Hong Kong Visas Made Easy

How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Qualifying Residence

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Musing / 7 responses

10 Must Have Resources for A Successful Hong Kong Right of Abode Application

As we have seen, in order for a long stay foreign national resident to be able to qualify for the right of abode in Hong Kong, he or she must have held a residence visa throughout all of the 7 years claimed.

This means, for the most part, employment, investment, dependent, student, QMAS, CIES and Unconditional Stay.

However, on occasion, there may have been an interruption in back-to-back residence visas and you may have experienced time in Hong Kong in those 7 years as a visitor or, as I have couched it, in the “Twilight Zone” where your residence visa extension exercise saw you without any kind of valid period of stay endorsed in your passport while the Immigration Department were processing your extension application.

In this case, the question is begged as to whether nor not time spent in Hong Kong in these circumstances serves to break your continuity of ordinary residence, therefore precluding you from successfully claiming a continuous 7 years of living in the HKSAR.

For certain, if you stop holding a residence visa at any time during those 7 years, time is working against you to organise your life to be able to regain such a residence visa and normally any time spent temporarily as a visitor in Hong Kong whilst your immigration status is in a state of ‘Administrative Flux’ will not normally be held strictly against you by the Immigration Department in your right of abode application.

In the final analysis, however, any time spent as a visitor whilst you reorganize your affairs so that you can speedily reacquire a residence visa will not break your continuity of ordinary residence.

However, if this time in residence visa “limbo” lasts for more than a few weeks or drags on to be several months, this could turn into a Sword of Damocles type situation for you so you need to anticipate that time is not on your side – so best not dilly dally  between residence visas.

The Hong Kong Immigration Department will look at all the circumstances of your life in Hong Kong whilst you’re in this state of visitor visa “limbo” to determine your intentions regarding your settlement here, notwithstanding involuntary challenges to your ability to qualify for a residence visa at a time of Administrative Flux.

And, so, whilst not hard and fast, it’s fair to say that, any time longer than 3 or 4 months holding a visitor visa ‘between jobs’ or where you are completing your plans to start a business, or even waiting for a decision on a subsequent QMAS or Capital Investment Entrant Scheme application from the Immigration Department itself (where there is no formal guarantee of application approval) such time as a visitor could serve to break your ordinary residence, especially if you have spent a lot of that time physically outside of Hong Kong.

More In This Series

1. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Introduction

2. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Relax, No Need To Takes Notes!

3. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Order of Business

4. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Must Have Resources

5. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You a Foreign National?

6. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – The Approvability Test

7.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Continuous Ordinary Residence

8. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – 7 Years? Starting When?

9. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – What is “Qualifying Residence”?

10. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You Truly Settled in Hong Kong?

11.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Is Hong Kong Your Only Place of Permanent Residence?

12.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Security Objections & Outstanding Taxation Liabilities

13.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Paperwork, Process, Patience

14.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Losing It!

15.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Documents Required

More Stuff You May Find Interesting or Helpful

Is there such an animal as a ‘flexible working visa’ for Hong Kong?

How to get a Hong Kong employment visa automatically with no questions asked!

The long stay visitor’s awkward predicament

How a Hong Kong employment visa application can go completely wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing!

Getting a working visa for Hong Kong is just a matter of filling in the forms, right?

The Hong Kong Visa Geeza – What Forbes Thinks…

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Feature Article, Musing / 4 responses

 

Rarely, in the lifespan of any commercial enterprise, do you have the privilege of learning that the hypothesis behind the configuration of your carefully developed business model was, after all, absolutely spot on.

Especially in a very public way.

Consequently, it came as a great surprise to me this weekend when I learned that our client Josh Steimle, Entrepreneur and Writer, wrote a piece in Forbes Magazine about the experience he had had in setting up a Hong Kong branch of his US SEO firm MWI which recently came to a successful conclusion with the grant of residence visas here for him and his young family.

Josh’s article is a must read for any foreign national entrepreneur thinking about taking the plunge in setting up shop in Hong Kong but naturally enough it was the incredibly kind words he had for his dealings with me and my team these last few months which struck home the hardest.

Josh writes…

” As we tried to figure out which visa scheme fit our circumstances, we stumbled onto Stephen Barnes, a Hong Kong visa consultant who runs an informative blog on immigration to Hong Kong at HongKongVisaGeeza.com.

Through his company Hong Kong Visa Centre, Stephen offers multiple levels of services ranging from simple advice to full-service, we-do-everything…

Although the price seemed high, we decided since this would make or break our plans to move to Hong Kong, we wanted to make sure our visa application was successful.

And Stephen’s expertise along with his guarantee to get us our visas or give us double our money back gave us the confidence to work with him.

