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Hi there!

I want to apply for the British citizenship this year, but first I have to obtain the document certifying my permanent residency. I read that any person from the EU that has been living in the UK for longer than 5 years becomes a permanent resident automatically. That means that I should not have any problems since I have been here since 2006, right?

My story is as follows:

- I arrived in Glasgow in 2006 and had worked full-time in different places until 2010 when I went to university (however, I was totally oblivious back than about the Work Registration Scheme card required for Polish citizens!; it doesn't matter as that specific law has been discontinued in 2011)
-in 2010 I went to university and graduated in 2014 (I did a paid placement year in a hospital), however again, I was not aware I needed CSI or even EHIC from Poland for period of studying here- nobody asked me or explained.
-in 2014 I graduated and started full-time work for the PHE and bought a house with my English partner

The question is: Can I be refused the certificate of permanent residency as I cannot produce the evidence that I exercised the Treaty Rights during my university years (lack of EHIC or CSI)?

Can I just add, I do poses English EHIC that I applied for in 2011 when I was travelling Europe. Additionally, I received full British student funding for the university including student loan, maintenance loan and bursary and I was also working between semesters to support myself.

What can I do if I will not be able to obtain permanent residency?



Thank you for the answers.
PJ

pjanec wrote:Hi there!

I want to apply for the British citizenship this year, but first I have to obtain a certificate of my permanent residency. I read that any EU member that has been living in the UK for longer than 5 years is automatically a permanent resident. That means to me that I should not have any problems since I have been here since 2006, right? I have few queries however as I am not so sure after reading the application form.

My story is as follows:

- I arrived in Glasgow in 2006 and worked full-time in different places until 2010 when I went to university (however, I was totally oblivious since arrival that I needed the Work Registration Scheme card as I am Polish citizen!, but it doesn't matter as that specific law has been discontinued in 2011)
-in 2010 I went to university and graduated in 2014 (I did a paid placement year in a hospital), however again, I was not aware I needed CSI or even EHIC from Poland for period of studyin here- nobody asked me or explained.
-in 2014 I graduated and started full-time work for the PHE and bought a house with my British partner

The question is: Will I be refused the certificate of permanent residency as I cannot produce the prove of exercising the Treaty Right by lack of evidence: EHIC or CSI from my university years?

Can I just add, I do have EHIC from England that I applied in 2011 when I was travelling Europe. Additionally, I received full British student funding for university including student loan, maintenance loan and bursary and also I was working between semesters to support myself. Will that help my case? Does anything like owning a property in this country matters in my case?

Thank you for the answers.
PJ

Whoa - slow down a little. It's not quite so straightforward as spending last 10 years in UK.

Unfortunately your lack of full and proper registration under WRS means your early years as a worker are forfeit;
your PR clock was not running and that time won't count towards acquiring PR.

Your carefree student years won't count towards acquiring PR either if you did not have CSI or a foreign-issued EHIC.
A UK-issued EHIC cannot help you here.

Its a longshot but could you have been covered by kindly parents' health insurance (from Poland) that extended to cover you in UK?
Or did you have a UK RC issued to you as a student in or before 2011?

Otherwise its no dice.
Working piecemeal during student years probably doesn't help as you will have had term-time gaps.

Owning a house or receiving student finance is immaterial when naturalising.

Its good you have now started to exercise treaty rights as in the worker category of qualified person, since 2014.
This will have regularised your presence in UK.
It also means you should acquire PR automatically sometime in 2019 (assuming no Brexit).

You will then be in a position to apply for a confirmation of PR card (DCPR) and shoot for the privilege citizenship sometime in 2020, ie after being free from immigration time restrictions for a further 12 months.

If you have a British spouse the 12 months delay before naturalisation is not necessary as you may apply under 6(2) of BNA instead of s 6(1).
That is one benefit (in immigration terms) of a BC spouse.

If the OP has spent 10 years in the UK, would ILR(LR) be an option, though he will need to have preserved a lot of paperwork for that (and cost a small fortune)?

secret.simon wrote:If the OP has spent 10 years in the UK, would ILR(LR) be an option, though he will need to have preserved a lot of paperwork for that (and cost a small fortune)?

My understanding is its discretionary whether HO permit an evaluation of time spent on the EU trajectory - and my further understanding is cw will be looking for legitimate exercise of treaty rights.

As there's no element of the UK immigration route in OP's case, if he had exercised treaty rights from day one he would have acquired PR by now;
he would have been home and dry in 5 years or so and so no need to contemplate the 10 year LR route.

Would that mean that as he was not exercising treaty rights in the formal sense (as per the Directive and Regulations), that all the time he spent in the UK would not count for even for ILR(LR) as he would have technically had no right to live in the UK for the those whole 10 years?

Then again, this shows the binary nature of EU law. Tick all boxes and you must be given everything. Miss one box and you lose everything. No discretion allowed.

Thank you for the prompt response, much appreciated! I will check with my parents about medical insurance cover between 2010-2014 in Poland.

