Obtain a resident visa after owning the house 5 years?

Hello alee246,

Welcome to Expat.com

Please take note that I have initiated a new thread on the Bulgaria forum with your original post. This is intended to facilitate the process of gathering the information.

Cheers,

Cheryl

Expat.com team

Andy, great plan and it should be workable, but maybe a little more complicated than you hope!

Unfortunately unless you buy a very expensive house, owning a property in Bulgaria isn't enough to get residency. Non-EU citizens can spend 90 days there per 180 visa free, but more than that requires a D visa, which is the first step in getting permanent residency.

If you intend to retire there and will be receiving a pension that pays more than the Bulgarian minimum wage (currently 933 leva a month, but I think it will rise again later in the year), you can get a retirement D visa. It's not dependent of being "official" retirement age or getting the state pension, a private or workplace pension meets the requirements, too.

There are other options if you won't have a pension at the time you hope to move, but this is one of the easiest options.

Just to add to the previous comment- you need to hire agency to check on your property  preriodically  so it is not vandalized. Consider also security system. This way you will have peace of mind.

@janemulberry

Hi Jane, can you tell me if the ACRO (criminal record certificate) needs to be apostilled for the D-Visa application?

Thanks

@janecrrphilae

Yes, it needs to be apostilled.

    @janemulberryHi Jane, can you tell me if the ACRO (criminal record certificate) needs to be apostilled for the D-Visa application?Thanks        -@janecrrphilae

If you live in Turkey, an ACRO certificate from the UK won't help - you need one from your country of residence..

Thanks for your reply Jim. Having been here for just four years on temporary residence status (ie not citizenship) do you think this is still the case?  If so, do you have any idea of where we would need to go to get this done in Turkey?

I think you might find you need one for each country of residence in the past five years, but I could be wrong.

Google says you should be able to apply for the certificate through e-devlet ot by applying At your local General Prosecutors Office.

Ok, many thanks for your help. As UK citizens who have lived in Turkey for four years, do you have any idea if we would be able to come to Bulgaria from Turkey without applying for the initial visa (90 day period)?

As far as I know, all non-EU citizens or those without EU permanent residency papers have to follow the same process. So unfortunately that would apply for Turkey, as well.  Checking with the Bulgarian Embassy in Istanbul would be best, as that's where you'll need to apply.

@janecrrphilae just checking, do you mean to live or just for a visit? You don't need a visa for visits under 90 days.

    Ok, many thanks for your help. As UK citizens who have lived in Turkey for four years, do you have any idea if we would be able to come to Bulgaria from Turkey without applying for the initial visa (90 day period)?
   

    -@janecrrphilae

If you hold a British passport, it doesn't matter if you lived in Turkey for 4 years. Without a visa, you can stay up to 90 days.

Oh, sorry , I misunderstood the question. You can come to Bulgaria for up to 90 days per 180 without a visa. But then if you decide to stay, you can't apply for a long stay visa unless you are in your country of residence, so you'd need to return to Turkey for that.

@PlovdivEd

Thank you. Yes, we would just be visiting intially, and once over there we would set in motion the plans to apply for the type D-visa to stay for longer.

@janemulberry

Wow, that seems a strange way of going about things, doesn't it? Thanks, I had no idea about that.

@janecrrphilae

Not at all "strange" - it's the same with most countries...

What Jim said.

Apart from very specific cases like refugees or for some countries short stay tourist visas, almost all countries require you to be outside of the country and generally in your country of residence to apply for an initial long stay visa.

Once you have that most places will make it possible to reapply in-country.

Oh, ok. We were just getting confused, thinking we would apply from there. We didn't have to do anything like that when we moved to Turkey.

Can anyone recommend a lawyer who is fair-priced to help out with the D-type process?

I can give you details of the lawyer I use for various cases - he's a young* go-getter who speaks good English and doesn't soak foreigners...  PM me if you'd like his contact details...

*Mind you, pretty much everyone's young compared to me...