Applying for FLR after failing SS

Hello everyone,

I'm a non EU national, my husband is British and we got two British daughters together, we decided to apply for FLR after coming here March last year and having two refusals in our SS applications

We feel settle here, my husband found a job relatively quickly after searching for jobs for several months in SS country, our girls are happy here with my husband's family and the oldest one loves school. We know they are going to have a better future here and I would be heartbroken if we had to leave because of my and we really don't want to be separated for several months so FLR was the option we thought

So my questions are, am I right to think that the application we would need is FLR (fp) 10 years route as I don't hold any visa at the moment.

I'm hoping maybe someone has been in a similar situation than mine or maybe undestands a little bit more than me about the subject and can orientate me more about the documents that needs to be submitted with the application as I feel most of the information provided on gov.uk is more dedicated to other FLR categories and maybe someone can advice me in documents that are not mentioned in the official web page and could help, i.e we were thinking in attaching letter to the application from husband,family in law, maybe school teacher if she would like to help confirmating how settle the girls are and also work contract and wage slips to show husband can provide for the family, is there anything else we should include and I'm not realising?

Any help will be so much appreciate it as we are a little bit lost at the moment

Thank you very much for your time


Michelle

Anyone please? Casa maybe?

I can only come up with an FLR(FP) application, but maybe others have an alternative suggestion. Does your husband's income now meet the required £18,600 p.a ?

Casa wrote:I can only come up with an FLR(FP) application, but maybe others have an alternative suggestion. Does your husband's income now meet the required £18,600 p.a ?

Thank you very much Casa for replying my post.

Yes he does meet the requirement, however I thought the financial requirement as well as the english test was just for 5 years route and for the 5 years route the only way to apply for one is if I'm in a visa already and as I don't have any visa at all I need to optate for the 10 years route as my only choice, am I right? Maybe I got it all wrong

Thank you again for your time, you are very kind

I've spent some time reading through the Immigration Directorate Instructions and I believe that in the circumstances and having no existing leave, you should apply for FLR(FP) Private Life 10 year route. Here's the link, but the guidance may take some time to digest.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... t_2015.pdf

Stand by for advice others may have to contribute.

Casa wrote:I've spent some time reading through the Immigration Directorate Instructions and I believe that in the circumstances and having no existing leave, you should apply for FLR(FP) Private Life 10 year route. Here's the link, but the guidance may take some time to digest.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... t_2015.pdf

Stand by for advice others may have to contribute.

Thank you so much Casa for taking your time and reading this for me, it means a lot to me it really does, just to have another one reading the same information so I can compare it and make sure I'm in the right road is great

Have a great night, and hopefully someone that has applied in this category can suggest other documents to add to my application

Thanks again


Michelle

FLR(FP) seems appropriate.

Why did you fail SS? Was it because your children were not with you and therefore you did not move your "centre of life" to the EEA country? Or also because of lack of job there?

Did you appeal?

vinny wrote:FLR(FP) seems appropriate.

Why did you fail SS? Was it because your children were not with you and therefore you did not move your "centre of life" to the EEA country? Or also because of lack of job there?

Did you appeal?

Hi Vinny thank you for your reply

We fail doing SS because originally we didn't knew we were doing the route, we met in Spain 7 years ago got married had two little girls there and everything was fine until we runned out of jobs and our only choice was to come back here, where my husband is from to try for a better future. The problem was that after 7 years of living there not one day he worked in Spain but commuted to Gibraltar everyday, we knew there was a big risk in getting refused but we thought we might have a chance as we can really prove our centre of life's being based in Spain.
But well, here we are, trying another route and hoping this time we can make it right

Thanks again!

Hi everyone,

I'm an argentine national married to a British national we lived together in Spain for seven years where we had our two daughters.

In March 2015 we came to the UK where I entered without Fp I applied straight away for a residence card using Surinder Singh route, on November I got refused because I didn't provided with British passport (my husbands) so I made a new application the same month this time with the British passport and I got refused late May because of centre of life this time with right to appeal so I did it at the beginning of June 2016.

By now my British husband is working and luckily he earns more than the threshold for spouse visa. So I'm starting to put all the paperwork together for leaving and doing spouse visa. I'll be leaving on my own but there is this thing in the back of my mind every second of the day.

