EEA (Italian) in the UK - Expiring passport

mmcdonald wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:00 pm

Hi all,

I'm a British citizen and my partner is Italian/Brazilian. He moved to the UK exactly two years ago and we have been living together for only 14 months.

His Italian passport expires in 8 weeks and he completely forgot to renew it. He has been told that a renewal will require an appointment at the Italian consulate, after which the passport will be delivered within 30 days. He has spent the past 6 weeks calling the consulate, his phone shows that he has made over 500 attempts to call them. He has also spoken to the offices in Italy who said he would need to become a member of AIRE before he would get any help; a process that takes another few months.

His Brazilian passport is valid which means we can still travel, but we need something to prove he can reside in the UK legally, such as a BRP. The BRP however requires that he sends his original passport in the post along with a £220(ish) fee, I'm concerned that he's required to send his only formal EEA ID in the post, at the risk of losing it altogether!

The alternative is to pay a £880(ish) fee for a premium same day service in Croydon. We're happy to pay this, but we're worried for two reasons:

1) Can you apply for a BRP using an expired or near expiring EEA passport?
2) Can you get a BRP without sending the oirignal document in the post?

Does anyone have any advice? We're extremely worried and aren't sure what to do!

Thank you!