EEA PR Form - Section 5 - Evidence of residence

[rooibos]

According to the current EEA PR Guidance Notes (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... -04_KP.pdf):

Section 5: Residence and previous documentation
Evidence of residence in the UK
You must show that you, your family members, and your sponsor (if applicable) have been living in the UK for the relevant period.
If you’re applying on the basis of 5 years’ continuous residence, the evidence must cover the 5-
year period. The documents should be spread evenly throughout the 5 years and come from a
variety of sources. We recommend you submit at least 2 documents for each year of residence.

Unfortunately I have lived in many backpacker hostels, temporary accommodations and guest house and paid cash in hand and never stupidly kept any documentation. I have had periods where I had a proper rental contract and paid by card or bank transfer, but that doesn't cover 5 consecutive years.

On the other hand I've just received my S.A.R. from the HMRC with a 190 pages printout of all the HMRC knows about me since 1999, and it's a lot. There's quite a lot of stuff in there. All my employment record (in a quite raw form), all my tax credits and benefits received and all my addresses kept as correspondence with them.

Would the Home Office accept this huge blob as evidence of residence?

Otherwise I'm quite stuffed.

Thank you for your attention.

[noajthan]

According to the current EEA PR Guidance Notes (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... -04_KP.pdf):

...

Unfortunately I have lived in many backpacker hostels, temporary accommodations and guest house and paid cash in hand and never stupidly kept any documentation. I have had periods where I had a proper rental contract and paid by card or bank transfer, but that doesn't cover 5 consecutive years.

On the other hand I've just received my S.A.R. from the HMRC with a 190 pages printout of all the HMRC knows about me since 1999, and it's a lot. There's quite a lot of stuff in there. All my employment record (in a quite raw form), all my tax credits and benefits received and all my addresses kept as correspondence with them.

Would the Home Office accept this huge blob as evidence of residence?

Otherwise I'm quite stuffed.

Thank you for your attention.

Immigration 101 is to look ahead to your next application (and the one after that) and see what's required, ahead of time.
Then engineer your life to generate the necessary papertrail.
Position yourself to engender the relationships necessry for future references & etc etc.

You need to back your case with adequate documentary supporting evidence.
Not sure they'll accept the(ir) SAR on you.

Employment and tax documents are one way to partially prove residence (as you would have had to have been in UK to have been working for your employer).

You could also contact employers for employer letters summarising your employment.

[rooibos]

When I came to the UK (1999) the concept of exercising treaty rights didn't even exist, let alone engineering my life around immigration rules that didn't exist for EU citizens.