TAJ card refused !
 

Hi all
Firstly my wife and I are British citizens and have been living here permanently here since June 2018. We have had our registration and address cards for 4 or 5 years and our tax cards for 15 months. We are not intending to work here and are living off our savings until we start receiving our pensions in about 6 years.
We want to pay into the Hungarian health care system and are not covered by private insurance and are not entitled to a UK base EHIC as we have no assets in the UK

15 months on from first applying for our TAJ cards and we are at a dead end. After many visits and painful dealings with the Kaposvar Kormányhivatal, including getting our S041 forms etc, the Kaposvar office have finally said that we are not eligible for a TAJ card unless we are either employed here or receiving a pension. . a Budapest solicitor that we engaged has also now confirmed this, after initially saying we should be entitled. :banghead:

This leaves us with no health cover either in Britain or in Hungary unless we take out private insurance which is both very costly and probably will not cover existing conditions. ( I have already had to cancel knee surgery because of this). .

Question 1. Can anyone confirm for certain that the Hungarian authorities decision is legally correct or not?

A Hungarian friend has suggested that as a way round this he can get a friend, who owns a hotel, to take us on as full time employees (at least on paper) for a couple of months. During this time we would be issued our TAJ cards. When we have received our cards our employment would be terminated and we could then start paying our monthly contributions privately.

Question 2. Would the above scenario work or would there be problems with it?

I have read all the various threads on this and thought we were entitled to join and pay into the system. If anyone has any advice or knowledge of what we should do now, we would be extremely grateful.

:banghead:

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

That scenario sounds totally illegal so I must remind members about our BE rules.

Rule 3 states that describing anything against the law is not allowed and will be removed.

Rosemary

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

Given that both the Hungarian authorities and your solicitor have come to the same conclusion then I would assume that both are correct.

My instant thought on reading paragraph 2 was 'get a job' - it seems that others have had the same idea. I can't see any problem with this if you have someone who will/can put you on their books.

An alternative solution could be to become a small farmer (Őstermelő) if you have a garden that could conceivably produce veggies for sale, this would make your plan independent of any one else and it is easy to register and as far as I know there are no criteria for registration other than the ability to produce saleable produce. Produce is not checked and declaring produce sold is a paper work exercise.

Otherwise you could 'start a business' as an entrepreneur probably for ease of explanation to the authorities based on some previous career which would fail after some months.

Both of these would require the payment of TB (Hungarian NI) which would get you your TAJ card.

All in all getting a job is probably the easiest and cheapest.

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

Apologies Rosemary was just relating a Hungarians suggestion and wasnt aware of the regs.
I would prefer not to have to go down that route anyway.
I was confused by other posts and threads that stated if you were permenantly resident here but not employed you could pay contributions privately. This seems not to be the case.

Thanks Peter. We do have a large plot approx 1 hectare so the Őstermelő route sounds the most straight forward. I will have to look into process and paperwork involved

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

You have not broken the rule by stating what the friend advised you to do so do not worry. My concern was that members may start telling you illegal methods of dealing with your difficulties as they would then be breaking the rules.

Good luck with sorting this out.

Rosemary

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

A 1 ha plot is more than enough to do some market gardening from which you can sell the surplus produce ! To become an Őstermelő you go to your local council and ask for the whereabouts of your local falugazdász office. This office is part of the Chamber of Agriculture and is responsible for registering Őstermelő. They are also responsible for providing help to those engaged in agriculture. We have always found the Falugazdász helpful. As part of our organic farm we have been Őstermelő for over 20 years.

I have sent you a PM

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

Got your pm and have replied.
Great advice as always :thumbsup:

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

The Ostermelo is a very good shout. However from my experience I would suggest getting an accountant, there are accountants that specialise in farming businesses. There are loads and loads of Ostermelo everywhere (I am one too!) and the local government offices should be well used to it. Talk to the Falugazdasz they should be very helpful. Only thing to be careful of is that they will ask you what you expect to produce to sell and how much, go above that and trouble may come, stay below that all is good.

You can do a lot with 1ha................

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

Just out of interest, when we came 5 years ago Generali offered us health insurance for about 60K per person, p.a. No idea what it covered as we didn't need it (we are pensioners so we winged it for 12 months before getting our TAJ cards) but certainly seemed cheap (but obviously would not cover pre conditions).

In fairness to Generali, we took out life cover with them for a quoted figure of 85K p.a for the two of us, when we answered their final questions (height & weight) they reduced the price by 10K.
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Re: TAJ card refused !
 

That is interesting. I was wondering about some kind of life insurance and wasn't sure if it was a thing particularly here?

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

As it was all very straightforward I guess it must be.

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

It must certainly be then.

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

Myself and my wife are in exactly the same position, and therefore will not be able to obtain Taj cards. We will source private health insurance.However I do have another query if someone could help me with.My wife has an inactive thyroid and requires repeat prescriptions of medication. Would a Hungarian doctor be able/willing to issue the prescription if we paid him to do so as obviously it appears that we will not be a part of the Hungarian NHS? Does anyone know?

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

My Wife came here with a pre existing heart condition that requires medication. Soon after landing we registered with a local GP as private patients, she was examined & relevant prescriptions issued. No problems at all. I think the examination (ECG) was about 15K Fts. Prescriptions are 1K each (for a month).

Re: TAJ card refused !
 

Thanks very much.