My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

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Oct 3rd 2018, 3:35 pm

#1456

BritInParis

Joined: Feb 2012

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Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splitprism

You may be correct on the visa application, they have her passport so I can't check at the moment, I checked the initial application, which details the outline, it specifically states that she was coming to the UK to be married but I'm fairly sure I did the application as a fiancee, we had to provide all documentation regarding the date of the Marriage, (Is there a difference between a marraige visitor visa and a fiancee visa?) the location and the booking details as well as the receipts for the payments, but regardless, as you correctly pointed out, the application failed on her English ability as well as the incorrect visa, the appeal is in and it's providing us with time to get her to a sufficient level of English to get through the IELTS.

There's a very great difference between the two. The former merely allows you to visit the UK and get married; the latter permits you to marry and apply to stay. Your wife almost did apply for a Marriage Visitor visa as any fiancée application without evidence of the English language requirement being fulfilled would've been refused. If your wife has enough time to sit her IELTS test in the UK before she needs to leave then that is what she should do. Ensure that you are applying for the correct IELTS exam type - the wrong one will lead to a refusal.

Quote:

We don't want to ever go back to Brazil, it's too dangerous at the moment, they are suffering huge levels of crime, the corruption is horrendous, we would have to live in a gated community, heavily secured with armed guards to live a half normal life, within a month of returning, I specifically would be targeted as someone of means, a very probable victim of car hijacking minimum, and would need to obtain a firearm for our protection. Brazil is going through a period of huge economic failure, it won't be long before civil unrest engulfs certain parts of the country, we have no desire or need to become victims of that.

That's obviously concerning but presumably that's where you were both living until very recently. Crucially your wife will need to apply for her spouse visa from a country where she is a legal resident.

Quote:

We don't mind going to Portugal and enjoying the country for however long it takes, I thought that as soon as she has the IELTS cert, we can apply from Portugal, we don't need her to be in Brazil, just outside the UK, and as I referred to earlier, was long as she gets the IELTS, there should be no more obstacles as long as we apply for the correct visa.

As mentioned she will need to be a legal resident of the country from which she applies from. You cannot just go to Portugal for an extended holiday and apply from there. As an EU citizen then you are entitled to move to Portugal and take your non-EU spouse with you but you would need to jump through whatever hoops the Portuguese bureaucracy will place in front of you to gain residence for you both before she would be able to apply. Again with Brexit looming that may not be a particularly safe option.

Quote:

What is annoying, without going into a long rant about the unfairness of the British Immigration system is, that at 65, the Language problem ceases to be a problem under current rules, we are both almost 60, so a little discretion would have been welcome, not to mention the fact that I have less rights in my own country than an EU citizen in similar circumstances who doesn't need to jump through hoops to get into my country or me to get into his, I need to prove more to my government than he does to my government (did I mention not going into a long rant

)

You don't need anything other than a valid British passport; your wife however does not have the automatic right to come to the UK simply by marrying you. That disappeared in 1949. While I agree that certain aspects of the spousal immigration process are unduly inflexible the UK is no better or worse for spousal immigration than comparable countries; it just has a different set of hoops to jump through.

Quote:

Digressing, so, the conclusion is, the SS route may continue through any transition period, but as we will fulfil the Spouse visa option within a year, we will follow the rules and shell out more money than we need to if we had taken the perfectly legal SS route,

I don't want to go through the SS route due to the fact that we have a refusal and of course, it's going to look as if we had used the route to circumnavigate the expensive route, Which in effect could have been true, but only for the reason it's so difficult to actually get through the quagmire of rules to do the right thing.

I'm starting to wish for a Corbyn government

The SS route is not something I would be recommending at this late stage. You will likely need to spend anything of up to a year or more living there and integrating with Portuguese society to convince the Home Office that you have genuinely 'moved the centre of your life' there rather than just pitching up in an attempt to circumvent the spousal immigration process.

Nov 16th 2018, 6:35 am

#1457

spidergirl6

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Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Hi was wondering when we go back to the uk with a article 10 card can my husband work or do we have to wait for the residance card

Nov 16th 2018, 11:24 am

#1458

BritInParis

Joined: Feb 2012

Location: Not in Paris

Posts: 18,194

Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by spidergirl6

Hi was wondering when we go back to the uk with a article 10 card can my husband work or do we have to wait for the residance card

Technically he can but your husband would have difficulty proving his right to work. Better to apply for an EEA Family Permit and use that for the initial six months whilst you wait for his EEA residence card to arrive.