One more question just to be perfectly clear. If I am 'legally' a resident in the UK since starting my full time job in 2014, do I need to be aware of any documents or anything I need to apply for, so I do not miss anything else?

Thanks guys,
PJ PJ PJ:)

P.S. What is UK RC???

secret.simon wrote:Would that mean that as he was not exercising treaty rights in the formal sense (as per the Directive and Regulations), that all the time he spent in the UK would not count for even for ILR(LR) as he would have technically had no right to live in the UK for the those whole 10 years?

Then again, this shows the binary nature of EU law. Tick all boxes and you must be given everything. Miss one box and you lose everything. No discretion allowed.

Well Simon, there are other fairly recent cases that failed LR due to an EU component failing due to lack of exercise of treaty rights.

pjanec wrote:Thank you for the prompt response, much appreciated! I will check with my parents about medical insurance cover between 2010-2014 in Poland.

One more question just to be perfectly clear. If I am 'legally' a resident in the UK since starting my full time job in 2014, do I need to be aware of any documents or anything I need to apply for, so I do not miss anything else?

Thanks guys,
PJ PJ PJ:)

P.S. What is UK RC???

A UK RC is a UK-issue residence certificate.
It is an optional confirmatory document you could have applied for to demonstrate your status in UK.

If an EEA national student had such a RC issued to them in/before 2011 there is a transitional arrangement that would exempt the need to demonstrate CSI was in place.
So if you had one you need to find it.

Assuming you have a NINO, can't think of anything else you need to do to legitimise your employment.
Just keep all evidence of employment, including: contracts, pay/bonus/promotion-type letters, P60s (P45s!), payslips & etc.

Thank you ever soooo much. You are a star!!

I spoke to my parents and my mum gave me a valid point. To start with, I was a mature student when entering university at age of 24. According to her I could not have claimed Polish EHIC card as I did not live in Poland since 2006. To claim EHIC insurance from Poland my parents would had to pay medical contributions for me in Poland, but they did not as I was independent adult living in England. Hence, I did acquired English EHIC in 2011. Why that does not matter? It was given to me by England not Poland? Why it would be issued to a foreigner? Was it based on me paying NI and taxed since 2006?

Second point is why the government classified me as 'home student' not EEU student when providing me with financial help for 2010-2014. Does that change anything?


Third, I did work throughout university, so I was paying NI. I was a bank staff for my previous chemistry laboratory between 2010-2012 and did all holidays and even 2 days a week some semesters. The third year (2013) I was on a paid placement and forth (2014) I was working for the hospital as a bank staff. I have got all the payslips to prove it. Does somebody who pays NI at uni needs to have a medical insurance? What are the rules of comprehensive sickness insurance (especially if I could not have Polish EHIC)? Is it like Bupa care?

But, let say that I did not exercise treaty rights, hence according to the law being here 9 years 'illegally', there is no way I could purchase a property. I read that high street mortgage cannot be acquired by a person living here illegally. I know I did get the mortgage in 2015 whilst employed, however does it that prove that my time in this country is spend as resident rather than migrant?

Please let me know if I have valid arguments or just being naive?

Many thanks.
PJ

pjanec wrote:I spoke to my parents and my mum gave me a valid point. To start with, I was a mature student when entering university at age of 24. According to her I could not have claimed Polish EHIC card as I did not live in Poland since 2006. To claim EHIC insurance from Poland my parents would had to pay medical contributions for me in Poland, but they did not as I was independent adult living in England. Hence, I did acquired English EHIC in 2011. Why that does not matter? It was given to me by England not Poland? Why it would be issued to a foreigner? Was it based on me paying NI and taxed since 2006?

Second point is why the government classified me as 'home student' not EEU student when providing me with financial help for 2010-2014. Does that change anything?

Third, I did work throughout university, so I was paying NI. I was a bank staff for my previous chemistry laboratory between 2010-2012 and did all holidays and even 2 days a week some semesters. The third year (2013) I was on a paid placement and forth (2014) I was working for the hospital as a bank staff. I have got all the payslips to prove it. Does somebody who pays NI at uni needs to have a medical insurance? What are the rules of comprehensive sickness insurance (especially if I could not have Polish EHIC)? Is it like Bupa care?

But, let say that I did not exercise treaty rights, hence according to the law being here 9 years 'illegally', there is no way I could purchase a property. I read that high street mortgage cannot be acquired by a person living here illegally. I know I did get the mortgage in 2015 whilst employed, however does it that prove that my time in this country is spend as resident rather than migrant?

Please let me know if I have valid arguments or just being naive?

Many thanks.
PJ

You have some good points.

Don't forget you are dealing with EU law that has been transposed into UK law for a very specific purpose.
Just because you are legitimate in one area of life (student home fees, house buyer etc) doesn't mean you automatically qualify for confirmation of PR.

1) Its a foreign EHIC that is required.

