My Canadian wife and I (UKC) are looking at potential Surinder Singh route (EU Directive 2004/38/EC) for her to be able to immigrate to the UK. She currently has an application for Settlement with UKBA but it's currently on hold while the Home Office appeal a recent High Court decision on the Minimum Income Requirement.

My wife's eldest is getting married in the Philippines in December, and if her application hasn't been resolved by then, she'd either have to miss her son's wedding or ask for her passport back (which withdraws her application according to UKBA).

If she withdraws her application, we've decided that rather than having to reapply again, going the Surinder Singh route and working & living a minimum of 3 months together in another European country is probably an easier option. According to the EU Directive, my wife would also be entitled to work while we do this.

Our questions are, how easy is it to get a short-term (3-6months) rental property, how do we apply for the local version of an NI Number and how long does it take, and does anyone know of anyone who's already done this route?

There'll be more questions I'm sure. We're looking at Eire, Portugal, Germany and France (Euro Disney/Paris) at the moment, and will post this in those fora as well.