British, moving to Mauritius

Hi David,
You will make friends quite easily - Mauritius is a friendly Island
I think you will make your social circle up when you move into your home, as your main circle of friends will live in that area.

Also there are many clubs/hobby groups and you will meet people there.

Just be yourself and smile!

hello! my husband is British and we move in here year ago, we live in Tamarin. If you need any advice we are happy to help, Mauritius its a beautiful place to live but it can be difficult sometimes:)

Thanks for your replies Emilia and Rosie.

I forgot to say that we'll be staying (and when we move), living around Rose Hill.

I apprecaite the offer of advice Emilia. By the way, we have some Polish friends in the UK.

David if you need advise on sorting our residency give me a shout - I got mine last year and it was pretty much straightforward after the initial conflicting advise on documentation (Morality certificiate and which documents had to be apostilled)
Cheers
Daisymay

Hi Daisymay,

I think that I'll take up your offer of advice on the residency, as can't be too careful on something so important!

I've got everything on the list for the application permit for a male spouse of a Mauritian, as per the Government website list

Hopefully this should be okay, but we did notice that the document that the UK Government issues in response to 'Certificates of Morality' requests is instead called a "Subject Access Request", and was issued from 'The Criminal Records Office'. Was the document called the same when you applied, and was it accepted okay without issues about the name?

Also, how long did the process take?

Thanks,

David.

Hi David,
I submitted my documents March 19th 2012 and got my residency May 18th so it was pretty quick.
They recently changed the name from Certificate of Morality and I got mine from the ACPO Crminal Records Office - issued by my local constabulary which is Derbyshire.
It was accepted with no problem.
Its all quite straightforward, but looked daunting to me at the beginning as no one could tell me what or where to get the Morality Certificate from - my local police force gave me the best advise!
They just issued a letter under the Data Protection Act 1998  disclosing any information held about you on the Police National Computer - I think it cost something like £11 - cant recall now exactly and they were very quick.
Good luck!
Daisymay

Thanks Daisymay,

Those are the documents that we've got for me (courtesy of Norfolk Constabulary), so should be fine.

Cheers,

David.

Hi David!
Then you are all set and I can see no problems with your residency permit (well worth it believe me!)
Good luck and let us know how you get on please?
Cheers
Daisymay

Hi Daisymay,

Thanks for all your help. Will keep you posted.

David.

Hi David,

I am moving to Rose Hill in July my wife is Originally from Mauritius and we have a month old son.

Like you I support Spurs ! And I work currently in environment mainly on the energy side but I would liketl be a teacher once I settle and renovate a small house we have there.

We are going to live there for a few years to see if we want to and can settle which ever way the idea of having a year or so away from work to do something different is really important right now.

Talk soon
Mark

Hello Mark and welcome to expat-blog

Thank you for your introduction. if you have questions please do feel free to start a thread on forum Mauritius. our members will gladly help out.

Best of luck,
Melissa

Hey David,

Hope you are good man. Nice to hear that you and the family are looking to settle down over here very soon. Like yourself i live in the Uk too but spend most of my time here as i got business to look after. It's always good to get to know more brits on the island and if i can help with anything feel free to ask.

Hi Mark,

It sounds like we have quite a lot in common in terms of background and aspirations.

Re Spurs, you've probably noticed that we're in a minority, as most Mauritians support Man U or Liverpool, though someone did recognise my 125th anniversary shirt in Game once!

It probably is a great time for you to come over and take the chance of building a life, as you have a young family and a house, which will help by eliminating the accomodation costs - until you get renovating...

Look forward to hearing from you,

David.

mnj wrote:

Hi David,

I am moving to Rose Hill in July my wife is Originally from Mauritius and we have a month old son.

Like you I support Spurs ! And I work currently in environment mainly on the energy side but I would liketl be a teacher once I settle and renovate a small house we have there.

We are going to live there for a few years to see if we want to and can settle which ever way the idea of having a year or so away from work to do something different is really important right now.

Talk soon
Mark

Hi Mohammed,

Thanks for the hello and offer of advice.

David.

Hi David,

Yes it would be good to catch up some more about plans, hopes,fears etc....


My email is markneiljohnson@gmail.com


Talk soon

Regards

Mark

Hi David (and Mark)

I'm also a Brit married to a Mauritian, have a one year old son and live at Trianon (very close to Rose Hill).

However, I am even more unusual than you guys in that I am probably the only Leicester City fan on the island.

Hope to catch up for a beer with you guys sometime.

Cheers
Mark

Hi Mark,    Yes it would  be good to catch up when we come over next year.
We are planning on June but It may be earlier .  My email is Markneiljohnson@gmail.com if you want more of a chat it would be good to find out what you do over there and get some more insight from you and David.    I have no illusions that moving over will be easy or plain sailing but I'm looking forward to giving it ago even if it ends up just being for a year.    Talk soon.  Mark

Hi all,

I will be moving to Grand Baie, Mauritius in January for work.

I'll be leaving the "Big Apple" of New York to move to the "Big Small Island" that is Mauritius!

Im a fellow Brit, and a SPURS fan!

So would love to meet up with fellow Brits on this island then.

cheers,

Nik

Hi Nik,

Be good to stay in touch and meet up at some point next year . My email address is on some of the posts below.

Talk soon

Mark

[Moderated: Please post in Housing section]

Hi Mark and Nik,

Good to hear from you both. Sorry for the delay, as had been a bit busy in preparations for visiting Mauritius and residency.

