Immigrationboards.com

Hi all,

My wife is the EEA National, we've been in the UK for 5 years and my initial spousal visa is about to expire. I would like to apply for PR but am not sure about my eligibility.

your EEA family member has been a ‘qualified person’ throughout the 5 years or has a permanent right of residence

Because of pregnancy / young kids my wife did not work for the first 3 years we were here (was supported by me) but she does have a Registration Certificate. Does this help at all?

Would appreciate any comments on this, thanks.

Jeff

JeffSA78 wrote:Hi all,

My wife is the EEA National, we've been in the UK for 5 years and my initial spousal visa is about to expire. I would like to apply for PR but am not sure about my eligibility. What spouse visa are you on? What does it say exactly?

your EEA family member has been a ‘qualified person’ throughout the 5 years or has a permanent right of residence

Because of pregnancy / young kids my wife did not work for the first 3 years we were here (was supported by me) but she does have a Registration Certificate. Does this help at all?

Would appreciate any comments on this, thanks.

Jeff

ILR is granted to migrants on the UK Immigration rules route (i.e. Tier 2 General & Dep, Ancestry & Dep, Spouse Settlement, Long Residence, etc), current cost for ILR is £1,875 for POSTAL applications and £2,375 for in person on the day decision applications.

PR is automatically attached after 5 years of exercising treaty rights as a qualified person. A document confirming PR (£65) is now required for British Citizenship applications.

What spouse visa are you on? What does it say exactly?

My visa says the following: Residence Card of a Family Member of an EEA National

Would prefer to go down the PR route (£65 compared to £1875!) but am not sure if my wife qualifies as a qualified person due to her not working for the first few years of us being in the UK. Although she did get a Registration Certificate as soon as we arrived.

Thanks,

JeffSA78 wrote:

What spouse visa are you on? What does it say exactly?

My visa says the following: Residence Card of a Family Member of an EEA National

Would prefer to go down the PR route (£65 compared to £1875!) but am not sure if my wife qualifies as a qualified person due to her not working for the first few years of us being in the UK. Although she did get a Registration Certificate as soon as we arrived.

Thanks,

With a Union citizen sponsor you are on the EU migration route.

If your inactive spouse/sponsor was not selfsufficient and holding CSI then she is not a qualified person and has (or had) no status in UK.
The RC is really only valid on day of issue, its not a 'visa'.

What is sponsor/spouse's activity now? is she exercising treaty rights?
If not she needs to regularise her (and your) position in UK asap, especially with all this wild talk of Brexit.

Has your wife (as your EEA sponsor) only been exercising her Treaty rights through employment for the last 2 years? As noajthan has mentioned, has she held Comprehensive Sickness Insurance (CSI) during the years when she wasn't working?

My wife has been working (part-time) for about 3 years now - assume that classifies as exercising her treaty rights?
And no, she never had CSI while she wasn't working. We did have this for about 6 months when we first arrived as part of my "probationary period" before my 5 year visa was issued. Was told it wasn't needed after that and we could continue to use the NHS.

So I do not qualify for PR yet BUT my visa still expires in October - a little confused as to what to do next, can this be extended until I qualify???

Really appreciate all the help & guidance so far,

Jeff

JeffSA78 wrote:My wife has been working (part-time) for about 3 years now - assume that classifies as exercising her treaty rights?
And no, she never had CSI while she wasn't working. We did have this for about 6 months when we first arrived as part of my "probationary period" before my 5 year visa was issued. Was told it wasn't needed after that and we could continue to use the NHS.

So I do not qualify for PR yet BUT my visa still expires in October - a little confused as to what to do next, can this be extended until I qualify???

Really appreciate all the help & guidance so far,

Jeff

Its not a visa!

If wife's work is genuine and effective then she will now be a qualified person which at least keeps you legal and with a right to reside and to work in UK.

You don't have to have a RC.
Although its useful to confirm status to landlords, DVLA, employers etc.
And it may be useful to have a fresh RC in case it helps you invoke transitional arrangements (due to Brexit) and so secure your place in UK after Brexit (all yet TBC ofcourse).

EEA Residence Card is not a visa, and it only confirms status, it does not confer it.

It is the card which expires, not your right to stay which is entirely dependent on your EEA sponsor.

JeffSA78 wrote:My wife has been working (part-time) for about 3 years now - assume that classifies as exercising her treaty rights?

Not necessarily. For example, if she were just working one afternoon a week, she'd probably be breaking the law rather than securing your rights to residence. (Having a child in full-time education would make doing only a small amount of work legal, as she and I think you would then have at least derivative rights of residence.)

When part-time work suffices to make someone a 'qualified person' is unclear. However, if she is regularly paying National Insurance on her earnings, then the UK will reckon her as a worker.

Sounds like your wife has a hiatus in her exercise of Treaty Rights, which delays her acquisition of PR.

Part time work can count but if she was out of the labour market entirely for a period without CSI her 5 year clock was reset to zero and restarted when she return to genuine and effective p/t work. How many hours a week has she been doing, or what salary has she been earning, during those 3 years?

Also note that if your sponsor ceases activity as an EEA national exercising treaty rights this also invalidates your legal residence here eg your right to work and live here if she is your sponsor.

Thanks to everyone that has commented so far, extremely useful!

My last question on the subject - my residence card expires end of October & it looks like I can apply for an extension of this. Assume this would be my next logical step until my wife has met the 5 years as a qualified person requirement (and we can both then apply for PR).

I understand that the card expiring does not stop me from living & working in the UK but I do travel into Europe for work and will need something in my passport to prove that I'm allowed back into the country.

Thanks again,

Jeff

JeffSA78 wrote:I understand that the card expiring does not stop me from living & working in the UK but I do travel into Europe for work and will need something in my passport to prove that I'm allowed back into the country.

If you're employed, the card's expiring will stop you working. Just before it expires, your employer should ask for an indication of your right to work that he can use as a statutory excuse if it turns out that you don't have a right to work. The documents you could provide that he can use are a 'positive' (a.k.a. 'full') CoA, an RC, a PRC and, debatably, an EEA Regulation stamp. If you don't supply one, you may be suspended and, if you still fail, dismissed. The dismissal might be unfair, but that won't stop it happening. It takes about a month from applying for an RC or a PRC to getting a CoA, so act now.