are we being naive?

[Cityboy]

Hi everyone,

myself and my wife are moving to Singapore to be with family in the New Year. We realise that it's best if we can arrange employment before we arrive (we are both journalists) but do we have the option of finding work when we have arrived, what is the visa situation and will we be able to find somewhere to live before we find employment? Please help!

Thanks

[cyber_m0nkey]

I'm not 100% certain, but pretty sure that you would need and emplyment pass to sign a housing lease.

[Cityboy]

thought as much, I presume we might have to settle for Serviced Apartments for a while

[sydgirl]

Hi,

My husband and I have just moved to Singapore and we found that you can't do anything like get a tenancy aggreement completed without your employment pass. As for opening a bank account you can't do that until you can prove where you are going to live in which case you need to provide a copy of your tenancy aggreement or a letter from your employer providing the employment pass, proving what your address will be if for instance you have been transferred by a multi-national.

Also seeing that my husband is employed by a multi national and paid in our home currency we also had to get a letter from the company to the bank to prove exactly what figure would be moved each month into the Sinagpore bank account. We were really given the run around and went backwards and forwards till we got it sorted. Very annoying.

We also couldn't get a mobile phone plan till we showed a letter from my husband's employer stating where we were to live.

Best of luck.

[Guest]

thanks for that, sounds challenging. Anyone got any more horror stories or even some positive advice?