EEA Family Permit

I am an Italian citizen. My wife is American, she joined me in the UK in 2005 on an EEA Family Permit. We got married in July 2005 and she moved here later that month. In November 2005 she got her passport back from the Home Office with the following stamp

"A right of residence in the United Kingdom as the family member of an EEA national (XXX) who is resident in the United Kingdom in the exercise of a Treaty right is hereby given until 11 November 2010"

Now, my understanding is that five years after her entry in the UK my wife will automatically become a permanent resident here, so in theory there should be no problem after this stamp "expires". However, every time my wife and I go through immigration in the UK I have noticed that the immigration officers study this stamp carefully, often reading the expiry date aloud to themselves. So my question is: can my wife be denied entry in practice if she attempts to enter the UK after the expiry date of this residence permit?

Marco 72 wrote:I am an Italian citizen. My wife is American, she joined me in the UK in 2005 on an EEA Family Permit. We got married in July 2005 and she moved here later that month. In November 2005 she got her passport back from the Home Office with the following stamp

"A right of residence in the United Kingdom as the family member of an EEA national (XXX) who is resident in the United Kingdom in the exercise of a Treaty right is hereby given until 11 November 2010"

Now, my understanding is that five years after her entry in the UK my wife will automatically become a permanent resident here, so in theory there should be no problem after this stamp "expires". However, every time my wife and I go through immigration in the UK I have noticed that the immigration officers study this stamp carefully, often reading the expiry date aloud to themselves. So my question is: can my wife be denied entry in practice if she attempts to enter the UK after the expiry date of this residence permit?

If she does nothing before the visa expires in terms of either extending it or claiming PR if she's entitled to it then yes she can be denied entry.

Under EU law, she doesn't need to apply for residency documents. However without an affixed stamp in the passport, the holder can find it hard to proof

Thanks for the replies. Do you know approximately how long it takes to process an EEA4 application? Back in 2005 they kept our passports for about three months.

The HO has promised to improve the process time to level of 6 weeks but this has to be seen to be believed.

I have applied on the 20th of August, I will inform about the progress on this forum.

I'm keeping a high hope as people who have applied after the new document checks on June 2009 have had their documents back max 3 months.

lets see if the HO can keep it up.

hope this helps

M