appeal for refusal of EEA family permit

[Hawk269]

Hi

I have received a refusal notice for my application for an EEA family permit to accompany my wife to the UK.

The grounds for my refusal was as stated by the ECO :

'Ihave refused your EEA family permit application on this occasion because I am not satified that you meet aal of the requirements of Regulation 4 and & of the Immigration (EEA) REgulations 2006.

The ECO's reasons and supporting evidence is as follows:

it is clear from the documents you have submitted with your application that you and your wife(the EEA national) intent to go to the UK for you (me) to undertake an internship for approx. 6 months. Your wife wife has shown no intention of exercising any treaty rights while in the UK, and this made apparent at question 136 where you state it is your wifes intention to continue to receive danish unemployment benifits while you are both living in the UK. I am therefore not satified that the EEA national of whom you are a family member of is a qualified person.

Finally, you (I) have submitted no evidence to show your EEA national wife has suffient resources not to become a burden on the social assistance system during the period of residence in the UK.

My wife is a Danish Citizen and I am South African, we've been married and living in Denmark for the last 5 years. She is a recent gratuate (june 2009)with a Masters Degree in Engineering and I am the final year of my Masters Degree in International Business Economics.

Does my wife really have to prove her intention for entrying the UK?? if so?? how?? as for the Regulation 6 'qualified person' does that even apply to EEA national as it is stated under directive 2004/38/EC that a EEA national should be treated as a 'jobseeker' for a period of 3 months and a jobseeker under regulation 6 is a qualified person.

regarding regulation 4, I have (in my appeal bundle ) provided evidence by means of a letter from her bank stating that she has 'sufficent funds' in access of and equivilant to ' £5500'

The unemployment benifits I mentioned are only for a period of 3 months and is facilitated by private company in denmark which is designed for providing unemployment or jobseeker insurance for recent engineering graduates. and is receivable upon registeration with a UK 'jobcenter' . (I have also provided evidence of this in the form of a EEC letter from the Danish unemployment insurence company of which my wife is a member.

As further evidence I has also provided her CV,letters of recommendation from places she previously worked at in the UK and Denmark. As well as a copy of her Masters degree.

Is this enough to have my refusal overturned?? What are my chances??

any advise will be highly appreciated.

Thank you

[Obie]

it is clear from the documents you have submitted with your application that you and your wife(the EEA national) intent to go to the UK for you (me) to undertake an internship for approx. 6 months. Your wife wife has shown no intention of exercising any treaty rights while in the UK, and this made apparent at question 136 where you state it is your wifes intention to continue to receive danish unemployment benifits while you are both living in the UK

What evidence do they have of this? Is that what you told them?

I don't think this meets the threshold for him to refuse you on grounds of Article 35 (Abuse)

They don't need to be satisfied that your wife would be a qualified person after 3 months.

Family members who are not nationals of a Member State
shall only be required to have an entry visa in accordance with
Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 or, where appropriate, with
national law. For the purposes of this Directive, possession of
the valid residence card referred to in Article 10 shall exempt
such family members from the visa requirement.
Member States shall grant such persons every facility to obtain
the necessary visas. Such visas shall be issued free of charge as
soon as possible and on the basis of an accelerated procedure.

Issue of EEA family permit
12.—(1) An entry clearance officer must issue an EEA family permit to a person who applies
for one if the person is a family member of an EEA national and—
(a) the EEA national—
(i) is residing in the UK in accordance with these Regulations; or
(ii) will be travelling to the United Kingdom within six months of the date of the
application and will be an EEA national residing in the United Kingdom in
accordance with these Regulations on arrival in the United Kingdom; and
(b) the family member will be accompanying the EEA national to the United Kingdom or
joining him there and—
(i) is lawfully resident in an EEA State; or
(ii) would meet the requirements in the immigration rules (other than those relating to
entry clearance) for leave to enter the United Kingdom as the family member of the
EEA national or, in the case of direct descendants or dependent direct relatives in the
ascending line of his spouse or his civil partner, as the family member of his spouse
or his civil partner, were the EEA national or the spouse or civil partner a person
present and settled in the United Kingdom

This ECO seem to have got things wrong or a bit confused about the rules. You have to explain to him that one doesn't have to be a qualified person until after 3 months.

Right of residence for up to three months
1. Union citizens shall have the right of residence on the
territory of another Member State for a period of up to three
months without any conditions or any formalities other than
the requirement to hold a valid identity card or passport.
2. The provisions of paragraph 1 shall also apply to family
members in possession of a valid passport who are not
nationals of a Member State, accompanying or joining the
Union citizen.

[Hawk269]

Hi

thank you for the reply!

I stated on my application that my danish wife intends to recieve funds (a kind of a unemployment insurance for newly grads) as a supplimentry form of income, this fund only last for a period of 3 months from the moment of her arrival in the UK and pending she registers with a 'jobcenter' in the UK to prove that she is actively seeking employment as not to be a burdan of the UK social system.

