couldn't have been more excited for the day to arrive. Come with us as we share our entire experience.
#FRANCELONGSTAYVISA #FRANCELONGSTAYVISAAPPOINTMENT #MOVINGTOFRANCE #EXPATS
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Hi! I'm An Scott. I'm a happily retired 70 year old woman with my “golden years” on the horizon, living the “good life”, whatever that is on any given day, with my fun husband Jeff, and our “bossy” little Yorkie, Bella.
In just a few weeks, in early April, 2024, we are moving from SW Florida, in the good old USA to Nice, France to live out our “golden years” on the sunny Mediterranean coast of southern France, in Nice France.
Moving from the USA to a foreign country is no small “project”. Through my videos, we’ll be taking you through the process, sharing the steps, talking about what we’ve learned and the ups and the downs.
SUBSCRIBE, FOR FREE, to my channel and as we progress through the steps of doing that, you’ll be able to follow along through each stage of our preparation and then catch up with us, as we settle in to our new life. We might even have some information you’re going to need if you’re also planning a move to France (or the EU)
For now, come with us as we embrace our days and nights living everyday as though there is no tomorrow.
MUSIC CREDITS:
ES_Ready to Go by Celesy
ES_Call It A Day by Tommy Ljungberg
Most of my videos are shot with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Note Ultra Smartphone and a circular ring light, as needed.
The beginning of many things that will not make sense!
Congrats!
Lol!
This is so exciting! I have to admit I cried a little out of pure joy for you both. ❤
Me too! 😅
Sounds like good preparation for the bureaucracy that is France.
Great pointers! As I’ll be going to the same office, I’ll be sure to apply them.😊
So I gather you may be Nice now! I’m probably going to do the same before bringing my cats over.
So envious!
This has been so exciting to walk with you through all of the steps in the process. Thanks for sharing so much detailed information about each step and sharing your journey with us! Well Done An and Jeff! Congratulations on moving forward with the next step of your Nice, France Adventure!
Thank you! 😊
Thank you both for sharing! I am learning much. We will begin the process in July. Thank you!!
You're welcome 😊
Congratulations! We are so happy the final piece of the puzzle is in place for you both. It’s an exciting time for sure & we really appreciate all you’ve shared with us. Looking forward to hearing about your trip to Nice. Hope the new apartment is even better than you’ve dreamed. Understand the likely need for a break from new videos & we’ll look forward to your next one whenever it arrives. Have so much fun!
Thank you so much!!
I'm happy for you both. I don't have any fingerprints due to eczema which has caused problems for me. Security checks take longer and once a system needed to use my eyes instead. Standing on tiptoe, not moving and staring into a scanner at an airport kiosk isn't easy.
Interesting
You both are fun 😂 I wait for you in France
Congratulations!! We went to the Miami office as well - we were early and ended up sitting on the planters too! And it was a low stress experience in the end except for my fingerprints - they tried about 4 times and at least half my fingers had no discernible prints (I am retired and in my job did a lot of note taking and typing). I was so afraid this would mess up my application but happily it did not. We have been in the Dordogne countryside now for 2 years and are very happy here. Bonne chance!
Congratulations on making it to France 🇫🇷 Wishing you all the best
Félicitations ! We are happy for you! Good luck with packing.😊 I hope your dog has already got her travel documents as well.
Thank you. And no, the dog has to go to the Vet no more than 10 days before her little paws touch French soil. The Vet completes a form and overnights it to the USDA for a signature. They overnight it back. That's all we need. So we still have a few weeks before we see the Vet to start the process
This is great. So glad to hear.
Outstanding news.
Great tips and enjoyable video. 👍❤️ Thank you for sharing. 🙏👌
You're welcome!
