You know the story when your “friend has a friend” and they “highly recommend them”..? Then it all goes wrong, the friend is as useless as the recommended party, and you spend the rest of eternity trying to avoid them both?!
Well, this is NOT that story!
After endless hours of wading through conflicting and erroneous immigration information online, I found myself at dead end after dead end. It was time to enlist the help of a professional. After contacting a few it seemed like some of them, like their websites, provided conflicting information and didn’t seem to provide a clear plan or understanding of our circumstances. This minefield of misinformation and waffle seemed to be nothing more than sales talk and opinion.
After finally placing my trust (and money) in a person who I thought sounded the most plausible, we spent the months gathering the relevant documents, attending appointments, applying for certificates, etc. In short, we applied and our application was rejected. We had been misinformed about the process and financial requirements.
We wanted to buy a house in South Africa but we were reluctant to invest as we didn’t know if we’d ever get residency. All hope was rapidly fading.
On the next visit to South Africa, a friend mentioned I should chat with her friend Candice. “Here we go again,” I thought. But we were still longing to live in South Africa. We had even started looking at houses.
That same afternoon Candice called me and we spent an hour on the phone. We chatted about all sorts…and…the dreaded residency application of course. I explained our unusual and complex personal and financial arrangements across multiple countries. She was flabbergasted at the poor advice we had been previously fed.
Candice picked up on the fact that we had residency in another country as well as our country of origin and said we should apply from there as that’s where we were residing at the time. We decided to give it a shot.
Everything moved quickly. Candice set up appointments for us with the embassy as well as arranged South African bank accounts and chartered accountant certificates. The following months involved lots of questions being met with solid information and reassurance from Candice.
We attended the embassy appointment and everything ran smoothly. A few weeks later the email popped up to say our applications had been processed and that residency had been granted. I almost fell off my chair!
We have since referred Candice and Abroadscope to some German friends who found themselves in the same position as us.
The end of the story is: I sit here writing this review in our new house in South Africa with residency having been granted for myself and my family. This is the result we always hoped for and it was made possible by Candice and her amazing team. She has been an abundance of support, knowledge and reassurance from the start.
Thank you!
