Hi All,

Wow,now I know why there are such horror stories with people just trying to do the right thing.They always say " just contact your local consulate for more info"...yeah right.We have been trying to get a few answers for months and months.They always sound swamped and never return emails or calls.One young girl is handling all the visa requests and she has only worked there for 2 months.

We ran our butts off doing everything it said to do on the website ( and you won't believe all the catch 22's like it takes up to 5m to get the visa,but one has to have the criminal clearance in and its only good for 2months,must show insurance but the insurer can not give you insurance until a month before leaving and on and on).

This happened to be the Spanish consulate ( nice people,just over worked ,under staffed) but I have heard similar stories from people who have tried to get long term visa's from Italy and France.Sigh.

I think we will eventually get it ( and we want to try as we may decide to buy there some day,so might as well go for it now as it has to be done here and we probably won't be back here for some time) and we do have a back up plan or two,but it was a nice lesson on the joys of bureacracy.

Back to the drawing board on many things ( what we followed on the website ...as we were told to do...is no longer valid) and we have new things to gather,spend a small fortune on certified translated copies.We may have to do the criminal clearance things again ( 100 bucks a piece not to mention time hassle for 2 50 somethings with no criminal history whatsoever).We were up at 6 as it is 1 1/2hrs away & my 5yo was great sitting in a small office til 2;30 on top of that.Mostly we waited all day just to be seen.Bad parking area,so we fed a meter,but still ended up with a 40 buck ticket as we were too slow once.At least we had a nice lunch with a view of the golden gate bridge ,gorgeous day , cable car ride etc for my childs reward for sitting still so long

We recently ( last summer) sold a high end home & small vineyard ( so that we could retire early and take this trip) so have added considerable amount to our investments in quite "liquid" forms.( We plan to live off the interest and so far its working nicely).

Shockingly ,they could care less about how much money we have in banks,treasuries,etc etc ( we are going for a non lucrative resident visa for 6m that would allow us to apply for residencia after we are there).They love the idea of pensions and were excited by a very tiny pension that I will get when I am 65 ( strange as I usually forget about it because it is so insignificant so we never mentoned it until she kept asking for pensions).

They don't seem to understand someone handling thier own retirement funds or having lots of liquid assets at your fingertips.It seems now we need to show over 100,000 dollars "profits" every year from investments.I have read more than once that one only needs 100k period to retire in Spain ,but obviously the writers never dealt with the SF consulate.

Any words of wisdom,encouragement ,BTDT advice? We want to spend at least 2-2 1/2 years in Europe ( basing 5/6m a year winters in Spain)and might buy a primary or secondary home someday in Spain,so willing to try to go thru the hoops up to a point.Our second choice would be to follow friends lead who got 6m student visa last year to study spanish and brought wife and kids along ( they enrolled kids in public schools and were very happy).But we are still hoping plan A can work out.

WT, so sorry to hear that yesterday's consultate visit was so frustrating. You know I can identify with this!

My only thought at this point would be to try to get the easiest possible visa that would enable you to get a foot in the door for an initial extended stay (tourist visa or perhaps the student visa you mention). That will enable you to confirm that you really do want to pursue this dream in Spain, make the contacts you need, meet other expats who have successfully pursued this process, decide where you'd want to live etc. Then you could launch the more extended process.

Keep us posted on what happens.

Kathy

Thanks Kathy,
I know you understand! Actually thanks to your story and others, I was more prepared for the hassles,than my husband was.

This is actually suppose to be the easiest visa for us and I still think we can make it with this one,but we will go for the student one if this proves to be too hard.My husbands grandparents came from Spain so they suggested to try the relative route,but its too hard to trace ( they are long dead) and we have a friend who tried to go that route in Italy who had lots of documentation..and it proved too hard even at that.

We are going one way or another ,even if we just do it on passports and build a trip around the limitations of schegan ( ie long periods out of it).We already have our plane tickets and have committed to long term rental and van.

I may even give in an pay for help with one of those places that help with visas if needed ( another back up plan).

We do have contacts already in Spain ( tho most are EU citizens),tho I am sure it will be easier once we get there.We don't want to be flying back and forth tho,so will plug away at trying to do this before leaving.Luckily we will have a little more time as the flight is not until Sept.

I am already ( thats to yours and other BTDT stories)fully resigned to jump thru whatever hoops we need to.As I told my dh yesterday as he was getting frustrated,"when ever they say jump,we will just smile and gladly do it and say how high."We will give it our best shot and it will either work or it won't.

We built a house ( and remodeled the one before it) in the most difficult county in this country.They are famous for every person giving you a different "have to" endless requirements,so hopefully that strengthened us for this pursuit

Thanks for caring! Your long time stay is an inspiration....knowing it can be done,one way or another.

May the force be with you!

Aww,thanks Tom,we will need it Hubby worked on it again all day today and is off in the morning back to the city to get more Appostelles ( sp?).

Its a funny game,we have even had to go thru all kinds of shenanigans to just get corrections on our own documents ( dd's birth certicate and our marriage certificate had some major spelling errors in names!

We try to keep our sense of humour and eyes on the prize If we make it thru the gauntlet we will let you all know