Along with my initial application i proved a letter from the company I had found an internship with, as proof that i would be employed when i get to the UK.

The evidence i submitted with my appeal was :
-Notice of refusal
-Notice of Appeal to the AIT (AIT-2 form)
-My wifes CV
-Letters of recomendation from a company she worked at in Denmark as well as a letter from her previousd employer in the UK (she was in the UK 8 years ago for ½ a year on a working/vacation (before she started uni)
-A letter from her bank showing the amount of cash she has available to her.
-As well as a letter and conditions of the fund she is to recieve (which is accordance to Regulation (EEC) No. 1408/71 -Article 69)
- A copy of her Masters Degree
-A letter stating the grounds of my appeal, clarifying what i ment by ' Unemployment benifits' as well as siting Directive 2004/38EC

Is this sufficent?? I sent all this documents back to the UK visa office in Copehagen,DK (as i was instructed to on my letter of refusal)

I agree with you that the ECO did things confused because he/she sited a violation of Regulation 6 on me wifes part (an EEA national), which is in contradiction to Directive 2004/38EC

I was further told by the UK consular center that a decision would be reached by the ECO in 20 days, is this true?? if so what are my chances that this decision would be overturned with the evidece I provided?

Thank you for your advice

[Hawk269]

Obie, thank you for your advice!

The refusal of my EEA family permit had been reconsidered and the decision was overturned by the ECO! ( it took aprox. 6 weeks from date of refusal) My wife and I currently in the UK !

again, thanx for your help!

[Obie]

Excellent stuff. I am pleased that you succeeded. Their refusal doesn't hold any veracity.

Apologies for missing your subsequent question.

Hope you are having a great time in the UK. Next hurdle to cross is the resident card obviously

[MAKUSA]

Obie, thank you for your advice!

The refusal of my EEA family permit had been reconsidered and the decision was overturned by the ECO! ( it took aprox. 6 weeks from date of refusal) My wife and I currently in the UK !

again, thanx for your help!

Congrats mate, did you fill out an AIT-2 form and did you get the reconsideration decision in writing or via email?

[Hawk269]

Thanx guys!

First-Class Moron : yes I did fill out an AIT 2 form (as well as providing additional evidence to support appeal) The ECO contacted me directly via telephone to inform me that I should to come back in to the embassy with my passport and for more Biometric scans, after that was done it took the usual length of time for them to send me back my passport (5-10 days)

Obie: No worries about other question I asked your first answer gave me all the info i needed:) as for the residents card, thats fore most on my mind now. I am still unsure as what the next step is, my EEA permit is only valid for 6 months should my wife and I plan on stay in the UK for an indefinite period of time what do we need to do to extend my visa or apply for a residence card? what are the requirements and what forms do we need to fill out?

Thank you

[Obie]

Please note that the EEA family permit is valid for six months, but under the directive, your wife will need to be a qualified person by the end of your three months stay for your residency to be lawful.

She will need to be exercising treaty rights at the end of the 3 month in the capacity of a Self-Sufficient person, Employed or Self Employed, Jobseeker,or Student , for you and her to qualify for residency under EU law.

Also, although not compulsory, will need to apply for Resident card for Family Member of EEA national on Form EEA2 and she would need to apply for Registration certificate on Form EEA 1 to qualify.

Please note that if your wife intends to exercise treaty rights as a Self-Sufficient person, she would need to be in possession of a comprehensive Sickness insurance and evidence of resource, to show that she will not become an unreasonable burden to state funds.

I wish you all the best.

[Sophia32]

Hello !

I came across to this page and I feel like I am in the same situation with you. For me, I need to do the internship in England for 6 months so I applied for an EEA Family Permit. And it was successfully approved for the first time but it is valid until the 28th of August. It doesn't work out for me as my internship will end up in November. Therefore I applied for the second time while mentioning the date of entering and leaving. Anyway, they refused my application with this message :

"I am therefore not satisfied that your spouse is residing in the UK in accordance with the EEA Regulations.
You have failed to provide evidence that your EEA national family member is a qualified person in accordance with Regulation 6 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006. I am, therefore, not satisfied that your EEA national family member is residing in the UK in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006."

For the information about me, I am originally from Thailand and my spouse is French. We live together in France. My spouse works in Africa for 5 weeks and later he will be on holidays for 5 weeks as well. The internship will last for 6 months and my spouse will spend his time with me for 3 months in UK. For the first entry, he will also come with me and stay with me for 1 month. Each holidays, he will join me in UK and he will also be there in the last month of my internship. We will go back to France together.

I would like to know that how come the first EEA was approved but not the second one ?
And what should I do next ?
I am thinking about reapply an EEA Family Permit. Is it recommended ?

I am really so tensed because this internship is very important for my studies