Letter of invitation

its simply a formality, You can write it in English because they will have interpretors. No big deal it will state that the relative will be staying with you, and you have given your consent, then the Visa officials will know that he isnt going to be travelling around living in a tent. No worries!

If you have all the papers available about your job, where you live etc. as you stated one site said you needed to have, then why chance a rejection  of your relations visa?
I know here in Hungary the more paperwork you have the better, seems they always want one more thing in the end.
We sent out many invite letters from Hungary to the US in the old commie days, actually my husband did it all himself.
I know he had it in both Hungarian and in English.
We had to even state we were responsible in any emergency to cover all bills for any medical aid.
We mailed the airline tickets also to HU so they could show they had everything paid for in advance.
Back then though it was allot harder to get out of HUngary and visit the US. We had 5 people in total in  4 different visits come stay with us for up to 2 months in the US, all on our dime.
Just saying the more paperwork the better and not a big deal to collect it and have someone help you write one in Hungarian if you have any problems doing it yourself. If you really want them to visit without a hitch, better to do it right the first time. It is a slow process and it would be horrible to have to redo it all.
I have a feeling the embassy will charge you to translate any letters if you don't already have them done ahead of time, nothing is done for free over here.
I can't remember exactly what details we put in our invites but I know we made sure we included everything about us paying and our address and how long our guests would be staying, it was not too easy back then , everyone who visited us also had to have something to lose if they didn't return, such as a wife, husband or child that was not traveling with them, they all owned homes in HU and had long standing jobs in HU etc. The govs of both the US and HU wanted to make sure it was only a visit and not a escape.

That's what I'm talking about, actually. Even here I've got two replies, directly contradicting each other.

Better to overdo it then be missing a piece of info that they want.
Have a nice visit with your family.

Perhaps if your relation is visiting from another EU country, it will not be a big deal but coming in from a non EU country is more complicated.
Anything that has to be handled through immigration services is a big deal. Dot all your i's and cross all the t's.
Been through immigration myself here in HU and they take everything seriously.
Have a nice visit though, my cuz in visiting me again next week, only for 3 days so no visa.

migmit wrote:

That's what I'm talking about, actually. Even here I've got two replies, directly contradicting each other.

My wife and I organized an international conference a few years ago in Hungary. We sent out invitation letters in English to participants in many countries that needed them to get a visa to Hungary. The problems then started. Either the Hungarian consulate in that country accepted the letter, or were helpful in getting the type of letter they wanted, or they were not helpful at all. It seemed there was no standard at all in the Hungarian diplomatic corps. We even contacted directly one Hungarian consulate in one country were a participant was having problems getting the visa, and the consulate refused to not only help us write the correct letter in the correct format, but actually hung up on us. That person ended up not attending the conference because he could not get a visa.

So if you get different, and contradicting replies here or elsewhere, that is probably the reason: Blame the Hungarian government for not having a consistent, clear and unambiguous system. So everyone has a different experience, and reports only their personal experience for one country, which may indeed seem contradictory to other's personal experience with another country. But both were actually correct, real experiences. And I know this, as from above, our experience was all at once multinational and it did indeed vary between countries.

I can only suggest not just reading the consulate's web site, but actually calling the specific consulate in the country where your intended guests live and ask that specific consulate what you need to do. They will either be very helpful, or..... not. Let's hope they are helpful.

By the way, given our experiences on this issue, we would never again do an international conference in Hungary.