EEA Family Permit or Residence card?

Hi

My unmarried partner has been living with me for 2 years in the UK (i'm Italian, she is Australian on a youth visa)

Her visa expires soon and we are looking at two options:

1. Family Permit. She flies home to Australia to get a family permit (unmarried partner) then returns
2. Residence card. She applies for a residence card as an extended family member of an EEA National.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Is there any reason at all to waste the money flying home to get a family permit if she can apply for a residence card?

2. if she applies for a residence card, will the "Certificate of Application" be enough for her to stay with me when her youth mobility visa expires (in may 2017). Im aware this process could take up to 6 months.

I had an appointment with an immigration lawyer a month ago and the residence card option wasn't even floated as an idea, which is why i'm skeptical about it.

Any info would be great, thanks

Dave

scuzzi86 wrote:Hi

My unmarried partner has been living with me for 2 years in the UK (i'm Italian, she is Australian on a youth visa)

Her visa expires soon and we are looking at two options:

1. Family Permit. She flies home to Australia to get a family permit (unmarried partner) then returns
2. Residence card. She applies for a residence card as an extended family member of an EEA National.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Is there any reason at all to waste the money flying home to get a family permit if she can apply for a residence card?

2. if she applies for a residence card, will the "Certificate of Application" be enough for her to stay with me when her youth mobility visa expires (in may 2017). Im aware this process could take up to 6 months.

I had an appointment with an immigration lawyer a month ago and the residence card option wasn't even floated as an idea, which is why i'm skeptical about it.

Any info would be great, thanks

Dave

1) FP gives initial right to work for 6 months.
Whether that is good enough reason to 'waste' time and money on a roundtrip down under is your call.

2) You don't need a COA or RC - your sponsorship as Union citizen who is a qualified (or settled) person is enough to confer the right to reside, work, study on your spouse.

RC is merely confirmatory (although useful).
And COA is just temporary.
No guarantee that COA comes with confirmation of a right to work.

3) What kind of advisor was that?!

Hi Dave,

Can I ask what you and your partner have decided to do? I'm in a similar situation - Canadian on a youth mobility visa and my boyfriend is Irish. I know that if I apply for a residence card it will take 6 months and my YM visa would have expired then and my COA will give me no right to work, while leaving to apply for the EEA family permit will at least show I can work and stay here legally.

Let me know!

Lily

EEA family permit can be requested in any UK embassy in the world, it's not necessary to go to Australia, you can just book a flight to (for example) France, and ask EEA FP from there since Australians don't require visa to enter the Schengen Area.
However even if EEA FP gives right to work the majority of employers don't know about that because the Permit is not included in the lists of documents that give right to work in the UK

You don't need a COA or RC - your sponsorship as Union citizen who is a qualified (or settled) person is enough to confer the right to reside, work, study on your spouse.

Technically you don't, however without a family permit and no other visa to support your right to work, you will fail a Right to Work check if an employer runs one. It's not technically a fail but it does say that the HO cannot provide a legal reason for you to be allowed to work and since you're unmarried, you don't have a single document (such as a marriage licence) to prove your relationship. It's unlikely an employer will take the risk.

I've just been through this exact scenario and I wish I had got the family permit. I went without work for 3 months and it would have been a lot easier to have the family permit first so I could keep working after my Tier 5 expired.