Couple moving to Singapore, visa help!

[DarylD]

Hi everyone,

Myself and my girlfriend will be moving to Singapore later this year.

I will have an Employment Visa with the company I am moving with, and will be earning over $6,000 SGD per month.

My partner is a freelance designer, who works short contracts with various companies (3 weeks here, 1 month elsewhere etc). We will be applying for her to get a LTVP, am I right in reading that with this LTVP - all that she will need is a work permit for each individual contract at the time of getting them with each company?

Thank you.

[Strong Eagle]

a) Girlfriends are not issued LTVP's, only common law spouses can obtain a LTVP. You must provide proof of your common law marriage, generally from a document obtained from your embassy.

b) No one can work on a LTVP, not part time, not freelance, nothing. Either the company employing her will need to apply for a work permit (unlikely since she is only a short term contractor), or your GF, assuming she gets a LTVP (and that's not a very good assumption), will have to form a business or company, then go to work for it.

Check the sticky threads in the Careers forum for more details.

Right now, if you aren't married one way or the other, she won't be coming with you.

[DarylD]

Thanks very much for your reply.

a) Very good point, my girlfriend and I have been together many, many years and have started looking into getting a common-law partnership certification here in the UK, but looking at other stories posted here it looks like a lot of others seem to get that once they get to Singapore. We have hundreds of documents with our names on etc.

b) Thanks very much for your advice, we were looking at forming a sole proprietary company solely for that purpose. My partner currently has her own business here in the UK, as the only member of that company and strictly to be able to freelance under a company name.

Thanks again for your help!

[Mi Amigo]

This seems to be the topic of the moment. As you're also in the UK, the following might be useful (I just re-posted it in this thread):

I'd suggest you read the following thread as it may be relevant to your situation:

http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/ftopic101493.html&highlight=common+law

Executive summary - In order to consider granting a LTVP to your partner, the Singaporean authorities now require a "Letter from Main Pass Holder's respective Embassy or high Commission confirming the status of common-law marriage." However, the UK authorities will (apparently) not issue a letter with that wording, because 'common-law marriage' is not an officially recognised term in the UK.

[Strong Eagle]

Thanks very much for your reply.

a) Very good point, my girlfriend and I have been together many, many years and have started looking into getting a common-law partnership certification here in the UK, but looking at other stories posted here it looks like a lot of others seem to get that once they get to Singapore. We have hundreds of documents with our names on etc.

If you are British, not any more. Hundreds of documents seem to mean nothing to either the Singapore government, nor the British High Commission. See the threads that Mi Amigo has posted.

b) Thanks very much for your advice, we were looking at forming a sole proprietary company solely for that purpose. My partner currently has her own business here in the UK, as the only member of that company and strictly to be able to freelance under a company name.

Thanks again for your help!

You need to read the threads in the Careers section about forming a company and going to work for it. Quite possible, and a long way from a done deal.