Enter via Calais

[nt16]

Hi there,

We entered the UK via Harwich International Port back in April under Surinder Singh rules (me UK national, my partner non-EEA national) without a Family Permit and using only our Article 10 Residence Card issued by another country. At the border we explicitly asked for entry under European Directive rules and the officer complied (but did ask for a supervisor because he was a little unsure what to do himself).

It was pretty clear we were moving here for the long term as our car was stuffed full due to moving house.

We were granted entry without much of a fuss, but our entry stamp looks like the one uploaded - i.e. identical to a tourist stamp. Note that it does not mention anything about "no recourse to public funds" or "work prohibited" or anything else like that.

Since Code 1A was decommissioned, there has been sparse information over the internet about what the EEA dependant stamp looks like. I sort of expected somewhere in the stamp to mention "6 months" or "EEA Regulations" or similar, but there's none of that in our stamp.

Did we get the correct stamp? Or could someone who has entered under similar circumstances to us upload their version?

Many thanks!

Hi ninmurai

I am looking to do the same but via calais. Can you assist by answering some of the questions below:

1. Where were you exercising your EU treaty rights and for how long?
2. What documents did you bring with you? Did you have to translate them in English such as utility bills or bank statements issued in non english speaking EU country.
3. What questions were you asked? Did he ask how long you were going to stay for?
4. Which day of the week did you travel and was it in the morning or evening? Was it busy?
5. Did you not find any issues when boarding (assuming you boarded from holland)? Immigration controls?

Thanks for your help.

[noajthan]

To avoid confusion & jumbled responses, I have moved your question to its own thread (this one).

[ninmurai]

Hi ninmurai

I am looking to do the same but via calais. Can you assist by answering some of the questions below:

1. Where were you exercising your EU treaty rights and for how long?
2. What documents did you bring with you? Did you have to translate them in English such as utility bills or bank statements issued in non english speaking EU country.
3. What questions were you asked? Did he ask how long you were going to stay for?
4. Which day of the week did you travel and was it in the morning or evening? Was it busy?
5. Did you not find any issues when boarding (assuming you boarded from holland)? Immigration controls?

Thanks for your help.

Hi!

Bear in mind we were moving house, so everything that belonged to us was somewhere in our car if they wanted to search us, so we weren't short on documentation.

1. Netherlands, 3 years

2. Certificate of Registered Partnership (multilingual, English included), 3 years of payslips (English), employment contract (English), Tax, utilities and medical bills in both our names(All Dutch), Copy of 2004/38/EC with relevant parts highlighted (English), Copy of Immigrations Act with relevant parts highlighted (English), letter from Home Office to confirm our rights not to require an EEA Family Permit.

3. We weren't really asked anything. We spent quite a bit of time holding up the rest of the line though we were 2nd or 3rd from last. He didn't ask for a single bit of proof, not on work or relationship, despite having spent hours neatly organising everything!

I basically had to tell him what to do, and I said my partner was entering under "European Treaty Rules" and that we held an "Article 10 Residence Card" so we don't have an EEA Family Permit. He thought our residence card was for Dutch law only and not applicable in the UK so I had to correct him, and I had that letter from the Home Office and also a printout from Gov.uk to confirm that it was ok to enter using Article 10 card. He didn't ask how long we were staying (it doesn't matter anyway, Eind case), nor did we give a landing card. Though in hindsight we should have given the landing card as the stamp we got was different to what we should have got! Our was the standard tourist stamp without the "work prohibited" parts (rectangular, rounded corners), whereas it should have been a different one (rectangular, square corners).

4. Hook of Holland to Harwich daytime sail on a Friday, so arrived at Harwich on a Friday evening. Loads of cars ahead of us, but we were right at the end so they could have held us up for as long as they wanted, but it was all surprisingly easy.

5. No problems whatsoever. The Immigration agents can't stop us leaving! Our only concern was that her residence card might be taken away because we had de-registered our residence from the town hall, but we kept our card. It's a rather handy one to have when travelling around Europe actually!

[nt16]

Hi!

Bear in mind we were moving house, so everything that belonged to us was somewhere in our car if they wanted to search us, so we weren't short on documentation.

1. Netherlands, 3 years

2. Certificate of Registered Partnership (multilingual, English included), 3 years of payslips (English), employment contract (English), Tax, utilities and medical bills in both our names(All Dutch), Copy of 2004/38/EC with relevant parts highlighted (English), Copy of Immigrations Act with relevant parts highlighted (English), letter from Home Office to confirm our rights not to require an EEA Family Permit.

3. We weren't really asked anything. We spent quite a bit of time holding up the rest of the line though we were 2nd or 3rd from last. He didn't ask for a single bit of proof, not on work or relationship, despite having spent hours neatly organising everything!

I basically had to tell him what to do, and I said my partner was entering under "European Treaty Rules" and that we held an "Article 10 Residence Card" so we don't have an EEA Family Permit. He thought our residence card was for Dutch law only and not applicable in the UK so I had to correct him, and I had that letter from the Home Office and also a printout from Gov.uk to confirm that it was ok to enter using Article 10 card. He didn't ask how long we were staying (it doesn't matter anyway, Eind case), nor did we give a landing card. Though in hindsight we should have given the landing card as the stamp we got was different to what we should have got! Our was the standard tourist stamp without the "work prohibited" parts (rectangular, rounded corners), whereas it should have been a different one (rectangular, square corners).

4. Hook of Holland to Harwich daytime sail on a Friday, so arrived at Harwich on a Friday evening. Loads of cars ahead of us, but we were right at the end so they could have held us up for as long as they wanted, but it was all surprisingly easy.

5. No problems whatsoever. The Immigration agents can't stop us leaving! Our only concern was that her residence card might be taken away because we had de-registered our residence from the town hall, but we kept our card. It's a rather handy one to have when travelling around Europe actually!

Hi ninmurai
Thanks for all the answers. Much appreciated.

Hope the rest goes smooth for you.