There appears to be a lot of logistics in planning a move to France particularly the plane reservations, which can't be made until you've received your Visa, and moving out of your rented apartment. By the time I'm ready to break free from the USA I should have all this figured out. I wish you a very happy retirement in clearly one of the most beautiful cities in France. Avoir un bon voyage and Bienvenue en France🗼
We made our flight reservations around 4-6 months before we even applied for our Visas. You need to do this to provide your expected date of arrival in France, when your Visa will begin. So while we didn't have to provide a copy of our airline tickets, we needed to give them our date of arrival in France. Some people may have to provide a copy of their airline tickets at their in-person interview, to get their Visa. So shop for your tickets as soon as you have a date when you want to arrive in France. You'll need that dat for the application
Congratulations 🎉🍾
To the start of exciting beginning 🥳
Yes! Thank you!
Hi An & Jeff! So much fun with Jeff now retired as well!! Congratulations on getting your LSV!!! Yeah!! Excellent video you guys! We are going to be applying at the same office in Miami and you made such an excellent video for us. I loved that you showed us the outside of the building, the VFS office door and hallway and gave us so many details about how the process went. Jeff's sketch of the inside of the VFS office was great. I am so anxious about the list of documents that are required for the visa application. I can't seem to find it anywhere: the VFS site nor the French government site. Would you be so kind and show us the paper that tells you in what order the documents need to be presented to the VFS office? That way we can see what documents are required. Thank you so much!
When you make your application online and the appointment for the in-person appointment, they send a confirmation to you with the list of documents they specifically want YOU to bring. So check your confirmation from France after you make the application and it will be right there for you. 😊
Thank you An so much. You are always so kind in taking the time to answer our inquiries. Many blessings to you both!@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears
Thank you 😊
The same thing happened to me about the fingerprints, but they gave me some lotion to put on my hands, and then they showed up
Lol. Well they let me in with just 8 fingerprints. 😉
By the way, give me a call when you have a chance. I can’t wait to talk to you while you’re in my country lol did you catch the my lol
@JaniceInFrance will try before we leave this time. So much to do!Feel like we're caught in a whirlwind at the moment.
Hi An and Jeff, thank you so very much for sharing your long stay visa experience with so many of us! I totally get you wanting to get there early and an appt. as important as this is one has to make concessions (anything could happen and does). Needless to say, you were thorough in your prep work and it's better to amply prepared than not! So, guys fingers crossed and many blessings as you embark on this wonderful journey together in Nice and more of France.
Thank you! 😊
Congratulations! Thank you for detailed report. I'm just curios about how you were able to schedule appointments for both of your at the same time.
When I made the appointment online it asked if there was anyone else I wanted to make an appointment for. So I said my husband and provided his info. It added him to my appointment. If you go back and find my past video on how to apply for your long stay visa , I discuss this. (Sorry, we are traveling and I can't easy give you the link to that video at the moment) but look at that video for the details on making the appointment
Hey Kids- question? Did you have to present that letter of intent/introduction? Loved your video
We had to present a letter of motivation to our landlord. See my last previous video on that. But no letter was required for the Visa.
Congrats you two! You may have already covered this but I have to ask…how did you handle your money situation? Did you close accounts in the U.S. before leaving? Were you able to establish a checking account in France? How about credit cards? Just discovered your channel and love it. Will have to go back to the beginning to catch up. Can’t wait to hear more about your new adventure. Thank you so much!
First, we're not "totally" in France just yet. We have rented an apartment, applied for and received our long stay visas, opened a bank account (took months and we started in the US, with BNP Paribus- couldn't be finalized till we met with them in person in France). We still have our US credit cards, because we're still here in FL. We plan to get a US address, probably to use as a billing address, however, our statements are paperless. We haven't closed any US bank accounts. At this point, we're still trying to purge and pack at our home to be able to be out of the house by the end of the month. So for now, once we move, we'll change our bank account addresses to either our France address or the "US address". In one of my prior videos, we talk about getting our French bank account. I think it might be this one -- ruclips.net/video/41e3zC5-nQQ/видео.html Be sure to subscribe to the channel, and click the bell for notifications (near the subscribe button) so you don't miss our future videos. I plan, if time allows, to do a little catch up video, that should be published Sunday morning. Thanks for your note! 😊
Looking forward to it. I’m hoping to schedule mine in mid-July. Any news yet or do I need to wait? 😅
We'll share the status at the end of the video. 😊 But you already know. 😉
Congratulations! Very detailed )and humorous) report of your experience. You mentioned that the VTS representative said she didn’t need certain banking documents. Can you elaborate in which financial documents he/she wanted? Was your SS benefit letter enough?
