Post
by Embankment » Sat Apr 11, 2015 1:28 am
For those of us who are waiting for the Residence Cards, here’s a post from someone (just registered!) who has been “covertly” browsing this forum for the best part of nearly a year, and whose wife just got her Residence Card a few days back. I’m not sure if I will do further postings here (mostly because I’m busy, and also I wanted to “forget” this nightmare), but my conscience told me it would be mean if I secretly browsed here, got the Residence Card for the wife, then vanished without a trace. Maybe a “meanie” might do it, but I’m not one!
My situation is a Swiss citizen with a Chinese wife. I’d like to keep all names and dates “anonymised” and approximated, if only for personal reasons.
We entered in August 2014 and I basically got a job the next month. After a few other procedures which involved a deed poll (not a huge name change), I submitted my request for the Registration Certificate in mid-December 2014 in Croydon. I waited at the place for about an hour (I was told 90 minutes or so) until the gentleman came back with my certificate. It turned out to be much faster than usual. I have to say the caseworker was a very nice gentleman.
Items submitted:
• Completed EEA1 form
• All printouts of payment files from UKVI
• Swiss passport and ID
• Pay slips (x2) from my place of work
• Work ID that my place of work gave me
• Deed poll (just to be sure)
Just a note that the Registration Certificate for Swiss citizens is what my fiction books from my young day might describe as “fiendishly pink”.
The next day I submitted my wife’s Residence Card application. We had feared this day for 7 months, and it would be nearly another 4 months before this almost year-long nightmare was over.
I was up until 05:30 (!!!!!) in the morning, obviously with my wife never too pleased, but I made sure all files were packed correctly. I had gotten from the Tesco the other day a few A4-sized transparent “file envelopes” so I packed all of them in order.
• One for the EEA2 form
• Another for all originals
• Final one for all copies
Here’s what was sent over (photocopies for all except EEA2 form):
• EEA2 form
• Wife’s Chinese passport
• Original China-issued marriage certificate PLUS bilingual notary, legalised by China and the UK
• Because China’s marriage IDs include identity document numbers, both the passport and the ID card (originals and copies) as mentioned in the marriage ID itself
• Certificate of Civil Status for Swiss nationals, clearly mentioning my Chinese wife
• My Registration Certificate (EEA1) and my Swiss ID card
• Just to make sure again, my deed poll + explanation
• To confirm treaty rights were being exercised, my pay slips (x2)
• Tenancy Agreement, Council Tax Bill, and Bank Account Statement, showing the names of both of us
• A few pictures showing us from the year we first met through to the last autumn
• “Just for the heck of it”, a recommendation letter from an academic colleague, if only to prove that “we existed in marriage” as viewed by a third party
This was not easy because my wife also used an English name not on her passport (50% of Chinese romanisation names are virtually unpronounceable!). Thus we had to use both of her names nearly everywhere.
We posted it during the lazy part of the year (everything Signed For, photographed, and postage proof safely kept), when we had all the UK bank holidays in the universe (Christmas, New Year, Easter). About a week afterwards, we got confirmation by post from the Home Office (with a very long reference number). Just a few days into the new year, we got the Certificate of Application with my wife officially granted the right to work (no surprise, as I learnt later, because we had in her passport an EEA Family Permit). This also came through via email to her inbox.
I have skimmed through the forums to the situation in Dec 2013 – March / April 2014, and have found out that ours was “slightly delayed” over one that was nearly the same timeline as ours a year back. I was up very late at times just to check how things were going. There was also no day that really went by without me checking when we got our Signed For pre-paid packages back. (Now I’m going to have to re-use these later on.)
About a week ago I found out from this board that UKVI was going to be asking extra questions. This time I stayed up until 04:00 (!!!!) in the morning and again this drove both of us insane. I started preparing evidence to show the Home Office just in case they wanted to see we weren’t “faking it”. Luckily we included things like the Bank Statements, Tenancy Agreements and Council Tax Bill in our original application, so Liverpool must have thought we were “authentic”. I started digging even into the dates some of our family members came to the UK (just for a quick visit). At around the same time I asked for her passport (plus my “old” passport) and her ID card back.
A few days back, we received the whole package with her Residence Card in her passport (all passports and IDs, and a whole stack of other files, all included, by surprise!). (I signed for her downstairs as she was doing some crazy Spam magic, as I might imagine. Ah, the weird and wonderful world of Chinese cuisine!) Being Swiss, we are more “inert”, and so nobody around our place heard the explosion of champagne or cartoon-inspired “mad shout outs” (although now both of us feel massively relieved). We just got our passports together and headed for our car as if nothing happened.
Her Residence Card now reads “Residence Card of a Family Member of a Swiss National” but otherwise the vignette is exactly the same as for a non-Swiss, EU / EEA citizen (I Google these all the time).
During all this time both of us went out with at least some kind of photo ID. I went out with my Swiss passport and she had another kind of China-issued passport-like ID that had her name in Chinese and English. With these we were able to get UK railcards and even hop onto BA flights inside the Common Travel Area (except to the Republic of Ireland, and also to Gibraltar). She also always carried her Certificate of Application along, as well as a photocopy of her passport and EEA Family Permit. Needless to say, we can now leave a tonne of paperwork at home from now onwards.
The final word of advice I have for all of us that are still waiting for Liverpool to play “catch-up” would be:
NEVER GIVE UP HOPE.
Congratulations to those who got their Residence Cards.
Fingers crossed for those who are getting it soon.
Sympathies to those that the Home Office refused.
A refusal is not the end of the world.
had home visit on 1st April.. Let's see how many more days I'll have to wait .....!!!
why my solicitor did not go for a prepaid envelope is beyond me considering what I pay the guy.