AshJK wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:24 pm
katerina_k wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:45 pm
Thanks for your detailed answer. Sorry, I should have explained my situation better.
According to my NI number I was offered a pre-settled status. I thought to provide evidence of me being in the country for more than 5 years, and thus hoping it would qualify for a settled status. I submitted all the documentation, but then i found 'EU settlement scheme caseworker guidance' , where it says that I have to be in the country for more than 5 years as a family member to qualify for settled status.
Page 39 on the following guidance :
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... h-v1.0.pdf
So I relied on this guidance as a reflection of the law
I have read this text before and to me this can mean one of two things.
- You could be perfectly right and this means you have to be married for the 5 yr period before you get settled status
- Or this only means that you have to reach the 5 yr point of legal residence in the UK AS the spouse of a EU national, or holding some derivative right to remain from the list of possibilities mentioned
At this point I don't want to venture a guess on what the correct interpretation is. We've seen no cases of non EU nationals who have got approved settled status to conclude anything based on data.
Personally I don't think being married for 5 yrs makes any rational sense as a requirement. The law states that even if you were married to an EU citizen about 5 yrs ago, and got a divorce after 3 months, you can still merrily get yourself settled status. It seems tremendously irrational to have a law that says being married to the EU national for the past 4 years when you lived in the UK for 5 is not good enough, but if you were married to someone 5 yrs ago, got a BRC issued and got a quickie divorce after 3 months, then that is perfectly good enough for you to get settled status.
Another situation I can think of is someone who was on a Tier 4 student visa for 2 years, then went on to a Tier 2 General visa for 2 yrs, then married a EEA national and decided to apply for the pre settled status. This person was one year away from getting an ILR. It makes zero sense to say that just because the person moved on to a EU settlement status, he or she is now expected to wait another 5 yrs for an ILR.
Anyway, time will tell on what the rule really is.
Rational or irrational, but I called the resolution centre in the evening and I was told by the caseworker that there is a note attached to my application. The note states that I can only be offered pre-settled status, since I only lived in the UK as a EEA spouse for one year ( and not 5 which is a requirment). Then the caseworked put another 'note' to my application, saying that he informed me of this information.
Hopefully things will speed up now.
And in terms of ILR, Tier 4 is not counted toward your ILR in the timespan on 5 years. I have been in the country for 8 years on Tier 4 and I am not eligible. You need to be working (=paying taxes) for 5 years to be eligible for ILR, thus this 2 year span on Tier 4 (from your example) is irrelevant. Or you need to be on different visa types for 10 years and then you will be eligible for ILR. Things get more complicated with marriage. Even if you are one year away from ILR and you get married and then,for example, switch to an old type of family residence card, all your residence years are 'annuled' and you need to live on this family visa ( i think the proper way to call it is EEA residence card) for 5 years to be eligible for ILR. I beleive these rules are applicable to the current settelment scheme as well.
Rationality is not the word that goes well together with the Home Office.