Dear all, I am starting this thread to post all the steps I have gone through during my EEA4 application. Long story so far:
I am non-EEA (obviously) married to self-employed EU. Married in Sep 2005, came to UK Jul 2008 obtained EEA2 in Aug 2008 (I kid you not! - less than 2 weeks to decide the case, I got my passport and documents before the COA letter arrived
). This is when such luck ended.
So EEA4 application.
Applied on EEA4 + EEA3 in Aug 2013 after 5 years of residence. Got a refusal in Feb 2014 - on the grounds that not enough evidence had been submitted (which is true - for all five years my dearest had only provided one bank statement, two invoices, three tax returns and one national insurance contributions receipt). Fun part - we separated with husband the same year, autumn of 2013, so the situation is now ...just bad ..been to A&E with all sorts of heart problems caused by all this three times already.
Letter stated I could have appealed the decision or applied again from scratch.
Consulted with three lawyers (all three "good and highly recommended"):
Lawyer one said applying again would only aggravate the situation, go to appeal pretending to be very much in love marriage
Lawyer two said since it were our fault for not having provided sufficient documentation, make a new application - correctly this time round, plus application times were currently worse than even application times
Lawyer three scared me with me being an overstayer now who should make use of the chance to appeal because this were the last HO would ever give me. But called me back less than 15 minutes later to tell me that she had just spoken with a barrister who had said that were not true for EU family members, and that according to some regulation 14 a family member did not even need to live at the same address as the applicant.. wow!
So confusing and scary..
Ended up tossing all lawyers and their business cards, gathered a tonne (not exaggerating) of papers, wrote a cover letter and sent off my EEA4 (no EEA3 this time).
HO received the documents on 11 Feb 2014 and as of yet - 28 Feb at time of writing!!!! - they had not taken the payment yet. Obviously, no COA either.
Don't know what to even think, have all sorts of horrible things going through my mind.. Will keep you guys posted. If you have any suggestions or advice, please let me know.. sort of beyond desperate (even not sure what's happening with my right to work right now, am I now breaking the law, am I a criminal now?.
)