OK so now I have my EEA2 residence certificate thing in my passport. I cannot thank enough the people here who have helped me through this insane process. Here is my story in brief in the hope it will help others:
I am Australian. My wife is Hungarian / Australian. We moved from Oz to England around 18 months ago.
I came over with my FMRS and my wife joined the Worker Registration scheme.
My FMRS expired after 6 months, as they do, and I then had to apply for the next stage, I can't even remember what that thing is called, but it lasts a year.
Note that just after the FMRS expired and just before I applied for the next stage, I was offerred a great job at high pay, and when I went to start, the payroll company would not accept me because they did not understand the whole EU / FMRS / Residence / EU rights etc.. so basically, I lost that job, which was just great. I then had to submit my passport for the next stage after FMRS, and in the weeks before I had my Certificate of Application, pretty damned hard to get a job.
Now, that all could have been avoided if I had set up a limited company beforehand, because the payroll would have been handled differently. So it may be a good idea to setup your own company like that, although who knows how much it will help in reality.
OK, so then I have my one year "name forgotten" stamp thing. Life goes on normally for awhile.
But when I start a new contract a week before this stamp expires, well, the company is pretty confused about how this all works. Their expensive HR lawyer doesn't really understand it and thinks that EU family members don't have rights here (!?) but checks and still is not totally sure. Conflicting and weird vague advice from home office to the company. Luckily, since I was using my own company, and already signed contracts, and home office eventually said a Certificate of Application is OK, the company I was doing work for begrudgingly allowed me to continue working. They nagged me for the certificate for weeks, I had to ring and chase HO to get it. Then they started asking me when the passport would be back, I said it takes around 6 months for the HO to process it. Eventually they stopped asking.
So, applied for the Residence Card. Expected wait of up to 6 months (or more). Following advice from this board, sent all applications to Liverpool, not Croydon, for me and my wife.
OK so now it is 5 1/2 months since application for the Residence Card. My wife is getting anxious and wants to call HO - I tell her perhaps don't make them angry. So she calls. THEY HAD NOT EVEN LOOKED AT IT. She is not happy and tells them to get cracking. A week later, she calls again - they STILL have not looked at it. My wife is pretty angry about this.
Wife: "Isn't there an EU requirement to get it done by 6 months?"
HO: "I don't know." ... they sort of check it out and get manager
Manager: "Oh yes we try to get them back by that guideline."
Wife: "Well that's not good enough I want ot make a complaint"
HO: "Well, you can write to our complaints department"
Wife: " That's not good enough, what is the address of the ombudsman?"
HO (quite distressed, gives the address)
Now, after threatening them with the ombudsman, my passport arrives one week later. After not touching it for 5.5 months, suddenly it was all processed and returned. One week after that, my wife's passport returns.
Am I recommending everyone ring and threaten them with the ombudsman? I don’t know, well, MAYBE. It is a bit of a joke to let something like this drift for 6 months + … for us, it has stuffed up chasing work, and made it impossible to travel, to go to conferences etc.. I also have a friend who recently had her father die, and because her passport was tied up, it took days to get it returned, and she missed the last days / funeral of her father. Nice. By nice, I mean TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.
Anyway, thanks again for all the help. I hope everyone else gets their things sorted out smoothly and speedily.
Good luck.
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