Has anyone considered a retirement location out of the USA? (relocate, inheritance)

[Windwalker2]

Originally Posted by Hefe

Just an fyi: both the UK & Ireland aren't Schengen as well if that would fit into plans.

I totally had planned for a similar notion of heading overseas to expat for an extended indefinite period in my 60's (I have dual US/Euro citizenship): not too many "things" to get rid of & a good idea of a region I wanted to explore/settle in, etc.,... however my mother turned 93yo this weekend & is still hanging in pretty well despite the battles of age so here I still am. Earliest I see myself able to follow through on my old plans now is around my 70yo give or take a year.

I have no illusions about how easy it would be to uproot entirely at that age let alone learn a new language & build new solid friendships. I'm relatively healthy so far but there are a couple of things I need to watch & they certainly aren't going to improve with time. Health issues could derail extensive travel plans in the senior years.

So now I find myself reassessing & considering expat "colonies" where English is understood, or 55+ areas here or abroad or perhaps just being a snowbird abroad for 6 months, though at some point that too would get old as I got old. So we plan but have to adapt to circumstances.

I had planned to move permanently, either to France (most likely) or Spain. I did all the research for long stay visas, made some friends there, etc. Then my parents began to decline and I didn't want to leave. By the time they were both gone I was 70. Now in my 70's I don't think I could handle all the bureaucratic red tape to get the visa and get established, and doubt I could pass the French drivers license test, given only in French. Some states have reciprocal agreements, but not mine. I had thought about moving to another state before moving to France, but time is growing short.
My energy level isn't what it was ten years ago when I was ready to move.
So I would say don't put it off too long.

[cebuan]

Originally Posted by kavm

That is a faulty reasoning. The immigration officer does not need to do any math. He/she just scans your passport and computer does the rest - including flagging. And, no - computer is blind to the your perceived strength of the passport. And, that’s for 90 days stay in 180. So, if you had a strong incentive (idea?) to live in the Shegen country, you would be well advised to follow a proper legal route - and the requirements go beyond the visa limits. There are taxes, health insurance, local registration - things you do not need to worry about as a tourist but do it you wanted to live there.

If all visas are de facto electronic, there would no need to present a physical passport at an embassy to get one stamped in. When I got stamped out at Hargeisa airport, or walking into Kazakhstn, that was recorded and readable at some big ledger in a cloud storage?. What about those people who think their passport is not being stamped by Israel? Schengen knows they went to Israel, but Iran doesn't?

[kavm]

Originally Posted by cebuan

If all visas are de facto electronic, there would no need to present a physical passport at an embassy to get one stamped in. When I got stamped out at Hargeisa airport, or walking into Kazakhstn, that was recorded and readable at some big ledger in a cloud storage?. What about those people who think their passport is not being stamped by Israel? Schengen knows they went to Israel, but Iran doesn't?

First, I hope you have heard of e-visas offered by many nations, and indeed the need present a physical passport at an embassy to get stamped in is decreasing. ]

Second, you are shifting the argument. Let me remind you what you said in #149 that I responded to:

Originally Posted by cebuan;

Does anyone know of anyone being caught overstaying a Schengen visa? A busy immigration officer at a crowded airport would be unlike to scrutinize every passport's recent stamps and match them to calculate the lengths of each stay, and half the stamps in my passport are barely legible anyway.

If I had a strong incentive to live abroad, I would assume a problem only if I were visibly suspect for some reason, Especially with a strong passsport like USA..

So, you were suggesting that the busy immigration at a crowded (Schengen) airport would

• Need to scrutinize illegible stamps in your passport and would have hard time calculating the length of time spent in Shengen zone.
• That your strong passport like USA will somehow hide your visa violation.

Now - you bring up Kazakhstan, Iran and Israel - and somehow tie that up with Schengen. Iran, Kazakhstan and Israel are not part of a part of a common visa zone that the Schengen countries are. I have no idea what information Kazakhstan, Iran and Israel share, but the Schengen zone countries definitely share all entry and exit information among them.

In the original scenario that I responded to - Schengen simply needs to know your exit and entry dates in the Schengen zone - and you can bet your shirt that this information is visible on the immigration officer's computer screen at the entry and exit points to the Schengen zone. And, this system can count the days and a few more things - and it is blind to whatever strength passport you happen to carry. Even if one believes that Schengen immigration officers were / are not penalizing the violations, it can change without notice. The systems at the US entry points are getting increasingly sophisticated with improving technology and cloud storage, and I have no reason to think the same is not the case in the Schengen zone where legal and illegal immigration is a very sensitive and active political issue.

[cebuan]

My original question asked if anyone with experience could shed light on what happens if you overstay. No answer so far.

If you and i show up at Shengen and you have a US passport and mine is DR Congo, you think they will get equal scrutiny? Your other answer is probably essentially right, but there are some broad assumptions there. Electronic visas are a money grab that have nothing to do with immigration control. Whis is why Australia;s is approved in 2 seconds and India's in 2 weeks.

