Stamp 4 EUFam Residence Card issued after only 5 weeks!

[JosephineO]

Hi everyone

I've posted a few times and was really appreciative of the great advice we received. So I wanted to let you know that my husband received his Stamp 4 EUFam Residence Card yesterday, for the full five years, only five weeks after we sent the application to the INIS! So in the interests of helping those in a similar situation, here is our shortened story:

I'm British and my husband is Guatemalan. We had been living in Guatemala together since we got married a year ago but wanted to be closer to my family in the UK. We couldn't move to the UK however because a) we didn't have the money for the two year spouse visa and b) I didn't meet the financial requirement and didn't want to separate from my husband to get a job in the UK and then have him join me months down the line. So because of solid advice from a friend who had moved to Ireland with his Peruvian wife and son, we decided to try moving to Dublin exercising my EU Treaty rights.

We arrived on 1 July in Dublin together (see this post for details of questions asked by the Immigration Officer - http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... highlight=). We then focussed on finding a permanent place to live and getting proof of address. When we had proof of address (our estate agent wrote us letters) we applied for PPS numbers. Once we received our PPS numbers we opened up a bank account. I found permanent full time office work and started on 6 August. We then filled in the application for a residence card on Form EU1 sending off most of the paperwork to the INIS except for a few documents (i.e. my tax certificate/p60, two payslips and letters of residency from the Private Residential Tenancies Board) asking if we could send the documents once we had received them. Out letter was received on 12 August. We received a letter dated 10 September on Monday 16 September returning our passports, marriage certificate etc. stating that our application was being processed and that they would be in contact in due course. Then on Wednesday 18 September we received a second letter dated 13 September stating that our application had been accepted as we fulfilled the relevant conditions set out in the Regulations! We went down to the GNIB offices on Burgh Quay on Friday 20 September at 8am with our passports, marriage certificate and the 13 September letter from the INIS, my husband had his photo taken and his fingerprints taken and by 10:30am we were out, complete with the full five year stamp in his passport and the Stamp 4 EUFam Residence Card!

It was incredible how quickly our application has been processed. My boss said that he received a call from someone at the INIS asking if I worked for the company. But other than that I don’t think any other checks have been made. We haven’t been charged anything whatsoever and are just so happy.

So there is a bit of good news for you! There is hope after all.

All the best

Josephine

[JosephineO]

This is the covering letter I sent together with my husband's application for a Residence Card:

EU Treaty Rights Section
Irish Naturalisation & Immigration Service
13-14 Burgh Quay
Dublin 2

7th August 2013

To whom it may concern

RE: Mr X - Application for Residence Card

I am writing to you in connection with the enclosed application for a residence card for Mr X. I, Mrs X, a UK citizen (Passport Number:***) arrived in Ireland on 1st July 2013, with my husband Mr X (Passport Number: ***) a Guatemalan citizen. I have gained full time permanent employment in the state, working for ***. I commenced my contract on 6th August 2013. Therefore, I am currently exercising my EU Treaty Rights, under EU Directive 2004/38/EC and wish to remain in the state permanently with my husband. We would like to live in Ireland for the foreseeable future and would be grateful if you took this fact into consideration when making your decision.

We have enclosed:

• UK Passport (Mrs X)
• Guatemalan Passport (Mr X)
• Our Guatemalan Marriage Certificate – duly translated into English and stamped by the relevant authorities in Guatemala
• 2 x Passport photos (Mrs X)
• 2 x Passport photos (Mr X)
• Signed employment contract with ***(Mrs X)
• 2 x Proof of address from the Permanent TSB bank (Mrs X)
• 2 x Proof of address from the Permanent TSB bank (Mr X)
• Proof of address from the Department of Social Protection Client Identity Services (Mrs X)
• Proof of address from the Department of Social Protection Client Identity Services (Mr X)
• Utility bill from Electric Ireland (Mrs X)
• Utility bill from ESB Networks (Mrs X)
• Utility bill from Tesco Mobile (Mr X)
• Rental contract

At this moment in time, we are unfortunately unable to provide certain documents which you have asked for in the application for the following reasons:

Evidence of current activities of the EU citizen in the State

• Two recent payslips

Please find enclosed my contract of employment with ***, dated 25th July 2013. As my employment started on 6th August 2013 and the company make salary payments on the 24th day of every month, my first payment of salary will be on the 24th August 2013 with the next salary payment on the 24th September 2013. The Form EU1 Explanatory Leaflet states that we need to supply two payslips together with the application. However, I would request that I forward these on to you as soon as I can.