@artbrutnewyork I had statements from 4 bank accounts and 1 investment account. She only pulled out 1 of my bank account statements and kept everything else. You definitely need to show you have sufficient funds to support yourself for the length of the Visa. She may have pulled the one statement out because the other 3 showed more than sufficient income. And yes, we did need to have our Social Security statements and we attached a note stating we were stopping the part B Medicare deductions so our monthly net will be higher than shown on the statement.
@@postcardsfromourgoldenyears I'm just guessing: is it OK to show the joint saving account?
@constantineakoev4440 yes, we have joint bank accounts. Just remember EACH person must have copies of the 3 months of statements for each joint account. You apply individually.
Congrats! My wife and I will be following you in October. Was there any problem with securing a 12 month lease in Nice?
Best of luck!!
The primary issue is that there is a huge shortage of rentals, period AND because rental laws favor tenants, the landlords are very picky. You must have a guarantor (or use garantme) to be selected by the landlord to rent their place and you need to have a good dossier. We were working with Adrian Leed's company and the representative we were dealing with, Kathy, met with us via zoom, knew exactly what we were looking for, gave us a few rentals she found online to comment on so she could fine tune a search for us. Within days she found us a couple of possibilities, did walk-thru's with us by video call, and we signed the lease about a week later. We jumped on the first apartment we saw knowing it was the perfect size and location for us and we knew that if we said "hmm, show me more", by the time we'd see more that first one would be gone. Rentals are being grabbed as fast as they come on the market. I know that a lot of people who choose not to spend the money and work with Adrian Leed's company, spend a lot of time making calls, doing follow up, chasing down leads and complain they've been in France for months and still can't find an apartment to rent. I don't get any money for saying this, but it pays to use a company like Adrian's because she's an expat too, knows the process, knows how people from the US think compared to the French and is an expert at finding homes to rent or buy for expats, specifically. You won't get that by knocking at the French realtor's doors and having to do a lot of work on your own. For us, it was very easy, money well spent---plus, I believe that Adrian has so many contacts in Nice and Paris that they learn about rentals that are coming on the market, before they are even advertised. So for us, to answer your question, no, no problem getting our 12 month lease.
Thank you so much for the reply. We have a 3 month rental with a guarantee from the landlord that we can stay there or move to another of their apartments for the remaining 9 months. Fingers crossed!
🤞
@@randyglover3638 That's great!
Again, valuable information regarding the VISA appointment process. Just an added comment regarding your FL driver's license and needing to surrender it for a France DL. In your reply to my previous comment, you mentioned that a French translation was not required since you would not be applying for a DL in France. Is surrendering a US DL required, and is the FR DL just for the purpose of identification? Thank you!
We WILL be exchanging our Florida Driver's licenses for French licenses. I believe during that process we will need certain documents translated. I have to go back to my own past video on this topic to refresh my memory on which documents will need to be translated. Check back to my video on transferring your US drivers license. We are traveling at the moment so I don't have easy access to look for it and give it to you.
I've read on another site that now France is requiring an international driver's license to rent a car. I don't know if this is true or not, but you can get on through AAA.
We have not experienced that but we have no immediate plans to rent a car at this point. We have never had a problem using our US Florida driver's license.
Greetings- did you have to show proof of a round trip ticket ( for your long stay visa)?
They did not ask US for this. When you do your online application and schedule your in-person interview, they will send you a list of the documents they want YOU to bring. Your list may differ from ours. So watch for the confirmation of your application for your list..