EEA family permit refusal appeal or reapply?

[Rac815]

Hello, everyone.

My husband and I are facing difficulties in dealing with 3 times of refusals of EEA family permit.
If you have any knowledge on this matter or been in this similar situation, please give us advice or share your thoughts. It would be highly appreciated.

We married on 25 Feb 2018 and I reported our marriage to a ward office in my district on 28 March 2018 in Korea. For the last 3 months, we have been refused EEA family permit over the invalidity of a South Korean marriage certificate apostilled by Foreign Ministry as evidence.

My husband and I are very devastated and thinking of appeal against ECO’s decision. I have the right to appeal within 28 days.

Here are refusal wordings for our applications.

- 1st refusal wording ( May 2018 ) :
lack of evidence of phone logs and Marriage of convenience, based on doubt about the validity of marriage certificate

- 2nd refusal wording ( June 2018 ) :
Failure to provide satisfactory evidence based on inconsistencies between the information I've provided and documentation. They cannot accept a Korean marriage certificate as evidence

- 3rd refusal wording ( 18 Aug 2018 ) :

“It is noted that you were previously refused an application due to the ECO having concerns about the legitimacy of the marriage document you had provided, as well as the lack of photographic evidence of your wedding ceremony.”

“You have again failed to submit any photographic evidence of your wedding ceremony. You state that your ceremony took place in Feb 2018, however the photos you have submitted for that period have no discernible photos of any wedding ceremony taking place. In conjunction with the concerns surrounding your marriage certificate in your previous refusal, this leads me to doubt that you are related to your sponsor as stated in your application.”

“In view of your failure to provide satisfactory evidence, I am not satisfied that you are the family member of an EEA national in accordance with Regulation 7 of the Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2016.”

“I therefore refuse your EEA Family Permit application because I am not satisfied that you meet all of the requirements of regulation 12 of the Immigration 2016.”

Like above, the authenticity of a South Korean marriage certificate was in question from our understanding.

We had provided all documents we could submit.
It just does not make any sense to us and we cannot come up with any solution on this matter.

The supporting documents are as following :
- Marriage certificate and Family relation both translated into English and apostilled by Foreign Ministry
- Photographic evidence of our wedding ceremony and wedding invitation & cards ( about 20 photos )
- Photos from his visit to Korea (3 times in a year)
- Flight tickets , video call & chat history


My questions are : under this circumstance
1) What other relevant documents should we submit, if we decide to appeal ?
2) Should we appeal against the refusal rather than reapply with the same supporting documents? Reapplying would be risky?
3) What are the chances like to get the appeal allowed?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[eubritish]

I would advise against appeal because that can take months and months, they don't have timeline AT ALL for deciding appeals so you can be stuck forever.

If I were you, I would apply again. Visa refusal sucks but its not the end of the world.

There is a ton of information on this forum about evidence that people in the same situation as yours submitted so do a search and you will find plenty of advice.

Good luck

[dan1988uk]

South Korean citizen don’t require visa, just travel to the UK and ask for EEA stamp at the border.

[Dyszel95]

Hey guys husband here.

How does EEA stamp works if we are planning to settle down in UK ? Are we allowed to use it to aquire residency card?

In the last application we have submitted marriage certificate, it's translation and appostile documents (for certificate and translation).

We have submitted evidence for 7 different trips together during UK stay, my 3 trips to Korea (one with my family ) and wedding pictures

On top of that they mentioned previous application whereas it shouldn't count to this application.

How else we can prove our rights ? Certificate is genuine and pictures were there (small wedding around 20 people)

Thanks guys for your help. It is really difficult to deal with HO

Regards

[Rac815]

South Korean citizen don’t require visa, just travel to the UK and ask for EEA stamp at the border.

Thank you for your comment!
If you meant by EEA dependent ink stamp, wouldn't that be risky to travel without a return ticket?
Also, from my understanding I should be accompanied by my spouse?

[Rac815]

I would advise against appeal because that can take months and months, they don't have timeline AT ALL for deciding appeals so you can be stuck forever.

If I were you, I would apply again. Visa refusal sucks but its not the end of the world.

There is a ton of information on this forum about evidence that people in the same situation as yours submitted so do a search and you will find plenty of advice.

Good luck

Thank you for the comment!
The thing is we cannot accept the refusal wordings at all.
We had provided photos of our wedding ceremony and marriage certificate that is genuine and appostilled by Foreign Ministry.
In terms of marriage certificate , we are trying to find what would add weight to it. Would that be a Polish marrige certificate?

Regards,

[Dyszel95]

Hi!

I am currently a PR holder (permanent residency). On the other forum, I read that we could apply for Residency card for EEA extended family member, however some people are denying it. In that case, if she would come to UK for 90 days (legal visit) would she be eligible for the residency card?

sorry for few posts, as I couldn't find edit option..
We are just going crazy

thank you