• Most recent P60 or Tax Credit Certificate

As I have not lived/worked in Ireland before I do not hold a recent P60 to supply to you. With regards to a Tax Credits Certificate, I have yet to receive this but once I have, I would request to be able to forward this to you to be taken into consideration in my husband’s application.
Evidence of residence of applicant and EU citizen in the State

• Letters of Registration of Tenancy from the Private Residential Tenancies Board

We have asked our Landlord to supply us with a letter of Registration of Tenancy from the Private Residential Tenancies Board and he is in processing our request. Once he has passed this on to us, I would ask to forward this on to you together with the above missing documentation.

If you have any further questions or queries with regards to this, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours faithfully


Mrs X

Counter-signed:


Mr X

[Jellybean105]

Josephine thats really amazing!!!! Congrats! I am really happy for you

I wish my application would be handled like that! I really need your help - what did you possible do?! lol
We submitted ours august 15th and a few days ago (5 weeks after we applied) we received the temp stamp 4 letter and they asked us for a few documents. Would you mind helping me?

[JosephineO]

Hi Jellybean105, I've no idea what we did to get approved so quickly, we're just relieved!

What documents did they ask you for?

[Jellybean105]

Well I applied as self-employed. I have an online business and I started it in February. I have posted about the letter here http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=146298

I was under the impression that it took minimum 6 months to be decided. On the 1st letter, did they say when your decision is likely to be made?

[JosephineO]

Nothing whatsoever, the first letter was very vague. It just stated the date they received our application, what docs they were returning and that the onus was on us to advise of any change in our circumstances. Closing line was "This office will be in contact with you in due course regarding your application". It actually made me worry a bit, I called the GNIB on Monday to check if we could get the temporary stamp 4 based on the letter! The GNIB said yes we could get the temp stamp 4 with that letter, so I arranged to take the morning off work on Friday so we could go down there and then on Wednesday we received the second letter! Crazy stuff.

I think the fact that I am employed has made a big difference, and that it's for a company I worked for in the UK. Plus we have a 1 year lease on our flat - I sent the rental agreement with the application. Basically they know that we are very unlikely to move anywhere else again in the near future.

All I can recommend after reading your post (with my very limited experience!) is to be thorough with your documentation, get as much evidence as possible that you are here to stay. Probably having a lease on a flat/room will help. Depending on where you are living you can find rooms to rent for 400, even flats/houses if you live outside of Dublin. I'd call/email the INIS and ask if your husband can travel on the temp stamp 4. If you get en email from them saying he can, you can print that and show it to an immigration officer.

All the very best with your application - keep us posted.

[Jellybean105]

You mentioned that you don't have some of the requirements in your original application, so they didn't mention that in the letter?
In our letter is says 'a decision on your application is due by 15/02' so I'm assuming ours will take that long As they also gave us another letter stating we can go to garda.

[JosephineO]

They didn't ask us for any other documents, even though we didn't send the payslips, tax cert or letters from the prtb (which we have now btw).

No idea why our application was accepted so quickly but I'm not planning on asking!

They might take until Feb to process your application then, but if you are doing everything legally they shouldn't have any reason to deny residency. All the best.

[jeupsy]

Either they have dramatically improved their process, or you go very lucky

Good for you anyway! And let's see if other people have the same experience.

I very much doubt you did anything special with your application which made them process it faster that others. Every single piece of feedback posted here in the past few years said the process took exactly 6 months (including for some extremely well documented applications).