Would Home Office consider me as an over stayer and put a ban for me to re enter the UK for a year? This could be probably my worst nightmare as I am leaving my girls and my husband here and I'm basically throwing myself at the mercy of the Home Office


Thank you guys for your time

I'm not very knowledgeable on the SS route but on the understanding I have your refusal seems harsh.

Essentially then you are an overstayer who entered UK on the visa waiver scheme? The one year ban won't apply to you as my hubby was also an overstayer of a visitor visa but our spouse visa application was successful first time. Make sure you have all the evidence they ask for when you apply, ask any further questions in this thread, there is a great core of people here with the expertise to advise.

KatieWills wrote:I'm not very knowledgeable on the SS route but on the understanding I have your refusal seems harsh.

Essentially then you are an overstayer who entered UK on the visa waiver scheme? The one year ban won't apply to you as my hubby was also an overstayer of a visitor visa but our spouse visa application was successful first time. Make sure you have all the evidence they ask for when you apply, ask any further questions in this thread, there is a great core of people here with the expertise to advise.

Thank you so much Katie for your reply

I'm not sure what it means being a visa waiver? I came to the UK without any visas because my country is a non visa required to enter. Although I appreciate now that it would had been helpful to had a fp but you know, you learn by your mistakes unfortunately

I'm very glad you commented me your case with your hubby successfully getting a spouse visa first time after having a complicated case like me. It gives me a little bit of relief

Also now that I'm putting all this paperwork together, on the letter from our landlord, the one that he needs to write stating that he doesn't have objections of me staying in his house. I asked our real estate to pass this request to our landlord and the real estate reply by providing me the no objections letter signed by the account manager of the real estate when I emailed them back asking them why it wasnt the landlord the one writing the letter they said they manage the house on the landlords behalf therefore they have the power to issue and sign the letter, is this sounds right? Am I going to have any problems because of this?


Thank you so much for your time I really appreciate it x

michelle25 wrote: I'm an argentine national married to a British national we lived together in Spain for seven years where we had our two daughters.

In March 2015 we came to the UK where I entered without Fp I applied straight away for a residence card using Surinder Singh route, on November I got refused because I didn't provided with British passport (my husbands) so I made a new application the same month this time with the British passport and I got refused late May because of centre of life this time with right to appeal so I did it at the beginning of June 2016.

Seven years is a long time. I suspect the UKVI may have great difficulties in refuting at the Appeal that you and your family's centre of life had not been in Spain.

Yes the visa waiver scheme just means that you're from a country whose nationals don't need to apply beforehand. Your passport was likely stamped with a visitor visa for a validity of 6 months, after that 6 months you are technically overstaying as your RC applications have been refused.

As hubby can sponser you for the UK route then you are probably in a better situation as no-one knows what will be the outcome for those on the EU/SS route. Rules changed recently and it has become more difficult.

With regards to your landlord, it sounds like he has the estate agent managing the rental, it's quite common, he will pay them a monthly fee to manage the property for him. Include all the correspondence regarding landlord's permission with your application, I imagine ECOs are used to it but it's better to cover your back to avoid silly refusals.

Is hubby earning the required £18,600 and has wage slips/bank statements to cover the last 6 months?

vinny wrote:

michelle25 wrote: I'm an argentine national married to a British national we lived together in Spain for seven years where we had our two daughters.

In March 2015 we came to the UK where I entered without Fp I applied straight away for a residence card using Surinder Singh route, on November I got refused because I didn't provided with British passport (my husbands) so I made a new application the same month this time with the British passport and I got refused late May because of centre of life this time with right to appeal so I did it at the beginning of June 2016.

Seven years is a long time. I suspect the UKVI may have great difficulties in refuting at the Appeal that you and your family's centre of life had not been in Spain.

You are perfectly correct Vinny. However absurd their Centre of Life test is , it will be clearly perverse to suggest that a person in OP's position will not meet it.

An FLR(FP) application is liklely to succeed, but i will pursue the Residence Card appeal, and make sure documents of you and your Husband's stay in Spain is documents.

I understand that because of the cost of Translation, many surinder singh applicant from non-English country are unable to provide adequate documentations , due to the cost of translation.

vinny wrote:

michelle25 wrote: I'm an argentine national married to a British national we lived together in Spain for seven years where we had our two daughters.

