Immigrationboards.com

My husband, an EEA national, is going to apply for his PR soon.
He will need to submit his bank statements to prove income from employment. However, for the period of 2005-2007 they were lost. We have printed them ourselves using online banking. Will HO accept them? It is written everywhere that they only accept the originals.

Why does he need bank statements? Is he self employed?

I guess he needs it to prove his employment status as payslips were also lost for that period. He has P60 for 2005-2006 but no P60 for 2006-2007 (lost) while his bank statements show regular payments from his employer.

Just call HMRC and ask for employment history. You should get it in 2-3 days.
It's a single page. Simpler than bank statements.

Thanks. We will check that.
But, anyway, will HO accept bank statements as prove of employment?

On the form the options are job contract, letter from employer or payslips/P60.

Not sure if bank statement can prove employment. They can show regular payments into the account. I don't know if the HO would accept that or not.

It is hard to see how bank statements are proof of employment.

He could also get a simple letter from his employer saying when he started the job and that he is still employed. That should be enough.

He left that job in 2008. Not even sure that company still exists to ask for a letter.

Jambo wrote:Just call HMRC and ask for employment history. You should get it in 2-3 days.
It's a single page. Simpler than bank statements.

Then this is the best option

You can also request a statement of your National Insurance account online (for the tax years up to 5 April 2011), see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ni/intro/check-record.htm for details and a link to the online form. It may take a few weeks before you get it in the post.

For bank statements that you created and printed yourself, I would pop into your branch and ask the cashier to put a stamp and a signature on them as some form of authentication.

Thank you very much for your advice.
I have one more question: is it a problem if there has been a month or two of unemployment in between employments? Does he need to actually mention those months as being unemployed or a job seeker?

I would really be surprised if such employment gaps would cause a problem; these are quite normal in anybody's career (whether you're an immigrant or not).

Only if there are many of these gaps, and you had to rely heavily on public funds to survive them, it could raise an issue.