I don’t want to gush too much, but Stephen was perhaps the most professional person I have worked with, ever.

Never have I seen someone juggle so many different pieces of information and stay on top of things and in touch with the client as well as he did.

When I was in college I often felt as though the professors were unaware that we were taking any class but their own, based on the amount of homework we were assigned.

With Stephen I couldn’t understand how he could be working with any other clients, given how much attention he was giving us.

As the complexity of the paperwork grew and we went through multiple submissions of information, my wife and I many times commented on how glad we were to not have tried to do it ourselves.

The visa Stephen counseled us to apply for is called the Investment visa, or more commonly the “business investment visa.” This visa is for business owners or entrepreneurs who are coming to Hong Kong to start or expand their business, and turned out the be the only visa I was qualified to apply for…

We first contacted Stephen on October 15th, 2012 and signed up with him a few days later. Our visa application was submitted January 3rd, 2013, and we received our approval April 25th, 2013… “

Now, without wanting to toot my own horn too loudly, it’s important to know that no man is an island and the service that we provided to Josh (like we do for every client) is the culmination of a significant team effort here at the Hong Kong Visa Centre.

Whilst I am responsible for the strategy devised for every application as well as all of our client relationships, Ruby, Amy, Alexandra, Chirag, Aaron and Martyn (along with Josephine and the entire back stage team at Centre O) work tirelessly to support me and all of our clients to get the immigration outcome that we promise when we take on their instructions.

But Josh’s words have validated what we new intuitively all along.

Namely, in the immigration services industry here, the internet has changed everything.

As I discuss in Part III of My Story, Martyn and I designed the Hong Kong Visa Centre to be a highly internet focused immigration practice.

We always knew that that producing lots of valuable Hong Kong visa and immigration related content and giving it away on the internet for free would lead to professional client engagements.

Our experience with the very first version of the Hong Kong Visa Handbook between 1996 and 2006 told us that.

But what we had to consider for the first time was the possibility of providing those professional services entirely via the web: video Skype, VOIP telecoms, DropBox, Fax2Email, online billing management, online payments and a whole lot more…

And these were just the practical mechanics of managing our professional relationships.

What about credibility and trust?

Historically, these all-important aspects of client relationships are settled through in-person meetings if not via trusted third party introductions or word of mouth referrals.

The problem we had in this regard was that, due to a non-compete provision in a previous contract, I was effectively radio-silenced for the 2 years immediately prior to starting the Hong Kong Visa Centre.

This kept me very much out of the Hong Kong immigration services game professionally so recent client relationships were a bit thin on the ground when we first started out in April 2011.

Moreover, with my daughters in high school in Western Australia, it was tough for me to be back in Hong Kong with any level of regularity whilst the practice was in launch phase, so the chances of meeting clients in person according to any kind of predictable schedule meant that we needed to hang our hat on video Skype when we first opened our doors for business.

So, in facing these constraints, we knew success would lie in building into the fabric of our online business model, service standards driven by the need to try harder than every other player in the immigration services industry here.

That is, we would compete aggressively on high quality service and value-for-money (but not price).

Moreover, for Martyn and I, technical competency is a given, not a strategy. We would let our content speak for itself.

Fortunately, as an on line business with a plan to grow organically, we would not have to carry the typically large overhead burden that plagues most immigration practices in Hong Kong when they first get started.  Hong Kong landlords were not going to dig their shovels into our hard-earned revenues as they had done for so very many years in our previous immigration businesses here.

This means we can invest in content which allows clients to do their cases for free or for significantly reduced service fees as they pay for partial assistance reflecting the real value in their relationship with us, namely our expertise, experience and immigration know-how.

The immigration consultants we brought on were going to share in the service fee charged to the client; no fixed salaries effectively means no professional talent overhead to carry, moreover our rate of pay is 300% more than that typically earned by Hong Kong immigration consultants on a monthly wage.

This is a powerful incentive to attract first class, motivated immigration consulting talent and for the provision of excellent customer service where the inability to meet the client face to face on a regular basis dictates that to reinforce our bona fides, we have to try that much harder to keep our clients informed, engaged and satisfied with our work.

As contractors, not salaried employees, our immigration consultants would work from home or wherever they find themselves connected to the internet. They would keep their own hours and be driven by deadlines and client service needs, not automatons enduring a daily 9-6 traipse into an office staffed by workers who can’t wait to go home again.

This means that our professional talent can work where they want when they want – offering unparalleled flexibility in work-life balance, making them happier all around which in turn reflects on the quality of the service received by our clients.

The internet was going to keep us honest and focused on what really counts – a positive immigration outcome, for a reasonable fee with the highest standard of personal service delivering what the client is ultimately paying for – their peace of mind.

