# I Lived It: Renewal of Carte de Séjour Vie Famille Privée Hautes-Alpes 2022



## ARPC (Aug 30, 2021)

I just wanted to post my experience renewing my Carte de Séjour Vie Famille Privée at the prefecture of the Hautes-Alpes in Gap in late 2022. I’m renewing for the first time, going from provisionnelle status to a two-year card. As usual it was a total bordel. I am always searching for information and experiences online for these processes, and so I want to put this here for fellow searchers. 

I want to highlight a couple of discrepancies that I experienced between what documents were requested on the forms I was sent and information I found online when I made the appointment, and what the representative wanted in the actual appointment. I know these surprises and different expectations are super typical in France, and these are the things I would have wanted to be prepared for. This refers only to the Hautes-Alpes Gap prefecture in late 2022.

I understood that it was not required that I bring my husband with me to the renewal appointment, and that his presence was only required at the appointment of my first demand/ first application. The representative told me she would expect to see him at renewal appointments and that I should have brought him with me. He is working in a different department this week, I asked if we should call him or if I should bring him when he gets back. She said no it’s fine, but she was not…contente. She said there would be a police enquête visit. 

From the list of possible documents to prove our housing, our justificatif de domicile, the list provided indicated that our rental contract and rent receipts along with habitation insurance statements in our names would be sufficient. (Our landlord pays our electric and water bills and they’re in his name). They were not. She asked me to go back to my landlord and request an attestation d’hébergement and his recent EDFs. 

I presented our original contract of marriage and was told I needed to go back to our Mairie and request a new copy dated within the last month. I had read the word « integral » and « original » to mean…original. Non. There was no indication in the lists of documents that this document needed a particular date. 

The application form and statement of la vie commune I had found on the prefecture website, signed and brought in were also refused. She gave me a different application to fill out and a different La vie commune statement to have my husband sign. 

She didn’t request any documents supporting our common life, no bank statements from our joint account or statements of subscriptions and services that we have in both names. 

She gave me a récépissé and told me to email all the documents she wanted in the next two weeks. My OFII contract, language attestation, and course civic papers were accepted. She did not ask for my medical check up document, but that may come when I pick up the new card. 

Ouf, as usual.


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