Surinder Singh questions

[Rob3K]

Hello all, I'm writing in the hope that one of you fine experts could help me to clarify a few things regarding the Surinder Singh route? The EU settlement scheme office is currently closed to phone calls and my three question and answer responses from them have been next to useless so far - a presume a result of the COVID19 chaos.

So, i'm a British citizen, and my civil partner is a non-EU national but is a legal EU resident with an Article 10 residence card here in Spain. We also have a dependent child who is a non-EU national. We've been residing together for a number of years and have all the documentation to prove it etc.

We're trying for the Surinder Singh route, which I understand we are eligible for as we've lived together in an EU country, we're in a formal civil partnership, we've made an EU our centre of life etc etc, so we seem to tick all the boxes. However I've just been looking over some of the application forms for the route which I've found via this forum and FOI reuests, and I'm trying to understand why questions on the applicaton ask you need to prove you've lived in the UK for 1 day in the last six months? Isn't the whole point of Surinder Singh that I am returning to the UK with them? In which case, they haven't lived in the UK yet? Could somebody wiser than me clarify this?

My other question is, and it's probably an impossible question in this climate of uncertaintly, but do you think it's realistic to expect the applications to be approved by mid-Sept (just over 4.5 months time)? As I have a teacher training job starting in Sept and we're all terribly anxious.

Any help or thoughts would be very much appreciated!

[worrieduk]

Hello,

I'm not an expert but my non-eu partner received pre-settled status under this route.

First we applied for an EEA Family permit in Germany (where we lived together) which allowed them to reside in the UK for 6 months(they could work, study, receive benefits etc). When we arrived in the UK I called the settlement scheme and applied for the application form (only Surinder Singhers have to use a paper form for some reason.) After sending all the relevent documents our application was approved after 5 months.

I think if you all come together on the EEA Family Permit you don't need to have you application approved to live here together by September, once you have that first permit you can come anytime but please note that it's valid from when it's approved, NOT from when you enter the UK, it took us about 3 weeks to get this permit but it might take longer with the current situation. To apply for settlement your non-eu partner needs to live in the UK for 1 day to be eligible.

I hope this helps.

[Rob3K]

Thank you so much for this, it's a massive massive help. Just one question however, how did you apply for your EEA Family Permit in Germany? When i've looked online, i'm stumped by the first question:

Select the category you are applying for: (Required)

Close family member of an EEA or Swiss national with a UK immigration status under the EU Settlement Scheme

Close family member of an Irish Citizen who does not have a UK immigration status under the EU Settlement Scheme, but would qualify for status under the EU Settlement Scheme were they to apply for it

Close family member of a relevant naturalised British citizen who would qualify for status under the EU Settlement Scheme were they able to apply for it

Family member of an EEA national

Family member of a Swiss national

Primary carer of an EEA national

Dependant of a primary carer of an EEA national

A travel permit to enter the UK because I have lost, damaged or had stolen my biometric residence card (BRC)

- Can I ask, how did you get your permit before travelling to the UK? I understand that you asked for your surinder singh paper application when you got home, but how did you get your first permit? Please help, many many thanks!

[worrieduk]

Hello Rob3K,

I went on this website: https://www.gov.uk/family-permit/surinder-singh

& I think I chose the "Family member of an EEA national" option.

It gives you all the information that you need to provide and there is also an "Apply for an EEA family permit" section on the same page (you'll have to scroll down a little bit."

Then it'll ask you where you live and all other necessary questions about your specific situation.

- Can I ask, how did you get your permit before travelling to the UK? I understand that you asked for your surinder singh paper application when you got home, but how did you get your first permit? Please help, many many thanks!

Gov.UK has "TLSContact Centres" all around Europe, luckily ours was in the same city but I've known other couples who've had to travel 5 hours one way.

When you fill out the application online it'll show you where they are.

For Spain it looks like there's one in Madrid and Barcelona.

You make your TLSContact appointment through the Gov.UK website (link above).

When we did ours, our appointment was free but we had to wait 3 weeks because the free appointments were all taken. You can pay for an appointment but they were a little bit pricey. You also have the opportunity to scan all your documents and upload them online before your appointment (I used a scanner app on my idiot-phone to do it) and your civil partner and the child need to leave their passports at the centre for the application, (we paid 80Euros to keep it as it was my partner's only form of ID.) You might not be able to attend their appointment with them but the centres spoke English (&German in our case).
They'll then have their biometrics taken (about 10 minutes) and then you leave. If your centre is far away from where you live you can choose the "send me my passport by post" option and they'll send the passport (and if approved) the EEA Family Permit will be in their passports as a sticker the same size as the passport page.
You'll receive updates via E-Mail but make sure to check the "JUNK" folder.
If you're on a time crunch, your partner and the child can travel without you, just make this clear in the application.

I hope this helps you! I know how stressful this whole process is but stay positive and just be honest and provide as much info as you can

I'm here if you have any more questions.

Take care