Tired of the constant refreshing of the LEA Berlin website? Seeing site outages almost every day? We’re over it too. Here’s another solution to your problem, even if you’re here as a tourist.
You’ve probably come to ask us if we can book an appointment for you on your behalf. We don’t have any special tricks or shortcuts, unfortunately – we are on the website with you, getting just as frustrated as you are. There is a special relocation service that we do have access to, but only qualified workers can access their services. This excludes all the freelancers and students that make up the majority of our client base!
BUT…. you can apply by email or post (I’d do both!) for any permit. Even if you entered Germany without a residence title (e.g. you entered as a tourist and are using your 90 days in the Schengen area), as long as you are residing legally in Germany when you send and date the application, your stay in Germany will remain legal until the foreigner’s office has made a decision on your case … or at least until the date of the appointment they offer you. This is outlined here in Section 81 (3) of the Residency Act:
(3) Beantragt ein Ausländer, der sich rechtmäßig im Bundesgebiet aufhält, ohne einen Aufenthaltstitel zu besitzen, die Erteilung eines Aufenthaltstitels, gilt sein Aufenthalt bis zur Entscheidung der Ausländerbehörde als erlaubt.
(3) If a foreigner who is legally resident in the federal territory and does not possess a residence title applies for a residence title, his or her residence is deemed to be permitted up to the time of the decision by the foreigners authority.
You have the right to simply post or email your application. You always did, even before Corona. That is “applying for a residence permit”. You will not find this information clearly anywhere on the Berlin.de website. If you do, please let me know so I can link to it.
Instead of offering to book your appointment for you (which we did pre-Corona with great success), we’d like to offer you a new type of coaching instead. During the hour, we will
- Answer your questions
- Anticipate obstacles you might encounter
- Send you a short, customised cover letter in German
- Send you a checklist of documents to include (if you’ve already gathered them, please share your screen and we’ll take a look!)
- Give you the correct email address for the right department, so you can send it by email in advance
- Send you a trackable registered mail postage stamp with the right details on it at no extra cost.
Your job will be to
- Copy and paste our cover letter into an email and press send
- Print everything out, put the application in an envelope and throw it in a postbox.
You can then sit back, knowing that you are safe to remain in Germany until you hear back from the office – be it in 3 days or 3 months. Experience shows that this technique is the most successful for getting an appointment offered to you quickly.