[lieqiang]

Originally Posted by cebuan

Electronic visas are a money grab that have nothing to do with immigration control. Whis is why Australia;s is approved in 2 seconds and India's in 2 weeks.

Dude where do you come up with this stuff? India's eVisa website says less than four days but read any forums for travel to India it's quite common to get an approval within 24 hours.

We got our eVisa back the same day, submitted in the morning and response early evening. The email acknowledging submission even says you'll get a response within 72 hours.

[lieqiang]

Found overstay thread here: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntr...post-them-here

The first guy in there said he stayed 94 days and was fined about equiv $600 USD upon trying to leave Switzerland, but more interesting related to what kavm posted:

what was surprising was that the officer was immediately interested in my passport after swiping it through his computer. The officials decided that I had overstayed before they ever looked through the stamps in my overflowing passport (if they ever did actually look at the stamps). He just stared at the computer after swiping my passport.

Another guy and his wife were each fined approx same amount (they paid by credit card) for a 95 day stay.

However with a nod to what cebuan is getting at there are also stories from folks who overstayed and weren't detained/fined, with some suggesting it depends on the guard and whether it's by land or air.

[kavm]

There are several points to note here, though my friend cebuan changes the question every time I answer him/her.

• First thing to note is that anyone (even more so on the retirement forum) should be attempting to find out the laws and trying to follow them - instead of wasting time on researching the penalties for violating them.
• I personally am too timid to try and find out how close to the Sun I can fly before I burn. So, no first hand information on the violations - though I have hundreds of visit to the Shengen region and have lived in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands for varying durations.
• The thread from LonelyPlanet lieqiang referenced is helpful but the most recent post in it is 5 years old. Both systems for identifying the violations and penalties for dealing with them have almost certainly changed. And, it is fair to say that the attitude of the officer enforcing the laws and penalties always has an effect - same as it does on moving violations.
• Not all violations have the same severity. There is overstaying the 90 days by 4 days versus 40 days versus 400 days. Some can be seen as mistakes and others as deliberate violations. The penalties are invariably going to be different.
• One should note that once you spend more than 90 days, you could be deemed resident (as opposed to tourist) and additional laws can come into effect. For instance, if you say in a place for more than 90 days in Germany, you must register with the authorities. Not doing so has a solid fines. Doing so leads to registration information being passed on the Finanzamt (German IRS) which will expect you to file tax returns. Do people deceive the authorities and get away with it? Yes. Do some of them get caught and regret it big time? Yes. So, it depends on how lucky do you feel? I definitely don't live my life this way and would not recommend it.

Finally, I do not know why cebuan needs to assert his strength of passport point so insistently, whether it applies or not.

Originally Posted by cebuan

My original question asked if anyone with experience could shed light on what happens if you overstay. No answer so far.

If you and i show up at Shengen and you have a US passport and mine is DR Congo, you think they will get equal scrutiny?

First, it is Schengen and not Shengen.

Second, you are asking about the overstay violation penalty on exit, and then making an entirely irrelevant comment about the entry into the Schengen zone. The overstay violation is obviously determined on exit. The processing of exit stamp for a visitor from DR Congo or the US will take the same amount of time, assume there is no visa violation involved.

I am not going to respond to the differences in entry processing, though I am sure that will become your next question.

[Sand&Salt]

Originally Posted by cebuan

My original question asked if anyone with experience could shed light on what happens if you overstay. No answer so far.

If you and i show up at Shengen and you have a US passport and mine is DR Congo, you think they will get equal scrutiny? Your other answer is probably essentially right, but there are some broad assumptions there. Electronic visas are a money grab that have nothing to do with immigration control. Whis is why Australia;s is approved in 2 seconds and India's in 2 weeks.

Not Schengen, but a friend here had her car impounded and a fine, for overstaying by a few days (unaware) and this was a land border crossing.

I hope they would be more lenient if one got delayed due to weather or riots, for example.

[cebuan]

Originally Posted by lieqiang

Dude where do you come up with this stuff? India's eVisa website says less than four days but read any forums for travel to India it's quite common to get an approval within 24 hours.

We got our eVisa back the same day, submitted in the morning and response early evening. The email acknowledging submission even says you'll get a response within 72 hours.

Haven't been there in a long time, so if India now has e-visa, it is no longer among the good examples. Try Pakistan. For decades, India was notorious for visa waiting time.

I come up with this kind of stuff same place you do -- personal experience, mostly. If yours is more up to date, there are civil ways to express it.

I know I am the last person in the world you wan to make friends with, but if you keep addressing people as "Dude", you're not going to make many.

[kavm]

There are plenty of places with bad visa waiting times. So, you are definitely not imagining it. But - things are improving by and large. Technology does, however, mean that some of the restrictions are easier to police now than they were in the past.

Personal experience traveling the world goes a long way...