A UK-issued EHIC doesn't imply any settled staus.
It just means you are a 'burden' on the UK system (whether or not you actually use/d NHS is immaterial);
- which is why 'non-economically-active' EEA nationals (eg students) are supposed to have CSI or EHIC..

2) I don't know why you were classified as a home student.
Do you have copies of SF application forms &/or confirmation letters to explain the decision (and the rules under which it was made)?

It could be an administrative mistake.
In any case the rules for SF rely on being ordinarily/habitually settled for 3 years in UK; the requirement for acquiring PR is to be a qualified person continuously for 5 years.

So paying home fees doesn't equate to having settled status in the context of PR.

3) There may be some possibilities here.
It depends on the work and how regular it was. Were there any gaps?.

Having a contract and paying tax/NI helps.
You will need rock-solid documentary evidence to back your case.

EU law stipulates the work has to be genuine and effective rather than supplementary and marginal.

What does that mean?
You can get into the head of the caseworker weighing up and assessing your case here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _clean.pdf
- see page 11+

Takeaway:
If you are classed as a worker your PR clock will have started earlier and, depending on the maths, you may have acquired PR by now.
I leave that as an exercise for you.

4) If you were 'illegal' it was a technicality. You are not an 'overstayer'.
Noone from BF swat squad was going to come smashing down your door.

Banks/building societies make their own lending decisions based around identity and income.
Although proof of identity and income (being a worker/self-employed) contribute to acquiring PR, obtaining a mortgage does not prove you have acquired PR.

Next steps:
1) Have you checked whether you did have a UK RC issued to you as a student in or before 2011?
2) Dig into your student employment. Dig out any/all supporting evidence.

Suggest try filling in the PR form for a dry-run. See how it shapes up.

secret.simon wrote:Would that mean that as he was not exercising treaty rights in the formal sense (as per the Directive and Regulations), that all the time he spent in the UK would not count for even for ILR(LR) as he would have technically had no right to live in the UK for the those whole 10 years?

As the OP's right to be in the UK derives from the EEA Regulations, if he hasn't acquired PR he will have been in the UK unlawfully at some point. (There might be some contrived scenario where that isn't so, but I don't see any such possibility in this case.)

noajthan wrote: 4) If you were 'illegal' it was a technicality. You are not an 'overstayer'.
Noone from BF swat squad was going to come smashing down your door.

But would this technicality be evidence of 'bad character'?

Hi!

Again guys, thank you ever so much for sharing your amazing knowledge and expertise in this matter. I am learning more with each day about my own case.

I kept all the payslips and contracts from the jobs I was working at university. Apparently, if you work more than 10 hours a week, it is not marginal and you do not require to have EHIC, which possibly I could prove! I also can contact the former employers and ask for specific letters.

Another thing is, that my dad just checked with his employer in Poland (he works for the local government in my home town) that he was paying contribution towards medical care for me in Poland. He needs to check the dates and possibly he will be able to obtain a document, which could be translated into English. Would that account for anything?

My last question is, if I cannot obtain confirmation of permanent residency can I ask them to issue me with EEA (QP) confirmation that I am currently living in the UK?

Thank you,
PJ

pjanec wrote:Hi!

Again guys, thank you ever so much for sharing your amazing knowledge and expertise in this matter. I am learning more with each day about my own case.

I kept all the payslips and contracts from the jobs I was working at university. Apparently, if you work more than 10 hours a week, it is not marginal and you do not require to have EHIC, which possibly I could prove! I also can contact the former employers and ask for specific letters.

Another thing is, that my dad just checked with his employer in Poland (he works for the local government in my home town) that he was paying contribution towards medical care for me in Poland. He needs to check the dates and possibly he will be able to obtain a document, which could be translated into English. Would that account for anything?

My last question is, if I cannot obtain confirmation of permanent residency can I ask them to issue me with EEA (QP) confirmation that I am currently living in the UK?

Thank you,
PJ

Yes, get as much as possible in writing from past employers.
Workers do not need CSI/EHIC as they are (potentially) taxpayers.

Yes, good idea. Any document showing some sort of healthcare insurance or dual-country agreement that covers you (for the appropriate period) will help.
It may need to be translated.

Yes, you could apply for a QP certificate; they are optional.

Hello everyone,

I know it's an old post that pjanec has started, but I have fallen in a very similar to his situation:
- Came to UK back in 2007
- obtained Residence Documentation/Registration Certificate ("Blue" worker card) in 2010
- worked all the time and haven't been unemployed since then with all the paperwork such as monthly payslips and p45s/p60s
- started university as a mature student in 2011 and graduated in 2014, however working at least 20 hours every week during that time
- received finance from the SFC with a "home" student status
- I did not have EHIC to cover my time at uni

My situation is pretty identical to pjanec's case, with the only difference that I am Bulgarian and as such I was required to have the Blue worker card to have the right to work in UK.

Now, I am trying to obtain the PR and I was wondering whether the Blue card would help in this situation?

I do appreciated all your help with this!