Belgium Embassy refusal to accept application correctly??

[simonpod]

I have had rather an unfortunate experience with the Royal Belgium Embassy in Bangkok on Tuesday 15 th October 2013 and would be grateful for any advice on what to do next.

Here is the sorry tale.

Tried to lodge an application following the right to free movement within EEA (EU 2004/38) etc.. this Tuesday and the embassy basically refused to acknowledge the application.

Although they have retained the application along with my wife's passport they refused to lodge the application on the day and gave no receipt for the application, documents or passport.

So what can I do??

Here follows the circumstances,

Myself: Uk born citerzen, my wife is Thai national.

I have been working and living in belgium since 2011 and holder of a belgium 'E' I/D card.

I met my wife 1 year ago and made the decision in February of this year to give up life and work in belgium and join her for a trial live together before we decided to commit to anything stronger.

At the time she had been working outside of Thailand but had already made the decision to return to Thailand for work within a company in Bangkok.

We decided to wait for 2 more months until she was settled back in Thailand with an apartment etc........

So in April this year after all was settled and I made the move.

I gave notice to my employer to resign but they offered a period of unpaid leave for a long duration which i decided to accept instead of full resignation.

I joined my then girlfriend as of April this year. Things have gone wonderful for us here and after months of being here we decided upon legalizing our commitment to one another in the form of legalized marriage here in Bangkok.

At the same time my previous employer within Belgium sent a notification to me stating that mainly due to lack of communication from myself that they would no longer be willing to keep the position open on the status of unpaid leave and wish to ended the contract mutually unless I advised otherwise.

So we needed to decide if we wished to keep this window open of employment within belgium or close the door completely.

After much discussion we decided that we would give life ago in Belgium.

One of the main consideration was the job that she took here was not turning out to be the position she quite hoped for, so was was happy to try something else and this seemed a viable option to try Belgium as I already have employment.

Because of the time frame now involeved as i had already agreed to return to work by the end of october we looked at the various options of visas available.

Much reading later....... We found that we are eligible to apply under EU 2004/38.

I being EEA national she being NON (3rd party country) and i already have ID card and employment for Belgium.

Over the last weeks we have been gaining all the necessary documents to not only submit the application but also documents that she may need in the future in Belgium.

We have all the boxes ticked and I mean all we have invested a great deal in to this and spent a lot of money doing so.

We sent a letter to the Belgium embassy (Bangkok) in September informing them that we wished to exercise my rights under EU 2004/38 and asked for their own procedures on how to do so.

We received a reply from the embassy with 2 links to there website and stating we did not need an appointment we could just come to embassy to submit the application.

This Tuesday we were ready, so we arrived at the embassy.

First step, the exspected problem at the front desk as we did not have the appointment.
However showed the email we were sent from the embassy and were allowed in.

Eventually we were called to the counter to submit the application.

Again we had problem with this mainly due to the fact the embassy staff member has no experience in such an application. After a little discussion with a lady she did the correct thing and referred us to the guy who sent us the email informing us that we could submit without appointment.

I was the told to go away to the waiting area as he he wished to speak to my wife alone. ok fair enough I thought.

Within 5 mins she returned not very happy so I asked what happened? She said he asked about her passport her previous visas in her passport and her study ones abroad. Then apparently he told that he needed to contact Brussels with all this as he did not know???

Ok I thought no problem thats their system. I asked if she had a receipt for her application and she said no he would not give and not accept the application until he has spoken to Brussels???

Im not happy that they have all our information and her passport and we have no receipt for anything.

At the same time she was supposed to get her birth certificate, our marriage certificate and police report certified by the embassy as well for further use if necessary when we arrive in Belgium.
But with the response over the application she forgot to do this.

We returned together to the font desk and asked if we can just submit these documents there instead. The guy said we could but he needed her passport which was now with the other guy.

So we were told to go back to counter 5 and submit there instead.

When we got there she asked about the documents to which the original guy who spoke to her about our application came over and asked me to join him in the next cubical to which I followed.

There he had a copy of my print out from the Belgium public system from my ID card.

As the ID card is registered to an address he asked if I was living at that address? To which I replied no which is the truth I'm currently temporally residing here.

The registered address also has the name of a women to who I shared the apartment with.

This is something I completely forgot about and my address.

I have since found out through research that I not followed the ID card procedure correctly and I should have advised the local office in belgium that i was leaving. I assumed at the time as there was a possibility of me returning to Belgium that I could just keep this open and either change upon my return or cancel if I decide not to return ever.

This is my error for not checking properly.

However this guy now accuse me of basically bigamy marrying a Thai national while living with a Belgium women.

For info I had no current relationship with this woman and we both occupied the same apartment for connivence of life in general. (flat mates).

My wife is aware of this situation and this women is all so aware that I am married to someone else.

But this guy gives me no chance to say anything just shouting that he cant issue me a visa while I'm living with someone else and he will have to contact Brussels and this would take weeks maybe 3 to 4 weeks just to get an answer on this.

With that the guy was gone and I was left standing wondering what I can do.

I returned to the other cubicle where my wife was just as she was paying around 4400 thai baht to get her documents stamped.

They have now taken everything from us we only have a receipt for her documents that she has already paid for and nothing for her application.

We are not even sure that our application is being processed?

They have her passport and everything..........

What can we do?

[dalebutt]

Rather too long, it is better when requesting people's opinion on matters to keep it brief and concise as much possible.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

Complain. Point out directive 2004/38/ec to them. Point out that it is possible to share a flat with someone with whom you are not in a relationship.

[lake1]

Rather too long, it is better when requesting people's opinion on matters to keep it brief and concise as much possible.

Help if you can, if not then move on and make no comment.

Not everything can be summarized, sometimes someone need to show the whole picture to get the correct advice.

[lake1]

I have had rather an unfortunate experience with the Royal Belgium Embassy in Bangkok on Tuesday 15 th October 2013 and would be grateful for any advice on what to do next.


We are not even sure that our application is being processed?

They have her passport and everything..........

What can we do?

The embassy is wrong and am sure they will end up issuing the permit but might only take long which might be of inconvenience to you.

I suggest you make a complain because they seems to have a preconceive idea about you, they shouldnt accuse you of bigamy with no prove and am sure they know people share flats, even if the woman was your girlfriend that makes no difference in this case as you were not married to her.

All the best.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

Rather too long, it is better when requesting people's opinion on matters to keep it brief and concise as much possible.

Help if you can, if not then move on and make no comment.

Not everything can be summarized, sometimes someone need to show the whole picture to get the correct advice.

I would tend to agree with the contributor's view. The post could do with some editing. A short post to the point is more likely to solicit a response than a longer one.