EEA PR Application for the family member (Spouse)

[Vabli2]

Hi there,

I need urgent help for my PR application and I would highly appreciate expert advise in this confusing situation of mine.

I am a husband of my Dutch citizen wife. We are living in UK since 2009 and I was granted with an EEA family permit for 5 years valid till Oct 2014. But my EEA citizen wife stopped working in January 2011 because of child brought up and we did not have comprehensive insurance as well. My wife started working again as a Self employed person in 2013.

In 2014, at the date when my EEA Resident card was expired, I applied for a new residence card again instead of PR. Its because she had a gap in exercising the treaty rights as I have mentioned above.

But even that normal Resident card application of mine was refused on the basis that I did not provide sufficient documents for my wife's self employment. The refusal came with the instruction to leave the UK ASAP. I requested to re-consider my application providing more documents for the self employment for my wife, but Home Office replied that I should re-apply instead.

I did not re-apply for the next few months because I was concerned that Home Office might refuse me again since many people had told me that "Home Office does not consider self employment so seriously unless it is a very well-established business".

Looking at my position, my wife started an employment in late 2015 quitting self-employment. I applied with new resident permit with her new employment details and also provided all the previous self-employment documents explaining that I should have not been refused previously either.

I do not know if they had considered my explanation for the 1st refusal or self-employment documents this time either but they issued me with the brand new Resident card valid for 5 years. I believe that they just accepted my wife's new employment and neglected all of my explanation or for the 1st refusal or self-employment documents.

Recently my wife said that she has completed 3 years of her recent employment and if she add her previous self employment, she might be eligible for PR Certificate for EU citizen in UK. I was concerned that Home Office might not consider her first 2 years of self employment the same way they refused my application last time as a family member, but she insisted that since she was genuinely working as self employed so it should not be any problem.

She applied for PR online just for herself with 3 years employment and 2 years self employment history providing maximum documents for her self employment. Surprisingly she got her PR within 15 days.

Please advise me if I can now use my wife's PR card to apply for my Permanent Residence card? Am I not in the position to justify her exercising treaty rights in 2015 when Home Office had refused my application not considering the same Self-employment period for my wife? They have now accepted the same self- employment history for my Wife's PR application and approved it.

I will be very thankful for the kind assistance.