After nine years of planning, working with friends and realtors in Vicenza, purchased flight tickets, arrangement for transportation of household goods shipment and veterinary and travel arrangements for family cat, the dreams of my wife and I have been shot down in flames by a bureaucrat at the Italian Consulate of Philadelphia. Our Elective Residency Visa was denied. My wife and I are newly retired with combined pension incomes of $60,000 per year with survivorship clauses; Signora XXX declared we must have no less than $120,000 per year in income "or investments" in order to qualify for Elective Residency Visas. This feels like an arbitrary "Unwelcome Sign" since it just happens to be double what we make in pension incomes. We're devastated and have no idea whether it's worth the trouble of trying to do this again or even how to go about appealing this capricious move. Note: We were completely organized in our application, with everything accounted for and apparently everything OK except for the fact that we aren't rich movie stars. I would appreciate any insights from others on this page. I had previously heard there were problematic Italian Consulates, with Miami and San Francisco topping the list; but hadn't expected this behavior from the Philadelphia Consulate. We've forfeited thousands of dollars in lost reservations and tickets, not to mention having to re-tool our plans and spend thousands more dollars to move into a house we had put onto the market in an area we moved away from 10 years ago; and to put the cherry on the sundae, the people we rented our home to have demolished the place so we're looking at huge rehabilitation bills. PLEASE: Only serious and useful comments on this because we are infuriated enough already, thank you.
Reason : beware of defamation : I have removed a person's name