GETTING MARRIED AFTER APPLYING FOR EEA EFM

[whyouhere]

Hi everyone!

I will try to keep this as short as possible. I moved to UK from Russia in 2014 and met my partner in 2015. At that time i was an asylum seeker but my application got refused in 2016. Ever since we met each other we have been seeing each other literally everyday, and after couple of months we became bf and gf. In 2016 we applied for EEA EFM, we didnt officially live together but i was staying at his family house at all times. i got my COA with right to work , but they refused the application because there was not enough evidence and we were not together for 2 years yet.

we have moved together December 2017 and before that i stayed with him and his family. Now we have lived here for 8 months and have been going out since 2015. We have been thinking about getting married and i asked my solicitor about it, she advised me to apply for EEA EFM again, wait for COA letter and with that to go to registry office and give notice. Then she said it usually takes up to 70 days for home office to reply. After we get our marriage certificate, she said we can apply for EEA FM as a married couple in order for me to get RC.

Only one thing is that since my first eea got refused, i havent applied for anything wich means i was here illigaly. it scares me because we were just thinking to wait and get more evidence but now after reading some posts here i am concerned that it may affect some things.

can anyone advice me on what i should do please?

[Casa]

What nationality does your partner hold?

[justanotherchilli]

whyyouhere, I'm assuming your partner is an EU citizen and he is a Qualified Person?

If so, for EEA(EFM) you need to think laterally when providing evidence of your cohabitation. For the period of time you were living with his family, can you and him find letters/documents that were sent to each of you that were addressed to the same place? I would gather as many of these as possible including statements from his family members, your friends and your family attesting to the authenticity of your relationship. For each person who provides a statement you should also get them to provide a copy of their passport so that there is evidence that these are real people. Also send photographs of both of you on holidays, at family gatherings etc. Do you have wedding invites where the couple have written both your names on the same invite? These are things you need to gather if you don't have the required evidence for the period of time when you didn't have joint tenancy.

Your situation is a lot more complicated than mine as you are technically illegal here. You could give notice to the registrar of your intention to get married after submitting your EEA(EFM) application like we did, but in might very well be investigated and your notice period extended to 70 days. I have heard horror stories of Home Office threatening to deport people during this time. However, I don't have statistics on how often this happens. It could be just the very few cases.

An alternative is to get married overseas (say in Denmark) and make sure your partner brings documentation with him to prove that he is a qualified person. That way, you will have your marriage certificate and his QP documents when you re-enter the UK, and I think they have to let you in as he is exercising treaty rights and you will be his direct family member. Then you could apply for EEA(FM) from within the UK. They might still choose to investigate your marriage if they suspect it is a sham marriage, but if your relationship is genuine, you should be fine. I would ask your lawyer about this route.

Good luck!

[Casa]

What nationality does your partner hold?

[whyouhere]

whyyouhere, I'm assuming your partner is an EU citizen and he is a Qualified Person?

If so, for EEA(EFM) you need to think laterally when providing evidence of your cohabitation. For the period of time you were living with his family, can you and him find letters/documents that were sent to each of you that were addressed to the same place? I would gather as many of these as possible including statements from his family members, your friends and your family attesting to the authenticity of your relationship. For each person who provides a statement you should also get them to provide a copy of their passport so that there is evidence that these are real people. Also send photographs of both of you on holidays, at family gatherings etc. Do you have wedding invites where the couple have written both your names on the same invite? These are things you need to gather if you don't have the required evidence for the period of time when you didn't have joint tenancy.

Your situation is a lot more complicated than mine as you are technically illegal here. You could give notice to the registrar of your intention to get married after submitting your EEA(EFM) application like we did, but in might very well be investigated and your notice period extended to 70 days. I have heard horror stories of Home Office threatening to deport people during this time. However, I don't have statistics on how often this happens. It could be just the very few cases.

