Joined
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6 Posts
Hey all,
well, after a lovely year of adventures in/around Lyon, my husband and I, for a brief and crazy moment, thought it might be fun to stick around for a bit longer. Having sunk a few weeks into an unsuccessful effort at renewing our carte de sejour, we're a bit better informed and will be heading home in december
.
Here's what we did and what we found, in the interests of saving others the time and expense we've just wasted:
1. Beware the "consultant" - your best source is the prefecture itself. We would never have used a consultant, but this person was recommended by an american friend who had just received his competences et talents visa with her help. She probably gave us great advice on the subjective elements of our autoentrepreneur applications, but we'll never know, as she told us that the basics of the application paperwork, like all the certificates and proofs of address that we used for our original visa and carte de sejour applications, wouldn't be all that important. So we didn't bother getting our certs translated, or having our landlady issue an attestation d'hebergement (vs a signed lease), and so our applications weren't accepted by the prefecture. In retrospect, it's obvious that we should simply have followed the requirements exactly as listed by the prefecture, but having an "expert" tell us these were the kinds of rules that regularly get bent (and having seen them bend in the past) really tripped us up.
2. At least for the Rhone prefecture in Lyon, if you want to be done before midday, you'll need to be in the queue by about 6am. We joined the queue a bit after 7, and drew ticket numbers 130 and 131. We finally made it to a counter by 2pm. Staff go to lunch at 12, and at 1 they start processing other kinds of applications, so if you're not done by 12 you can expect a much longer wait.
anyway, I'm sure most of this is tucked away in other posts on the forum, but I figured I'd share the pain so other might avoid it.
bon courage,
H
well, after a lovely year of adventures in/around Lyon, my husband and I, for a brief and crazy moment, thought it might be fun to stick around for a bit longer. Having sunk a few weeks into an unsuccessful effort at renewing our carte de sejour, we're a bit better informed and will be heading home in december
.Here's what we did and what we found, in the interests of saving others the time and expense we've just wasted:
1. Beware the "consultant" - your best source is the prefecture itself. We would never have used a consultant, but this person was recommended by an american friend who had just received his competences et talents visa with her help. She probably gave us great advice on the subjective elements of our autoentrepreneur applications, but we'll never know, as she told us that the basics of the application paperwork, like all the certificates and proofs of address that we used for our original visa and carte de sejour applications, wouldn't be all that important. So we didn't bother getting our certs translated, or having our landlady issue an attestation d'hebergement (vs a signed lease), and so our applications weren't accepted by the prefecture. In retrospect, it's obvious that we should simply have followed the requirements exactly as listed by the prefecture, but having an "expert" tell us these were the kinds of rules that regularly get bent (and having seen them bend in the past) really tripped us up.
2. At least for the Rhone prefecture in Lyon, if you want to be done before midday, you'll need to be in the queue by about 6am. We joined the queue a bit after 7, and drew ticket numbers 130 and 131. We finally made it to a counter by 2pm. Staff go to lunch at 12, and at 1 they start processing other kinds of applications, so if you're not done by 12 you can expect a much longer wait.
anyway, I'm sure most of this is tucked away in other posts on the forum, but I figured I'd share the pain so other might avoid it
.bon courage,
H
