Permanent residency rejected

Hi there


I'm wondering whether anyone can help with advice. My PR application has just been rejected on the grounds that I haven't met the required 7 years. The reason is that in February 2010 I lost my job and my visa expired, and I didn't get a new work visa until July 2010 9when i secured an investment visa for my own company). Durtng this period I continued to live in HK, but had to be there on a tourist visa. All that time I was looking for a job. I had thought that the government allowed for these periods of occasional unemployment when applying the "ordinarily resident" test. The letter says that I can appeal, but from a practical point of view can I contest this?


Thanks in advance!

It does look like you need to complete 7 years from July 10. It comes dwon to dates and the fact that you were on a tourist visa. A toursit visa does not count as permenant residency and normally, a tourist visa is only 3 months. Feb - May?? not July. So it looks a little doubtful. However, I am sure there will be others who have faced this issue and can advise more.

Thanks cara and bob


That's exactly what my case officer just said to me. I thought there might have been some sort of grace period, if you were able to show that you were living here and seeking work ... but apparently not.

Yes it does suck but at least HK is a very open market and it won't affect me too much on day to day level. It's more of an identity issue.


Thanks again for weighing in, appreciated.


Amann

I know people who have had a similiar situation (i.e. lost job - visa expired - got new job) and got their PR after 7 years as normal. As in all things I suspect it comes down to the IR officer who processed your case and what kind of mood they were in.

Boddington, it has nothing to do with the mood of the immigration officer. They're just doing their jobs and following procedure. Time in Hong Kong on a tourist visa does not count, end of story. If you know people in similar situations who got theirs, then they must have lied in some way. I'm sorry to hear you didn't get your PR.

Ah yes of course people just lie and the immigration offers takes their word for it without checking the computer records. Jeez!!!


a-mann - clearly all you have to do is re-apply, lie about the visa gap and then just wait for the PR card to fall through the letter box.

Hi, with my reply I think I can't help you but also my PR is rejected. I have my HKID now 10 years, but in this 10 years I left HK for my job to Singapore in 2 periods. The first period was 9 months the second period 12 month.

My wife is born in HK and have a PR the same as our 4 childern, my wife was following my during my trips to Singapore and that was already wrong. To keep the story short, my PR is just rejected while I was too long out of HK and my wife followed me but the childern stayed in HK. The officer told me that childern not count or can help me even if they stay in HK. In HK you are a first class tax payer but a second class recident if you don't have a PR, you have not any benefits from it. I can write a book about the stuppideties of HK Government, special about the handling of the registration for young born poeple. don't say anything about the PR handling, this anyway they don't know how it works. They only know how to hirt the poeple

Boddington, when I said they must have lied in some way, what I was meaning was was lied to you. Immigration Department have what they call a movement records which record every single entry and exit into Hong Kong and what a person's visa status is at the time of the entry/exit, so if you fill in false information, you can get charged with making a false declaration.

Dear Cara,

after 2002 I never had a tourist visa only used my HKID, before I had only a tourist visa while I was only short times in HK more than 30 years. Since 2002 we have fully settled again in HK. My only mistake was to go to Singapore twice, I ask the immigration department how to do this and got the advice not to stop paying my rent for the house in HK which I did.

Now , after they reject my PR, they told me if I was sent to Singapore from a HK company was that no problem and had a chance to get my PR. Bad luck I was working for a german company from germany not from HK, and sofar I understand, was this the reasson to reject my PR.

We are very disapointed in this situation special my wife and the kids, but still I like to live in HK it is a nice place.

Dear All


Thanks for your advice. I have scoured all of the guidelines, and nowhere can I find a statement that the definition of "ordinarily residing" for a continuous period of 7 seven years requires that a valid work visa needs to be held for this entire period. That is what the case officer told me, and was the basis for my PR application being rejected, but this does not necessarily mean that it's a hard and fast rule.


For example, what IS a hard and fast rule is that you can never have breached any condition of stay. So, far example, if I had overstayed a work visa for one day (thereby being in HK illegally for one day), and then secured another work visa, then I would have breached a condition of stay and wold be ineligible for PR unless the Immigration department was allowed to overrule the law.


But I still regard as an open question, whether being in HK under a visitor visa precludes qualifying for PR. To recap, I have been living in HK continuously for 7 years, but underwent a period of unemployment during which my old visa expired and I went through a 4 month period before I was able to secure another work visa. During this time i was living in HK looking for work, paying rent, etc. I know that the phrase "ordinarily residing" MIGHT require you to be doing so under a work visa (i.e., as an official temporary resident), however I cannot find anything in writing to this effect. It is therefore possible that there's an ambiguity in the regulations that might, in fact, enable someone like me to make their case an part of an appeal, and to see how they fare. I might be wrong, I might be right. But as the HK government is so focussed on this area, I sense that it may indeed be possible to make this case, and I'm going to have a go.


As a practical matter, I might find it difficult to drag up my old residential lease for this period, but I'll put together whatever I can and go for it. I'll let you know how I get on, although that might be some months away.


Cheers

Amann

As mentioned amann I know someone who was the same as you - lost their job, work visa expired then got another job - and they now have PR. However they made sure they never left HK during that period. Did you leave HK during the 4 months?

I had to leave Hong Kong on the day on which my work visa expired, in order not to overstay my work visa and to secure a visitor visa. I went to Macau and back in the time-honoured tradition. I believe that you can only secure a visitor visa u[on entry to HK and therefore that I was required to leave Hong Kong in order to get one. Other than that, I don't think that I left HK at all during this period. If your friend was required to live on a visitor visa for some period, then i think they would have had to have left Hong Kong and then returned in a similar way.


Cheers