Advice: Staying in Batam

[Rambutan]

Hi experienced Samsters,

Need some advices on staying in Batam, gf is Indonesian and planned to stay in Batam instead of Sg. She not a resident of Batam though. She is from other province.

I am working in Sg and was thinking of renting first then look for a permanent place to stay. I was looking into renting a house or aprtment first and once we are more settled, we can look for our own house.

The questions are:

1. Any issues traveling daily between Sg and Batam in the short to mid term?

2. Eventually i need to have some form of Visa. How easy or hard to get a spouse visa?

3. Where do you recommend to stay abit away from Batam center but yet near to the ferry terminal.

4. Plan to ROM in Sg and register the marriage with the Indonesia embassy here. Any samsters had this done before because me not going to potong my gu gu or chant 5 x a day.

I am not active in SBF and sorry if there are threads on this matter.

Hope some kind and experienced samsters can help by sharing your experience.

Thank you!

[Penguin23]

Originally Posted by Rambutan

Hi experienced Samsters,

Need some advices on staying in Batam, gf is Indonesian and planned to stay in Batam instead of Sg. She not a resident of Batam though. She is from other province.

I am working in Sg and was thinking of renting first then look for a permanent place to stay. I was looking into renting a house or aprtment first and once we are more settled, we can look for our own house.

The questions are:

1. Any issues traveling daily between Sg and Batam in the short to mid term?

2. Eventually i need to have some form of Visa. How easy or hard to get a spouse visa?

3. Where do you recommend to stay abit away from Batam center but yet near to the ferry terminal.

4. Plan to ROM in Sg and register the marriage with the Indonesia embassy here. Any samsters had this done before because me not going to potong my gu gu or chant 5 x a day.

I am not active in SBF and sorry if there are threads on this matter.

Hope some kind and experienced samsters can help by sharing your experience.

Thank you!

Some tips for you:

1. Batam (and Bintan) are special administrative regions. Even Indonesians from other provinces have restrictions buying land in Batam/Bintan. Your gf should be able to tell you more. Generally a foreigner cannot own landed properties, only the right to lease. This law is ironclad, there are no workarounds. if you buy an apartment as a foreigner, the land that the apartment sits on, can revert to the government the lease extension request is rejected. You have been warned.

2. Your Singapore passport allows 30-day stays. Staying beyond 30 days at requires a visa. As a Singaporean, you can come for any number of visits in a year, so long as you do not stay more than 30 days at a stretch. You can use your Singapore driving license in Indonesia, there is no need to apply for an International Driving License.

3. if you want a spouse visa, and a permit to stay (KITAS), it is more practical for you to enter into a civil marriage in Indonesia, rather than go through ROM. The ROM cert opens up your option to sponsor your wife for LTVP and subsequently, SPR status. Having a KITAS is very useful - it allows you to open a bank account in your own name.

4. Batam has some expat enclaves, but your gf may not be comfortable staying in them. She will probably prefer to live like a local. Note that local leases in Indonesia are usually at least a year long (sometimes 2-3 years) and, this is an important point - leases are paid in full, in advance.

Learn Indonesian. It will make your life much easier.

[Rambutan]

Originally Posted by Penguin23

Some tips for you:

1. Batam (and Bintan) are special administrative regions. Even Indonesians from other provinces have restrictions buying land in Batam/Bintan. Your gf should be able to tell you more. Generally a foreigner cannot own landed properties, only the right to lease. This law is ironclad, there are no workarounds. if you buy an apartment as a foreigner, the land that the apartment sits on, can revert to the government the lease extension request is rejected. You have been warned.

2. Your Singapore passport allows 30-day stays. Staying beyond 30 days at requires a visa. As a Singaporean, you can come for any number of visits in a year, so long as you do not stay more than 30 days at a stretch. You can use your Singapore driving license in Indonesia, there is no need to apply for an International Driving License.

3. if you want a spouse visa, and a permit to stay (KITAS), it is more practical for you to enter into a civil marriage in Indonesia, rather than go through ROM. The ROM cert opens up your option to sponsor your wife for LTVP and subsequently, SPR status. Having a KITAS is very useful - it allows you to open a bank account in your own name.

4. Batam has some expat enclaves, but your gf may not be comfortable staying in them. She will probably prefer to live like a local. Note that local leases in Indonesia are usually at least a year long (sometimes 2-3 years) and, this is an important point - leases are paid in full, in advance.

Learn Indonesian. It will make your life much easier.

Thank you! Its quite an insightful reply! Are you staying at Batam? Can her kid from her home town "migrate" to Batam and study there? She need to change her family registry so something like that to be "legally" staying there right?

Thanks!

[Penguin23]

Originally Posted by Rambutan

Thank you! Its quite an insightful reply! Are you staying at Batam? Can her kid from her home town "migrate" to Batam and study there? She need to change her family registry so something like that to be "legally" staying there right?

Thanks!

I'm from a different part of Indonesia, but I frequently go through Batam.

