Applying for Permanent Residency as a EU National - HELP! Post Reply

[M&mmum]

Hello!
I am trying to plan ahead of the mess that will be Brexit when it fully hits and attempting to apply for a Permanent Residency Certificate online. (I have EU passport & married to UK citizen & have lived in the UK for over 30 years)
It seems that you have to send away your passport which is fine but I'd still like to be able to go on holiday this summer...
Does anyone know how long the process usually takes?
Any past experience welcome!
Thanks!

[sid_seal]

If you apply online you should be able to use the council's Nationality Check service, so no need to part from your passport.

[papinian]

If you apply online you should be able to use the council's Nationality Check service, so no need to part from your passport.

This is not true. Wandsworth Council will check applications for British citizenship and indefinite leave to remain. It will not check application for EU permanent residency.
https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/nationality

The Home Office is trying to make it as difficult and inconvenient as possible for EU citizens to obtain evidence of permanent residency.

[sid_seal]

OK, sorry - it is called European Passport Return Service:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... rn-service

Wandsworth is not on the list of local authorities who offer it, but Lambeth, Merton, K&C are. Worth checking with them, it doesn't look like you can only use the service if you are a resident of that Borough.

[papinian]

sid_seal: Thank you for the update.

The fact that Wandsworth Council fails to offer this service when other London councils do shows as lies the statements by the Conservative mayor and councillors about EU migrants being welcome in Wandsworth.

[broodje]

You don't have to send your passport - you can send a national ID card instead. That's what I did - I applied for one especially for this purpose as I never needed it before. My embassy did it in 2 weeks. My understanding from German friends is that their embassy is facilitating this process as well - they got theirs very quickly and with minimum hassle re docs required.

[Monkey_mami]

Hi M&M,

I would suggest you call the Home Office and see what they tell you, they have been very helpful every time I've contacted them. If you need to apply via EEA(PR), I just did this, a few things to know:

- You can send the application with a National ID card instead of your passport but you cannot travel for the duration of the application. Know that you may need to send your husband's (who is your 'sponsor') passport as part of the application but can request it back after the application has been processed (9 week in my case). When you call the Home Office you may want to check if you can send his birth certificate instead.

- If you are a EEA national you cannot use Wandsworth's Nationality Checking Services, application needs to be sent directly to Home Office. There is also no option to expedite the application as if the case for ILR.

- The EEA(PR) application is 85 pages long and once you include all supporting docs it it will probably contain over 200 pages, in our case including every single trip both me and my husband had made since we moved to the UK. Its annoying to put together but not hard to do.

- Time line might go something like this: day 1- application received, day 3 - fee deducted from your account, day 30 - letter to get biometrics (at post office, do this immediately), day 35/40 - certificate of application issued (at which point you could ask for passports back). From here you wait, they very specifically tell you no updates will be available for up to 6 months from the date they issue the application certificate (NOT when they receive the application). For EEA nationals the wait seems to be around 3-4 months, for people outside the EEA married to EEA national is 6 months almost to the day. The card itself arrives within 10 days of return of your documents.

The silver lining in all of this is that the 12-month period from issuance of permanent residence until you can apply for citizenship starts running the day they receive your application.

You may want to wait and see what happens once Art 50 is triggered and the Home Office decides what to do with EEA citizens. You have been living in the UK legally for decades and are married to a British citizen, I have to believe they will stream line the process of permanent residence for people in your situation.

I am no expert in immigration matters but I just went through this process recently. Happy to answer any question I can help with if you'd like.

Good luck!

[windmill26]

Maybe I am seeing this in a simplistic way but here are my two pence worth...EU citizens are still free to move to the UK at the moment even after the Brexit vote .I don't think it is fair to ask someone that has been living here for years to apply retrospectively for residency.I think that if we are going ahead with this train-wreck it should have a cut off date from which if you want to come to live here you should be applying for some sort of visa (like in Australia or New Zealand).

[oab]

I did the application recently as well, you can indeed apply with a national ID card if you have one.
If you apply and send in your passport, I had been advised that you can request your passport back at any time but they suggest waiting for 3 months before you do that so that the application is not slowed down.
I cannot remember having to send my husband's passport (UK citizen) though...

[windmill26]

Papinian,I am affected by all this,I am from southern Europe! Call me naive if you like but as you have stated at the moment"anyone from any other EU member state can exercise their legal right to work, study or retire in the U.K. without any need for a visa."
So, here we are until Theresa the Appeaser comes up with a solution and a cut off date to stop free movement between the UK and EU countries.

[Annabel (admin)]

Hi Everyone
This is a really useful thread that can genuinely add value to our users - please can we keep all comments friendly!

Thanks

[papinian]

This is a really useful thread that can genuinely add value to our users - please can we keep all comments friendly!

It seems that my post naming the two local Conservative MPs who voted against an amendment guaranteeing the continued right to reside in the U.K. of existing EU migrants was sufficiently unfriendly that you deleted it. Let's all be super-naice and not dare to question the voting choices of our elected representatives

It also seems that telling those who are not affected by any of this that they should stop telling those of us who are not to panic is unfriendly.

Annabel, you should show some respect for those of us who are affected by this.

I was particularly disgusted at the following intervention that you made on another thread:

I have also been asked to point out that the vote carried s a three line whip and, as such, the scope for MP's to vote against this three line whip was limited, thus only one Tory (Ken Clarke) broke ranks.

When did it become your job to act as apologist for local Conservative MPs? Shouldn't they post themselves if they have something to say?