An alternative is to get married overseas (say in Denmark) and make sure your partner brings documentation with him to prove that he is a qualified person. That way, you will have your marriage certificate and his QP documents when you re-enter the UK, and I think they have to let you in as he is exercising treaty rights and you will be his direct family member. Then you could apply for EEA(FM) from within the UK. They might still choose to investigate your marriage if they suspect it is a sham marriage, but if your relationship is genuine, you should be fine. I would ask your lawyer about this route.

Good luck!

Hi, thank you so much for your reply. Yes, he is a qualified person. I dont mind if it gets investigated because our relationship is genuine but i am afraid they might take me. Do you know if this ever happen to anyone and if it did would they let me go after they confirm that it is not a sham marriage?

Another thing is that i don't have any sort of id to be able to go anywhere. My passport is at the home office but it has expired about a year ago.. If i apply for EEA EFM and get the COA, does that not mean i am no longer illigal? I am thinking to attach a letter explaining my whole situation.

Thank you!

[whyouhere]

What nationality does your partner hold?

HI. He is Romaian.

[whyouhere]

whyyouhere, I'm assuming your partner is an EU citizen and he is a Qualified Person?

If so, for EEA(EFM) you need to think laterally when providing evidence of your cohabitation. For the period of time you were living with his family, can you and him find letters/documents that were sent to each of you that were addressed to the same place? I would gather as many of these as possible including statements from his family members, your friends and your family attesting to the authenticity of your relationship. For each person who provides a statement you should also get them to provide a copy of their passport so that there is evidence that these are real people. Also send photographs of both of you on holidays, at family gatherings etc. Do you have wedding invites where the couple have written both your names on the same invite? These are things you need to gather if you don't have the required evidence for the period of time when you didn't have joint tenancy.

Your situation is a lot more complicated than mine as you are technically illegal here. You could give notice to the registrar of your intention to get married after submitting your EEA(EFM) application like we did, but in might very well be investigated and your notice period extended to 70 days. I have heard horror stories of Home Office threatening to deport people during this time. However, I don't have statistics on how often this happens. It could be just the very few cases.

An alternative is to get married overseas (say in Denmark) and make sure your partner brings documentation with him to prove that he is a qualified person. That way, you will have your marriage certificate and his QP documents when you re-enter the UK, and I think they have to let you in as he is exercising treaty rights and you will be his direct family member. Then you could apply for EEA(FM) from within the UK. They might still choose to investigate your marriage if they suspect it is a sham marriage, but if your relationship is genuine, you should be fine. I would ask your lawyer about this route.

Good luck!

My partner is also going to send his application for PR as an EU citizen. We want to send it just before we send in EEA EFM submitting all the evidence we need.

[justanotherchilli]

I think the best you can do is apply for the EEA(EFM), give your notice to get married and take it from there. I can tell you for sure some people have been detained by reading other posts here. I was also panicking about this because I did not know what my status was after my visa had expired. Some people were saying I was technically illegal even though I submitted an in-time EEA(EFM) application before my visa expired. There are many theories out there but the truth is, Home Office is not consistent. I'm sure it partly depends on blind luck as to who your case worker is as well.
If I were you, I'd provide as much evidence as possible of your cohabitation and relationship as I could. I ended up submitting 2kg worth of documents with a detailed, timeline format cover letter explaining our evidence.
Our case was definitely not straight forward either and everything went really smoothly so who knows. For instance, my now husband and I cohabited for 3 months before we moved to the UK and we had no formal lease or joint bills. I just got our then flatmate and our work mate to write a statement for us, and provided some correspondence that was addressed to each of us separately. Then we travelled around Asia together for three months too before we got here. Then we crashed with my brother until we got on our feet. We didn't officially get a lease together until November 2016 and we applied for the EEA(EFM) in May 2018. Theoretically we were 6 months short of the "desired" evidence required to prove cohabitation. This proves that there are case workers in there who are reasonable.
Just do the best you can. Be absolutely thorough and air tight with your evidence and your partner's QP documents and make sure you talk to your lawyer about the support you're likely to receive should you be detained. That's worth paying money for!

Good luck and keep us updated!