Your gf is a single mother, I see. All the more you should register your civil marriage in Indonesia. If you do not, you will just be cohabiting with your gf and your name will not appear in her Family Card, as the rightful head of the family.

Without a local marriage cert it is also impossible to secure a spouse visa. There is a secondary benefit to marrying in Indo, you straightaway know whether your girl is really eligible to marry, or if she's still married. In Singapore ROM records only register marriages and not divorces. In Indonesia, your civil status is always kept cureent and if you change civil status you will be issued a new NRIC.

You should also ask your gf to produce her Akte Penceraian (Decree Nisi) to prove her divorce and confirm that your girl is actually single.

In Indonesia, your current legal status is reflected in her Indonesian NRIC, which is visible in her IKD (the Indonesian equivalent of SingPass)

If your girl refuses to show you her IKD status, high chance she is still married and you are just a carrot aupporting someone else's child.

Yes your gf is otherwise free to move anywhere in Indonesia and bring her son over, but she must secure either a lease or buy a property, before her son can come over. Mere visitors from out of province cannot secure school places, and she also cannot legally change her Indonesian NRIC address

All the best

[chubbybastard]

Originally Posted by Rambutan

Hi experienced Samsters,

Need some advices on staying in Batam, gf is Indonesian and planned to stay in Batam instead of Sg. She not a resident of Batam though. She is from other province.

I am working in Sg and was thinking of renting first then look for a permanent place to stay. I was looking into renting a house or aprtment first and once we are more settled, we can look for our own house.

The questions are:

1. Any issues traveling daily between Sg and Batam in the short to mid term?

2. Eventually i need to have some form of Visa. How easy or hard to get a spouse visa?

3. Where do you recommend to stay abit away from Batam center but yet near to the ferry terminal.

4. Plan to ROM in Sg and register the marriage with the Indonesia embassy here. Any samsters had this done before because me not going to potong my gu gu or chant 5 x a day.

I am not active in SBF and sorry if there are threads on this matter.

Hope some kind and experienced samsters can help by sharing your experience.

Thank you!

Hang on. Isn't ferry ticket back and forth between SG and Batam cost like S$70+? Do that daily and the cost can add up very quickly

[Rambutan]

Originally Posted by chubbybastard

Hang on. Isn't ferry ticket back and forth between SG and Batam cost like S$70+? Do that daily and the cost can add up very quickly

Each ferry company have a season ferry ticket like for example some have a 90 days pass which allow unlimited travel for a few hundred $.

[Rambutan]

I recently found out that the ferry companies do not have this monthly or season ferry tickets anymore! Was at Batam recently and asked around some Singaporeans who were traveling back to Sg in the morning to work. Really very expensive.

[Rambutan]

Hi,

Can you kindly share how people from Sg rent houses or apartments in Batam?

Thanks in advance!

Originally Posted by Penguin23

I'm from a different part of Indonesia, but I frequently go through Batam.

Your gf is a single mother, I see. All the more you should register your civil marriage in Indonesia. If you do not, you will just be cohabiting with your gf and your name will not appear in her Family Card, as the rightful head of the family.

Without a local marriage cert it is also impossible to secure a spouse visa. There is a secondary benefit to marrying in Indo, you straightaway know whether your girl is really eligible to marry, or if she's still married. In Singapore ROM records only register marriages and not divorces. In Indonesia, your civil status is always kept cureent and if you change civil status you will be issued a new NRIC.

You should also ask your gf to produce her Akte Penceraian (Decree Nisi) to prove her divorce and confirm that your girl is actually single.

In Indonesia, your current legal status is reflected in her Indonesian NRIC, which is visible in her IKD (the Indonesian equivalent of SingPass)

If your girl refuses to show you her IKD status, high chance she is still married and you are just a carrot aupporting someone else's child.

Yes your gf is otherwise free to move anywhere in Indonesia and bring her son over, but she must secure either a lease or buy a property, before her son can come over. Mere visitors from out of province cannot secure school places, and she also cannot legally change her Indonesian NRIC address

All the best

[Penguin23]

Originally Posted by Rambutan

Hi,

Can you kindly share how people from Sg rent houses or apartments in Batam?

Thanks in advance!

So sorry this reply is several months late. As a retired chiongster, I seldom log in to sbf

I gather from your previous replies that you have no long-term status in Indonesia, and you are not in the process of getting one (e.g a KITAS)

You have to use your gf's name to enter into a lease. Some landlords have a standard form with the terms and conditions filled in, best to read through all the terms to make sure there aren't any onerous ones. If you are renting a landed property, always always insist on seeing the property title deed (called a Surat Hak Milik - SHM) and ensure you are paying to the bank account of the holder of the title deed.

Some landlords are very easygoing, so long you pay the full lease in advance you don't have to fill in any forms and can move in immediately.

This kind of arrangement can be a bit tricky. At the minimum you should insist on a receipt with a formal stamp (called a Kwitansi with Materai) with a wet signature to formalize the receipt of your payment for the full lease term.