Getting to Guernsey

Moving to Guernsey requires jumping through a number of bureaucratic hoops.  My new employer needed to get me a work permit, which in my case was not too difficult because I have a number of unique skills helpful for my position and the local financial market.  Guernsey has a limited housing market, so I also needed a housing license.  There is both open market and local market housing – the open market has fewer restrictions but it’s more expensive.  Fortunately, I was able to qualify for local market housing with the housing license. 

The housing license came through first.  To validate it, I had to have an actual place to live and have all the employment paperwork sorted out. 

We were aiming for a start date as close to January 1 as possible.  Everything seemed to be falling into place when I finally got my work permit in mid-December.  The catch was that I needed to apply for a UK visa, presumably since I would usually be traveling through the UK to get to Guernsey. 

Most readily available information on UK visas deals with very simple cases. My case was more complicated.  Unfortunately, the British embassy in the US had outsourced visa processing to an outside company that doesn’t seem to know much about the process.  When I sent an email (free method for asking questions) explaining my situation, their response was that I needed to contact the embassy for the country where I would be working.  [Just to clarify, Guernsey has no embassies as a UK Crown Dependency.]  A follow up email attempting to clarify my situation got no response.  Next, I called the processing company (at $1 per minute).  The person I talked to seemed to have no idea what/where Guernsey is, and insisted that I did not need a UK visa.  At the end of the call, I felt obliged to tell her she was of no help and I didn’t want to pay for it.  Finally, I was able to talk to someone at the immigrations office in Guernsey who put me in contact with someone in the British embassy in LA he had worked with on someone moving from the US to Guernsey.  He confirmed that I did need a visa and he walked me through the process.  Unfortunately, this was just before Christmas.  Thanks to a liberal interpretation of “next day” by FedEx and some days off at the British Embassy, it was suddenly January and I was officially in limbo.  I gave up my office at the end of December, so I was at home in Seattle trying to keep some work projects going and preparing for the move.  My LA embassy contact came through quickly in early January and it was off to Guernsey with as much as I could pull/carry on the 9^th of January.

When I arrived in Guernsey on the 10^th, I went directly to the immigrations office to show them my UK visa to validate my Guernsey work permit which would then validate my housing license.  I assumed this would all be a matter of a few phone calls, but suddenly it looked like it might take a few days.  I was faced with having a place to live in Guernsey that I was already paying for but I was not legally able to occupy it!  Fortunately, when my estate agent called the housing department they gave me the go ahead to stay at the apartment.  I quick run to a store for some sheets and pillows and I was in business.

The next day, I woke up facing limbo in Guernsey until all the appropriate paperwork came through.  A call to the housing authority confirmed that everything was in order and I could go pick up the paperwork.  It was now time to officially start my new adventure…