Mark, yes I can imagine that you'd hold all the positions in a Mauritian Leicester City fan club! We're now in Mauritius, so can meet up for a beer - please personal message me through this site.

Nik, how's the Spurs support in the Big Apple? I'd heard that 'soccer' is growing out there, but I guess that most people think that you're talking about 'San Antonio Spurs'!

Mark (in London) and Nik, you might be interested in knowing that during my residency application today, the Official was only interested in whether we had Rs 20,000 (£400) in a Mauritian bank account in my name, not in any money abroad, so it'd be worth setting up an account here in advance if possible.

Cheers,

David.

Hi Daisymay,

An update on my residency application, as promised:

It was relatively straight forward, when I made it about a week or so ago, with no real issues for me. So should get it within 2-3 months.

Thanks for your advice.

David.

Dear all,

A final update on my residency: it came through a few days ago, so it took about a month and a half - very quick!

Just waiting on sorting work now...

David.

Congratulations David!
Its a lovely feeling when its actually handed to you isnt it?
I'm proud of my little card (though not the photo) and have been asked for it several times already - when buying a car so we could put it in joint names for instance.
And its great to be able to sail through immigration with it and get that stamp.
Dont forget to print off several photocopies of the document.
Not so painful was it? And very quick.
Thanks for updating me and everyone else. I am really pleased for you! Good luck with the job!
Daisymay

Thanks Daisymay!

I'm very pleased.

Hi David,   Thats good news good luck on the job front

Regards

Mark

Hi David (and Mark),

An interesting thread as I too am not only a Spurs man but work as a renewable energy consultant and thus give a crap about the environment.

There's a lot of hype about RE, energy efficiency and GHG reduction here hence the recent(ish) creation of the Ministry of RE and Public Utilities. Maybe enquire there about work.

Anyway, would be great to meet up for a Spurs match and/or keep in touch for professional reasons. Hoping we make it into the Champions League this year without any upsets (here's looking at you Chelsea).

Cheers

Ben

Ben411 wrote:

Hi David (and Mark),

An interesting thread as I too am not only a Spurs man but work as a renewable energy consultant and thus give a crap about the environment.

There's a lot of hype about RE, energy efficiency and GHG reduction here hence the recent(ish) creation of the Ministry of RE and Public Utilities. Maybe enquire there about work.

Anyway, would be great to meet up for a Spurs match and/or keep in touch for professional reasons. Hoping we make it into the Champions League this year without any upsets (here's looking at you Chelsea).

Cheers

Ben

Hi Ben,

Fellow Yiddo here that just moved 3 weeks ago to Grand Baie.

We have "The Beach House" and "Coko Loko" up here in Grand Baie where a lot of Brit & SA expats go to watch the footie games.

hows about in QB?...where you Yids go?!

lets link up to watch some games for sure.

COYS!

OP WORK PERMIT UPDATE:

Hi all, so just wanted to give you my experience about applying for my Work Permit / OP.

I arrived here in Mauritius on 11th Jan.

Had my medical on 14th Jan.

Then the company here in Port Louis that handles our OP paperwork etc, i met with them on 17th to take them all my paperwork etc.

NOW: My BRITISH Passport states "Nikhil Patel" but my UK BIRTH CERTIFICATE states "Nikhil N Patel"....BIG BIG PROBLEM!

The company helping me do my OP told me that the BOI (Board of Investments) and the Immigration would NOT give me my OP as the name on my passport and birth certificate did not match EXACTLY!

They were 100% Correct!.....I went to the BOI, and immigration said NO!

So then i had to go to the British Embassy, show them my British Passport, birth cert, UK license, US Greencard, US license, US "Global Entry", and then they gave me a letter to state that they "think" that the person on the birth cert is the same person on the passport!

"THINK"......The UK consulate could NOT state on paper that "they are ONE IN THE SAME PERSON".....and these words are exactly what the BOI wanted!

Anyways....i paid 2,700 Rupees for this letter (CRAZY!) and took it to the BOI and applied for my Work Permit on Friday 25th Jan.

I got an email on Thursday 7th Feb that my OP is ready!

So really....it only took 9 business days to get my OP......NOT BAD AT ALL!

Hi Ben,

Great to hear from another Spurs fan, who also works in the 'environmental field'. It's surprising the level of response from mentioning Spurs in my first post!

Cheers for the mention of the Ministry re work Ben. My Wife and I have found finding work difficult in Mauritius due in part to the recessions in other countries, but also the market demand.

Will be up for meeting up for beer and football when we move over/visit next, so keen to keep in touch. I watched a match in 'Trianon Restaurant', which despite it's name is a bar and in QB.

I'm daring to eye second place in the Premiership given current form even with a lack of fit strikers!

Cheers,

David.

Hi Nik,

You have my sympathies with your permit issue: any slight differences in names can be a big issue and involve getting sworn identity documents made up in court!


Still, at lest yougot it sorted quickly.

David.

Hi Ben,

  sorry for late reply on this not sure I actually know how this site works as just uncovered loads of conversations that I,d missed.    With nick etc... Although I have spoken to David and the other Mark.

I emailed David earlier to say I will probably arrive in June.   We will be staying in QB for first few
Months whilst we get our house sorted in rose hill.

It would be good for the five of us to stay in touch and meet up in the summer . I think my wife would also like to meet up too although she is Mauritian I think most of her friends and family are in  London.

Talk soon

Mark