In March 2015 we came to the UK where I entered without Fp I applied straight away for a residence card using Surinder Singh route, on November I got refused because I didn't provided with British passport (my husbands) so I made a new application the same month this time with the British passport and I got refused late May because of centre of life this time with right to appeal so I did it at the beginning of June 2016.

Seven years is a long time. I suspect the UKVI may have great difficulties in refuting at the Appeal that you and your family's centre of life had not been in Spain.

Unfortunately they do Vinny, my husband worked all those years in Gibraltar. So they told me that my husband didn't focus his centre of life in Spain because he commuted everyday to Gibraltar to work

So although we met, lived, had our babies in Spain and most of my family lives in Spain I'm still thinking they have a good ground to win the appeal

No they don't. Your husband was a frontier worker in Spain.

In any event the law had been changed to include self Sufficient British Citizens also, and not only worker.

Obie wrote:No they don't. Your husband was a frontier worker in Spain.

In any event the law had been changed to include self Sufficient British Citizens also, and not only worker.

Yes I heard a little bit about this, the laws that changed on the last 25th of October? I'm still not sure if he would fall onto that category because he didn't had private health insurance

What would you do if you were me? I'm so lost right now

Would you stick to the appeal, leave and do spouse visa or stay and do Flr (o)?

What was your immigration status in Spain? Do you have any EEA residence documents from Spain, confirming that husband and yourself were residing/exercising free movement treaty rights under the directive there?

vinny wrote:What was your immigration status in Spain? Do you have any EEA residence documents from Spain, confirming that husband and yourself were residing/exercising free movement treaty rights under the directive there?

I met my husband there and I was already legal because I reunited my family that was living there when I was under 18 years old, right now I have permanent residence there.

My husband got his residence that comes in a form of A4 paper for Eu citizens they don't get a card

Do you have access to a Spanish passport- can you apply for citizenship?

Frontier Mole wrote:Do you have access to a Spanish passport- can you apply for citizenship?

Not anymore, I could had done that (I should have done that) but if I apply for citizenship I also need to provide how do I support myself and of course I'm not working in Spain anymore so I had lost that chance

Casa wrote:I've spent some time reading through the Immigration Directorate Instructions and I believe that in the circumstances and having no existing leave, you should apply for FLR(FP) Private Life 10 year route. Here's the link, but the guidance may take some time to digest.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... t_2015.pdf

Stand by for advice others may have to contribute.

I'm really really sorry for being a total pain but I'm really desperate and this is all I think about the now that I could possibly be leaving by the end of next month.

Is this the right thing to do? Should I leave the UK and apply for spouse visa? Could I possibly be refused if considered as an over stayer?

Or should I just stay and do flr 10 years route?

I know is probably more of a personal choice now but I feel so overwhelmed that maybe I'm missing something obvious and I'm not realising, what would be your choice if you were me?

Thank you guys for your time and help

michelle25 wrote:

Frontier Mole wrote:Do you have access to a Spanish passport- can you apply for citizenship?

Not anymore, I could had done that (I should have done that) but if I apply for citizenship I also need to provide how do I support myself and of course I'm not working in Spain anymore so I had lost that chance

Why would such a citizenship application depend on supporting yourself?

Why can you not apply based on some period in the past?

And how long have you been out of Spain?

noajthan wrote:

michelle25 wrote:

Frontier Mole wrote:Do you have access to a Spanish passport- can you apply for citizenship?

Not anymore, I could had done that (I should have done that) but if I apply for citizenship I also need to provide how do I support myself and of course I'm not working in Spain anymore so I had lost that chance

Why would such a citizenship application depend on supporting yourself?

Why can you not apply based on some period in the past?

And how long have you been out of Spain?

I'm not sure why they ask that, I suppose it is to show that I'm not surviving on Spanish benefits.

On March is going to be two years that I left

michelle25 wrote:I'm not sure why they ask that, I suppose it is to show that I'm not surviving on Spanish benefits.

On March is going to be two years that I left

So if you have already acquired PR (via EU migration route) in Spain it will be lost after 2 years absence.
If you want to explore citizenship there suggest return asap.