[sheffield]

Hi everyone

I've posted a few times and was really appreciative of the great advice we received. So I wanted to let you know that my husband received his Stamp 4 EUFam Residence Card yesterday, for the full five years, only five weeks after we sent the application to the INIS! So in the interests of helping those in a similar situation, here is our shortened story:

I'm British and my husband is Guatemalan. We had been living in Guatemala together since we got married a year ago but wanted to be closer to my family in the UK. We couldn't move to the UK however because a) we didn't have the money for the two year spouse visa and b) I didn't meet the financial requirement and didn't want to separate from my husband to get a job in the UK and then have him join me months down the line. So because of solid advice from a friend who had moved to Ireland with his Peruvian wife and son, we decided to try moving to Dublin exercising my EU Treaty rights.

We arrived on 1 July in Dublin together (see this post for details of questions asked by the Immigration Officer - http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... highlight=). We then focussed on finding a permanent place to live and getting proof of address. When we had proof of address (our estate agent wrote us letters) we applied for PPS numbers. Once we received our PPS numbers we opened up a bank account. I found permanent full time office work and started on 6 August. We then filled in the application for a residence card on Form EU1 sending off most of the paperwork to the INIS except for a few documents (i.e. my tax certificate/p60, two payslips and letters of residency from the Private Residential Tenancies Board) asking if we could send the documents once we had received them. Out letter was received on 12 August. We received a letter dated 10 September on Monday 16 September returning our passports, marriage certificate etc. stating that our application was being processed and that they would be in contact in due course. Then on Wednesday 18 September we received a second letter dated 13 September stating that our application had been accepted as we fulfilled the relevant conditions set out in the Regulations! We went down to the GNIB offices on Burgh Quay on Friday 20 September at 8am with our passports, marriage certificate and the 13 September letter from the INIS, my husband had his photo taken and his fingerprints taken and by 10:30am we were out, complete with the full five year stamp in his passport and the Stamp 4 EUFam Residence Card!

It was incredible how quickly our application has been processed. My boss said that he received a call from someone at the INIS asking if I worked for the company. But other than that I don’t think any other checks have been made. We haven’t been charged anything whatsoever and are just so happy.

So there is a bit of good news for you! There is hope after all.

All the best
very good news .

i need help i live in uk and i want 2 move ireland .i d nt knw what to do .my wife she britsh she goig 2 come with me but she want 2 com bk in uk .they come and check plese advice me plz and wich area is good in ireland
Josephine

[meleryan]

Congrats! it was really swift!

[imran nadeem]

I think you got 5 year because you already had 3 month visa
if you read rules 3 months is issued with out any formalities and once you have it then comes application for 5 years

[peter001]

Great News ' JosephineO ' , & Congo ! ,..... Can you confirm me one thing please ,,, I have read ur P60 & last two pay slip points all clear to me , but did u provide them 6months of bank statement or anything ? or just contract of your full time permanent employment thats it ? 6months bank statement is optional ? please confirm thanks..............

[kunfayakun]

Guys it was in 2013, check the post date , at the moment 12 weeks to get the stamp 4

[adedayoh]

This post was from 2013,
Ppl have me cracking up with all the excitement, with inis now it's a waiting game, my husbands application took 6.5 months.
They are so busy now the waiting time is ridiculous.
It can be frustrating but hang in there guys.

[kunfayakun]

This post was from 2013,
Ppl have me cracking up with all the excitement, with inis now it's a waiting game, my husbands application took 6.5 months.
They are so busy now the waiting time is ridiculous.
It can be frustrating but hang in there guys.

you are right but do you know any options for us to have stamp 4 quickly? can we request like we have a job offer and we need the passport and right to work certificate to show the employer? do you think it would work?

[adedayoh]

Hi,
Trust me all you can do is be patient, even though it's absolutely ridiculous that they are taking 12 weeks for temp letter.
I know another board member contacted solvit and they advised that they are aware of the delay and ppl just have to be patient

[kunfayakun]

Thanks for your response, but what if I write a letter to them saying I need my documents back urgently and non EU got an job offer, the employer needs to see our documents so do you think would they do something favourable?

[adedayoh]

To be honest with you, don't think it will change anything becoos employers shouldn't offer a position unless they are certain of your status in the country.

If the EU citizen needs their passport that can be requested but the non EU passport will be retained until they reach a decision.

[kunfayakun]

Oh yeah I got you, so the only option is patients let's see if I am lucky enough to receive the temp stamp soon please pray for us...
Many thanks for your replies adedayoh