Feb 7th 2019, 5:11 pm

#1459

spidergirl6

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Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Hi does anyone know how you go about getting a residance card in the uk for your family member

Apr 1st 2019, 1:27 pm

#1460

AngelaV

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Posts: 185

Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

We got PR !!!!

Hey there if you're still following this thread, I started this journey on the British Expats Forum almost 6 years ago and it's been a long and sometimes stressful journey but we received our Permanent Residence last week (22nd March).

We applied using EIND Caselaw so I must admit, I was rather nervous as I couldn't find any success stories after the 'Qualified Person' condition came into play and as my circumstances hadn't changed during the SS saga and I am still my daughter's full time carer, I took the risk. Thankfully the application stating N/A under EIND and quoting the EIND caselaw in the cover letter wasn't challenged. In fact, our documentation on the 25th March, unopened so I can only assume that they didn't look at the documentation sent, although I know of someone who received their PR the same day who did receive a call to ask about their employment history. I guess that we either had an experienced, knowledgeable assessor or an extremely lazy one.

Good luck to everyone still to apply.

Angela

Jun 1st 2019, 3:54 am

#1461

Chloe93

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Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelaV

Hi Angela,

Thanks for sharing your experience! So glad that you successfully finished your long jurney now.

My husband and I are going back to England next year through Surinder singh. We know it’s quite late stage and nobody knows what the Brexit will affect. But we will try it anyway as we already live in another EU country and want to go back to England.

I have some questions about it if you don’t mind.
We live in Portugal now and my British husband is self-employed. He recieves his income in Portuguese back account and registered tax number and self employed here. It will be appriciated if you could share the documents you proved to apply for resident card? I serched lots of posting about this and not very sure how detail we have to prepare.. also do we have to translate all the documents that is not in English?

also do we have to apply for EEA family permit first before we go back to England? We apply it in Portugal?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Last edited by Chloe93; Jun 1st 2019 at 3:57 am.

Jun 1st 2019, 10:11 am

#1462

BritInParis

Joined: Feb 2012

Location: Not in Paris

Posts: 18,194

Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chloe93

Next year? It is a distinct possibility that the UK will be leaving without a Withdrawal Agreement on 31 October. I hope you have a Plan B.

Jun 1st 2019, 7:49 pm

#1463

Chloe93

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Joined: Jun 2019

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Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by BritInParis

Next year? It is a distinct possibility that the UK will be leaving without a Withdrawal Agreement on 31 October. I hope you have a Plan B.

Thanks for the reply.
we do have plan B, But we thought it’s worth to try as it’s free of charge and we also would like to go back.
do you know anything about documents for SS?

Jun 19th 2019, 11:37 pm

#1464

BritInParis

Joined: Feb 2012

Location: Not in Paris

Posts: 18,194

Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chloe93

Thanks for the reply.
we do have plan B, But we thought it’s worth to try as it’s free of charge and we also would like to go back.
do you know anything about documents for SS?

I do but that’s a broad subject. Do you have any specific questions about the documentation you’ll need to provide?

Jun 20th 2019, 5:53 am

#1465

Chloe93

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Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Quote:

Originally Posted by BritInParis

I do but that’s a broad subject. Do you have any specific questions about the documentation you’ll need to provide?

Sorry about my broad question..
My husband is self-emplyed, He works online and paid through Portugess bank account.
So My husband's work contract, his payslip(6months?), his bank account, registration of taxes
Is that enought to prove that you’ve worked as self employed?
Also,
-our marriage certificate
-my residency cards from Portugal/the prove my husband registered in portugal
-our joint bank account
-our rental agreement for the house
-our internet, water/gas, electricity bills under our names
-my passport and my husband's passport
- our cards showing registration at the local health center
- library cards from local public library
- 10 pictures of us in Portugal with our local friends and friends, England.
Anything more do we have to prepare?

Questions..
1) Do we have to translate all of them into English?
2) for the bills, do they have to be original copy or can I juat print out on the website as I pay online?
3) I believe we can apply for family permit in Portugal and enter to the UK. Once we get the femily permit for 6 months, will we possibly get 5 years resident cards in the UK?

Thank you so much for your help.

Sep 27th 2019, 5:54 pm

#1466

rickster000

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Re: My experience of going the Surinder Singh route so far

Hi All,

Question for anyone with experience of the Pre/Settled Status form or process -.

Is it likely to be an issue if the non-eu spouse does not have a tax or social security number from the host state (even if the BritCit does)?

Thanks