(English and teaching in Poland) Help needed urgently re a VISA

Hi,

Apologies but I am bricking it tonight.

I am English and teaching in Poland - no issues there (i love this country thus far). My fiance is American and also teachs(at a different school), to be blunt they are a complete bunch of *******. After weeks of arguments over her contract (as in getting one), then her work permit well...ok..here is where we have been idiots (being EU this is new to me but that is no excuse)

They eventualy gave her a contract and eventually gave her a work permit, but told her that a visa was "expensive" so she would need to leave the country every 90 days. OK..i should have said there and then...WTF???? but instead as she liked travelling was just like "OK".

Now i have researched it this 90 days is to do with the OLD schengan deal, where people would bugger off to ukraine or somewhere then come back and the 90 days would start again. Obviously that is now BS as its 90 days within a 180 day period. And we're bricking it she'll be deported despite not knowlingly doing anything wrong.

WTF do we do????

We have considered marriage...we are engaged but we planned to get married next year. It would **** off our family but is that the only option??

Seriously scared she'll be booted out ..just dont know what to do?

PS apologies for the language and spelling (bad call considering I am a teacher!) just panicking and typing quickly!

Maybe this is a naive advice: you are a British citizen, so dealing with the immigration bureaucracy in Britain will be probably easier for you. If possible, marry her, get all the British paperwork for her, so she can come to Poland as a Briton, without worrying about visas, work permits etc.

Cheers

but we are in Poland now. Love her to bits so could marry here, if thats possible.

Just worried they'll boot her out before we can do that

First question : when did she get the last entry stamp into a Schengen country?

Ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law - the Schengen 90/180 law is widely published and every border crossing will be able to tell you about it.


It's not an option in Poland, as you need to be legally resident.


Let me know when her *last* entry stamp is from. Then I can advise you accordingly.

Actually, the spouse of an EU citizen still requires a residence permit, just not a work permit.

Thanks for your help.

She basically has no entry stamp at all. We were teaching in Slovakia last term (which she had a visa for). And then got a train here to Poland (via Czech) where no one checked her passport. So, she has her Visa and expiry in her passport and a train ticket (from nearly 3 months ago) detailing the trip here. Her work permit is something like 2 months old, our tenancy agreement is 2 1/3 months old and she eventualy got a contract which is about 2 months old as well. So, it looks like, from documents that we could have got here three months ago as of the 1st Jan, although in reality it was 3 months ago on Friday exactly.

I think i need a lawyer :( Which on a teachers wage isnt exactly ideal but have to do whatever i can

Has her visa lapsed already? If yes - she HAS TO leave, you can't get married in Poland if she is not there legally.

If her visa hasn't lapsed yet - get a legal advice FAST. She may need to change the status of her visa to include intent to marry you, although you can get married and then apply for a new visa.

If her visa lapsed, don't risk - go back to UK with her and sort it out there - if you are British it will be much easier there.

When you say "visa", what exactly are you talking about and when did it expire?

quickest advice is to go to norway or switzerland for a week end then return without panic and go to the "oh so lovely" Polish visa office and see if you can get her a work permit.

Very possibly the worst thing that can be done. If she has already over-stayed, she might well not be let back in (or even let out). Plus leaving for two days has zero legal effect these days.

but she has no stamp so they have no idea when she has entered.

She might not have one for Poland, but she'll certainly have one for the Schengen zone (and the date that her visa for Slovakia expired will be the key date).

When her visa expired, she automatically got granted the 90 day tourist visa in the Schengen zone. So - now we know that it was nearly 3 months ago - can you confirm exactly when her visa expired? She absolutely must be under 90 days.

The relevant date is 90 days after her visa expired. Doesn't matter about the rest of the documents, the only date that matters is the date in the passport.

If - and this is a big if - she's under 90 days, then she needs to go and apply for a residence permit NOW. Not tomorrow, not next week - now. The Foreigners office can issue an extension to the tourist visa if the paperwork is being processed.


If she's under 90 days, apply for the residence permit.

If she's over 90 days, you're out of luck. No lawyer can help you, unless you pay a huge amount of cash to someone who is well connected enough to help.


Won't work - Norway and Switzerland are both in Schengen. Going to a non-Schengen country for a few days can buy some extra time, however - but only if she's under 90 days.


Well, it will give her 2 extra days in Schengen ;)

With a bit of luck, the visa for Slovakia was issued for a year and it takes them as long to process as Poland, meaning that her Slovak visa only expired a couple of weeks ago.


Absolutely bang on there!


Has Poland now fixed the 'new passport, clean passport' loophole yet? If they haven't, it might be worth going to UK, throwing the US passport into a washer/drier for series of 60 degree washes followed by tumble drying and then heading to the embassy for a new one.