EEA4 Success

Just received my EEA4 permit today! For those interested in my situation.

I was here on a 5 year EEA2 permit as I am an American married to an Italian. I applied on August 28 for the EEA4. Received my COA about a month or six weeks later. Today, January 15 I received my EEA4 permit, dated January 2.

As for the documents I submitted, I bombarded them with my wife's and my own payslips, and job contracts and as many utility bills as possible. I was missing a few, but I think the sheer volume of documents pressed my case.

I used my wife's Italian national ID card and not her passport. I did not get an official translation of the the ID card, but just translated it myself. I had our marriage certificate official translated and certified by Romo Translations.

I have also traveled extensively in the 5 years I've been here, mainly for work. But I was never away for more than two weeks. My list of countries I'd been to was long, and definitely not precisely accurate, but as close to accurate as I could do.

Lastly, my EEA2 permit was in a separate and expired passport that I included in the application, along with my current valid passport. They placed the EEA4 permit in the valid passport.

Good luck to everyone else and hope this helps you. This forum has really helped me along the way. Next up, citizenship!

Congratulations!

spencerand wrote:As for the documents I submitted, I bombarded them with my wife's and my own payslips, and job contracts and as many utility bills as possible. I was missing a few, but I think the sheer volume of documents pressed my case.

I don't think so!

If I were a caseworker I would consider a huge pile of unnecessary documents a point against you.

You need to provide evidence that the EU national has been exercising treaty rights, so your payslips and job contracts are totally irrelevant, and for your wife job contracts (covering the five years) would be sufficient. No need to send 60 (?) monthly payslips.
For comparison, the EEA4 application of my wife two years ago weighed a total of 181 grams (including the application form and the envelop), as I reported on this forum earlier, and was dealt with in about the same time as yours.

spencerand wrote:Lastly, my EEA2 permit was in a separate and expired passport that I included in the application.

Also totally unnecessary to include this in the application. Do you think they might have forgotten that it was issued to you in the past?

Congratulations with your PR, anyway.

Last point: why do you want British citizenship? What benefit will it bring you, as a US citizen, on top of your PR?

On the application form it says that payslips are evidence of exercising treaty rights. And I think they also said to include any old passports. I just figured it would be a good idea to make sure they'd seen that I had the EEA2.

As for citizenship, it would make getting into this country a bit faster, and provide me with the right to vote, and allow me to work anywhere in Europe and to a lesser degree the Commonwealth. Seems worth it.

Hi fysicus,
I'm totally agree with you, sending some many irrelevant document with application make the case worker more demanding for applicants and they expect more , it is clearly said in the application that they need to see exercising treaty right for 5 years by EU national and evidence of 5 years residency by non EU like tenancy agreement and some utility bills. No need to show 5 years work by non EU, I would suggest te applicant not to send unnecessary document.
If you give them inch they want yard.