Live by the word, die by the word. If, as we do, you invest continuously in content which answers peoples questions and helps solve their problems, distributing that content using social media, folks are going to get to know about you. They are also going to tell the world if you have done a shoddy job or not lived up to your promises. Overnight, a carefully managed brand can come crashing down if you don’t keep your promises. This is a virtuous circle that rewards the brave and punishes the fool hardy. It probably explains why so few businesses in Hong Kong have adopted the internet to underpin their business models as we have done. But it is inevitable that they will. The empowerment of the consumer is unrelenting and if the business you work for doesn’t adapt to the realities of the network economy, someone else’s will (and there goes your lunch).

As experts in our field, it was incumbent upon us to assume the responsibility for the value we promise to deliver. So, not only were we going to reverse the risk to our clients in doing business with us, we were going to place it squarely back onto our own shoulders.

This is the reality behind our double-your-money-back guarantee. This is the only way we can definitively prove to our clients that, once we have committed to their immigration outcome, we are lock-step in it with them – wholeheartedly, no reservations, til-death do us part. We have serious skin-in-the-game of the visa applications of our clients and it’s amazing just how galvanizing this is to the provision of excellent customer service. Whilst we never ask directly why they end up instructing us rather that one of the many other providers in our industry, the freely offered testimonials of our clients repeatedly mention this facet of our service model as to why they chose our firm to help them with their visa applications instead of running with our, often cheaper, competition.

More Stuff Which Sheds Light On Our Industry Here

Social media keeping immigration consultants on our toes – scary stuff!

The industry secret most Hong Kong immigration consultants don’t want you to discover

But Stephen, how do you make any money when you give all of your Hong Kong visa and immigration expertise away for free?

100% Hong Kong visa application success rate? Take it all with a grain of salt

Why internet forums are a cr@p source of Hong Kong visa and immigration advice

How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – 7 Years… Starting When?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Musing / 9 responses

 10 Must Have Resources for A Successful Hong Kong Right of Abode Application

Given that the approvability test for “continuous ordinary residence” is essentially so flexible, it is reasonable to assume that the commencement date of the 7 years runs from the time that you first landed in Hong Kong and can objectively be assessed to have taken steps to lay down the foundations of your long term stay in the HKSAR.

For many foreign nationals, that will essentially mean having arrived here as a visitor then, after a few weeks or months, gone on to adjust visa status from non resident Visitor to resident employee, investor, dependant, student or special immigration programme participant.

However, in deciding just when the clock of formal residence in Hong Kong starts ticking the Immigration Department have adopted a very straight forward, easy to administer approach.

To avoid protracted arguments and documentation assessments as to when a foreign national applicant for the right of abode first landed in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong ID start counting from the day your residence visa was activated upon first arrival with that residence visa status.

So formal residence for the purposes of the 7 year clock starts on the commencement date of your arrival under your very first residence visa – and not before.

More In This Series

1. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Introduction

2. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Relax, No Need To Takes Notes!

3. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Order of Business

4. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Must Have Resources

5. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You a Foreign National?

6. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – The Approvability Test

7.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Continuous Ordinary Residence

8. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – 7 Years? Starting When?

9. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – What is “Qualifying Residence”?

10. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You Truly Settled in Hong Kong?

11.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Is Hong Kong Your Only Place of Permanent Residence?

12.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Security Objections & Outstanding Taxation Liabilities

13.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Paperwork, Process, Patience

14.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Losing It!

15.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Documents Required

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What are your visa options in Hong Kong if your marriage has irretrievably broken down?

What visa options exist for unmarried, trailing partners?

How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – “Continuous Ordinary Residence”?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Musing / 14 responses

10 Must Have Resources for A Successful Hong Kong Right of Abode Application

By definition, continuous ordinary residence is exactly that.

For the purposes of the right of abode in Hong Kong, continuity of residence, at the very least, anticipates back to back residence visas of any such kind that qualify.

This excludes certain types of temporary residents of Hong Kong such as foreign domestic helpers, workers admitted under the Supplementary Labour Scheme, torture convention claimants and asylum seekers.

But for most other types of visa holders, including anyone who has spent a few years here as a student, you’re going to qualify as a resident without too much of an ado.

The common law, however, has long set out the precedent that “Ordinary Resident is not a term of art in Hong Kong law “

In their natural and ordinary meaning, the words ‘ordinarily resident’ mean ‘that the person must be habitually and normally resident here, apart from temporary or occasional absences of long or short duration’.

The significance of the adverb ‘habitually’ is that it  involves two necessary features, namely residence adopted voluntarily for a settled purpose with each case determined on its own merits entirely.

More In This Series

1. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Introduction

2. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Relax, No Need To Takes Notes!

3. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Order of Business

4. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Must Have Resources

5. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You a Foreign National?

6. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – The Approvability Test

7.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Continuous Ordinary Residence

8. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – 7 Years? Starting When?

9. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – What is “Qualifying Residence”??

10. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You Truly Settled in Hong Kong?

11.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Is Hong Kong Your Only Place of Permanent Residence?

12.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Security Objections & Outstanding Taxation Liabilities

13.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Paperwork, Process, Patience

14.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Losing It!

15.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Documents Required

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The Case Management Engine of the Hong Kong Visa Centre – July 2013

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Musing / 1 response

It’s a quiet Saturday on a long weekend so I thought I’d post a picture of the ‘super team’ who are responsible for the  back office admin of our ever-increasing professional case load here at the Hong Kong Visa Centre.

Having previously paid over up to 1/3rd of all revenues to Hong Kong landlords in my previous immigration practices, when my business partner Martyn and I designed our internet-focused service model, we deliberately eschewed opening our own offices entirely.

We feel it is much better to forego this crazy expense and pass the savings on to clients in the form of the 100% free advice available via this blog, the Hong Kong Visa Handbook and the D-I-Y Visa Kit & D-I-Y Visa Extension Service.

Instead we partnered with Josephine Lau (next to me in the photo) and her team at centre O who, overseen by my right hand woman of 16 years Ruby Castro  (inset), so ably manage the documentation shuffling and submissions down at Immigration Tower.

Martyn, Alexandra, Amy, Aaron (European Passport) and Chirag (the other guys that count in our team) are widely dispersed and I don’t think we’ve ever all been together in a single place since we opened our doors for business in 2011.

Ain’t the internet great!

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Will a Criminal Record Impact on Your Application for a Hong Kong Residence Visa?

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How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – The Approvability Test

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Musing / 5 responses

10 Must Have Resources for A Successful Hong Kong Right of Abode Application

For long stay foreign nationals in Hong Kong, the approvability test for the right of abode is to show that you have been continuously and ordinarily resident here for a period of not less than 7 years.

You also need to demonstrate that you have taken Hong Kong as your only place of permanent residence and that any absences from Hong Kong during those 7 years have been of a  merely temporary nature as evidenced by your intention at the time you departed on each occasion that you left Hong Kong and what you left behind to return back to at the end of each temporary sojourn abroad.

For most people who have lived here without any break on back to back residence visas, who’s children have been educated here during the 7 years and have worked continuously in Hong Kong for Hong Kong employers, the test is readily satisfied without too much ado.

On the other hand, if your residence in Hong Kong for those 7 years does not fit that profile exactly, certain questions are raised which can make a Right of Abode application somewhat, to a lesser or greater degree, challenging.

And it is my intention in this presentation to help you navigate those out of the ordinary circumstances steering you in the direction of a successful argument to suitably satisfy the Hong Kong Immigration Department of your eligibility for a permanent identity card.

More In This Series

1. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Introduction

2. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Relax, No Need To Takes Notes!

3. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Order of Business

4. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Must Have Resources

5. How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You a Foreign National?

6. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – The Approvability Test

7.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Continuous Ordinary Residence

8. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – 7 Years? Starting When?

9. How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – What is “Qualifying Residence”?

10.How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Are You Truly Settled in Hong Kong?

11.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Is Hong Kong Your Only Place of Permanent Residence?

12.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Security Objections & Outstanding Taxation Liabilities

13.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Paperwork, Process, Patience

14.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Losing It!

15.  How to Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – Documents Required

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The Visa Geeza on RTHK Radio 3 – June 2013

The very real value a Hong Kong CPA adds to a Capital Investment Entrant Scheme application

 

Can an Offshore Company Sponsor a Hong Kong Employment or Business Investment Visa?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Hadley Says…, Investment Visas / 6 responses

You may be a director, shareholder or an employee of a company which is not incorporated in Hong Kong but thinking about the possibility of setting up shop here.

In such a case, is it possible for the overseas incorporated entity to sponsor employment or business investment visa permissions for one of their officers or staff to  work in Hong Kong?

The answer is very much a case of “it depends”:

– It depends if the entity has organised itself to carry on a business here by registering with the Registrar of Companies as a Part Eleven company and secured a business registration certificate from the Commissioner of Inland Revenue.

– It depends on what the Immigration Department make of the legal and financial constructs of that enterprise when assessing the overseas’ company’s credentials as a valid sponsor of visa permissions for foreign national staff, officers and shareholders.

– It depends on whether or not the proposed business activity bringing the foreign corporation to Hong Kong will be able to make a substantial contribution to our economy.

– And it depends on the business need for, and the special skills, knowledge and experience of, the foreign national proposed for sponsorship of Hong Kong employment or investment visa permissions.

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