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Hello,

A friend of mine is a US citizen married to a German citizen. He has a family member residence card valid until 2017. His wife wants to take a promising job offer in Germany, while he wants to continue working in the UK. They are not divorcing or separating; they just decided to live in different countries for a while for career reasons.

Will it be legal for him to continue working in the UK (provided his existing permit is still valid) while his wife lives and works in Germany? I'm aware it will not be possible to apply for residency after five years if his wife wasn't exercising the treaty rights all the time.

Thanks a lot. I googled quite a bit but I couldn't find an answer to this particular question.

Does she intend to make regular trips to the UK? If she remains outside the UK for more than 6 months per year her residence will be broken, but any time she re-enters his leave will return to validity. The simple answer is that is is possible but not strictly legal.

Yes, she will be making regular trips to the UK and he'll be travelling to Germany as well. They expect to see each other every 2-3 weeks, just living between two homes. She's got a bank account and an address in London but her official place of work is going to be in Germany.

So, it looks like as long as she isn't abroad for more than 6 months, her husband's residence permit is still valid?

Yes, but they need CSI as she will be self sufficient in the uk rather than a worker.

Thank you, Lucapooka. Sorry, just to clarity: does is mean that there should be no absenses from the UK for longer than 6 months or that she should spent at least 6 months in total every year in the UK?

The latter, six months in every year (annual cycle rather than calandar jan - dec)

From maverick1983's description I understand that the German wife will be essentially living in Germany and only be in the UK for a weekend or so once or twice per month. So she will not even be close to the six months minimum to spend in UK per year and can of course not credibly claim to be exercising treaty rights in the UK.

So the Residence Card of her husband will become invalid. As has been pointed out very often on this forum, rights under the EEA regulations are usually acquired automatically (application for documentation is merely to confirm these rights), but then they can also be lost automatically when you no longer meet the requirements.

Still the couple can go ahead with their plans as described, just hoping that the UK authorities will not find out about it (which I think is very likely to be the case).
Don't awaken sleeping dogs, as we say in my country.

maverick1983 wrote:Hello,

A friend of mine is a US citizen married to a German citizen. He has a family member residence card valid until 2017. His wife wants to take a promising job offer in Germany, while he wants to continue working in the UK. They are not divorcing or separating; they just decided to live in different countries for a while for career reasons.

Will it be legal for him to continue working in the UK (provided his existing permit is still valid) while his wife lives and works in Germany? I'm aware it will not be possible to apply for residency after five years if his wife wasn't exercising the treaty rights all the time.

Thanks a lot. I googled quite a bit but I couldn't find an answer to this particular question.

I would suggest you study directive 2004/38/ec carefully and thoroughly.

Generally, if the EU national is absent for less than six months - no problem. Specifically, can be absent for up to one year for important reasons - eg job-posting.
May be possible for non-EU citizen to retain rights of residence if they meet the requirements.

An non-EU national, whose family member is not exercising treaty rights and has no other means of legal stay would not be entitled to work.

Lucapooka wrote:Yes, but they need CSI as she will be self sufficient in the uk rather than a worker.

can this self-sufficient route work during the divorce,when EEA is out of the UK.(less than 6 months).