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Interview over the phone

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 11:49 am
by Eszter1978
Hi,

My husband who is Cuban had an interview over the phone regarding his EEA family permit application.
I am Hungarian, who has lived in the UK for over 10 years and exercising my treaty rights since.
I met my husband in November 2015 whilst I was on holiday in Cuba. In the past 18 months I have visited him on a bimonthly basis. I flew to Cuba from the UK 9 times in 17 months. We got married in February 2017. We have submitted plenty of evidence about our communications, bank statements, payslips, emails, phone recharges. Internet recharges.

My husband was asked the following questions:
- Does he know the name of the school I attended? How is this relevant to our relationship or marriage? He explained that he knows I completed my studies in Hungary, but he does not know the name of the school. I finished my studies in 1996 - 21 years ago in Hungary, my school closed down years ago, why would I discuss this with him? My kids don't even know the name of the school.

- Does he speak Hungarian? - We both fluent in English, he requested to be interviewed in English, the IO did it in Spanish. Why would he need to speak Hungarian? How is this relevant to our communications when it is obvious that we both speak a common language.

- Has he met my parents or my children? How could he meet them if he is not allowed to leave Cuba? My parents are old and poorly, they can not travel 20 hours to Cuba to meet him. It is non-sense. He is not marrying my parents. He explained that he saw them once on IMO (is an app for video calls). He explained that my son goes to university and my daughter to secondary school who need to attend school. Cuba is so far away, they cannot afford weeks and weeks of holidays, not to mention the costs implications. My decision was to travel by myself more times then to fly my kids there ones. I can have 3 trips for £2000 for myself or 1 trip for the same amount of money for once with my kids. I chose to spend as much time with him as possible.

Has anyone else experienced similar questions?

Re: Interview over the phone

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 4:48 pm
by wegiwegi
Relax, those are the same questions they asked my wife, of course he doesn't know which school you attended, he gives the answer he knows about you and your life, they want to know that it is a genuine relationship, and yes, sometimes the questions are a bit of nonsense, but that is the way they do it.

Re: Interview over the phone

Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 12:43 pm
by Eszter1978
Thanks for your reply, it is good to know that he is not the only one who cannot answer this question.
I am just waiting to receive their official response. To be honest, I am terrified.

I will write an update in a few days. I am still hoping for the best.

Re: Interview over the phone

Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 1:44 pm
by wegiwegi
As of today, whilst you are exercising your treaty rights, there is not much they can do, just curious to know what they do next.

Re: Interview over the phone

Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 2:38 pm
by Eszter1978
Also a very interesting thing, we have provided around 70 or more pictures showing how our relationship developed in the past 17 months. When my husband handed the supporting documents in in the British embassy in Havana, they refused to accept any pictures saying it is irrelevant to the application and it could be Photoshoped.