Sponsor for residence in The Netherlands?

Question

I plan to move with my boyfriend in October who lives in The Netherlands. He is from the EU (but not Dutch) and I'm not. I've heard rumours that the immigration service actually do surprise visits to your place in order to verify that you actually live together. Also that they may interview your friends to witness for your relationship. Does anybody know if this is true? has anybody gone through this procedure before?

Answer 1

Been through the procedure? Yes and no.

My husband is non-y EU but was living legally in Norway when he moved to NL.   This made things a lot simpler (being part of the EEA). We just filled in lots and lots of documents and obtained yet more documents (e.g. apostiles to wedding certificate etc). However we certainly did not have any personal visits from the IND and nor did they ask for any contacts details of friends.  This is the first time I heard of this to be honest

I have also foreign colleagues who moved to live with Dutch partners (husbands and partners) and although I never specifically asked,I am sure that this would have come up in conversation.

I know that in the last 3 years there has been an ongoing process of re-hauling and re-organisation within the IND with many tasks being centralised with the aim of speeding up what could be (and in some cases still is) lengthy immigration policies,but this would certainly not help to speed up such a process.

Therefore I would be very doubtful if this now happens (but of course can always be surprised!)

Answer 2

Well, they did want to verify that my relationship was for real, so we brought along a whole bunch of letters that we'd written to each other, and they took one look at the pile of colourful envelopes, stickers and cards, and just waved me along. Didn't have any problems.

The difficulty is if you're a woman and cannot prove that you NOT been married before. In theory you could be getting alimony from a previous relationship, and trying to say that the guy in the Netherlands is supporting you, and therefore suckering him and attempting to sucker the authorities as well. If you're from the UK, it's very difficult to prove this as there are no civil records! So you would have to go to the Embassy in The Hague and swear on a Bible that you are not receiving alimony or any financail support from previous partners. Honestly. I know two women who had to do this.

If you are from Ireland, and have lived in the same part of the Republic all your life, you could get your local parish priest to write a letter stating that according to church records you have never been married. The Dutch authorities accepted this from me.

I never heard of them arriving at the house to check up on you in this manner, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen if they were suspicious about why you are in the Netherlands in the first place. Too many drug dealers go there to do business, you see.  

Answer 3

I am currently going through the process with my boyfriend who is Dutch.  The IND has hinted at such things but I have yet to hear of any such visits or investigations.  What they told us is that they do not advise me leaving for any amount of time even to visit family since they might have further questions, information or documents that they might need from me.  At the same time we have been getting conflicting information on whether or not I can stay past the 3 month period allowed with my passport; we've had different people at the IND say yes and no and the Dutch and American consulates both saying I would have to return after 90 days if my paperwork has not yet been approved.

I have been doing as much research as possible, we are meeting with IND in only a few weeks, and what I've seen is that if you do not require an MVV there is no problem in leaving the Netherlands and returning where those that require an MVV seem to undergo much more scrutiny and restrictions.  You might want to do a little more investigation through the IND website regarding your specific situation.

http://www.ind.nl/nl/index.asp

I wish you luck since I know the process is extremely frustrating.  One thing I can advise is that since your boyfriend is already living in the Netherlands he can visit his local IND office with some of your paperwork and they do offer to go over the paperwork for free as an initial consultation to offer advice on what you would need and the likelihood of getting approved (they wanted a copy of all the pages in my passport as well as a document stating that I am not married and a copy of my birth certificate).  The office in Rotterdam did this for us several months ago and it has helped somewhat in letting us know what was lacking in the paperwork (namely an Apostille) so we could plan ahead and get everything in order.  I don't know that every office will offer this but it doesn't hurt to look into it.

Here are a few other sites you might look at for useful information:

http://www.expatica.com/nl/main.html

http://www.minbuza.nl/en/home

http://www.awcthehague.org/index.php

http://www.access-nl.org/

http://www.inburgeren.nl/inburgeraar/def...

http://www.expatportal.nl/

http://www.undutchables.nl/