Immigrationboards.com

Hi,

I am a British citizen my wife is Russian and she has been living in the UK with me since last September when her Spouse Visa was approved. Long story short she has family in Germany and instead of having to apply for a Schengen visa every time we visit (we visit often) we thought we would apply for a Residence Card to make things easier when travelling in the EU. We applied in February for the residence card and yesterday (24/06/15) our documents were returned with a refusal letter (attached to this post). Maybe I am missing something here but they have refused with no right of appeal on the basis that I (the British citizen) did not supply a valid passport or identity card? I did (my passport runs until 2018), they even returned it with all our other documents in the post! I find it bizarre that I have no right of appeal when I did send my current valid passport but that is the sole ground of their rejection. Can anybody offer any advice please? Any help \ advice would be greatly appreciated.

Adam

Sorry, it seems I am unable to upload an attachment - I can type the response in full if required but this is the first couple of line outlining the refusal:

You have applied for a residence card as a confirmation that you are a family member of 'Adam ----', a British Citizen.
On this occasion your application for a residence card has been refused on the grounds that you have not provided evidence in the form of:
* Either a valid national passport or national identify card as evidence that your family member is an EEA national as claimed.

As I mentioned in the main post, my valid passport (expiring 2018) was supplied to support my wife's application. They even posted the passport back so they must have seen it.

For these purposes a British passport is not classed as an EEA national passport, unless you are returning to the UK after having exercised treaty rights in another EEA state.

Thanks for the response, on the application form it says:

Evidence of your sponsor’s identity and nationality
2.15 Are you submitting your sponsor’s valid passport or national identity card with this application?
To which I did, my passport, I also as requested supplied my UK National Insurance Number

I don't see what other document I could supply if I cannot use my British passport. I guess I will need to apply for an ID card and then re submit?

I think you have missed the point, generally family members of British nationals cannot use the EEA Forms/application process, so she will not be able to get a UK issued EEA Residence Card

British citizens are not considered as EEA nationals in the UK unless 9 is satisfied.

From the reference to Germany and Schengen visas, it appears this is a German permit? Not a British one?

avjones wrote:From the reference to Germany and Schengen visas, it appears this is a German permit? Not a British one?

Hi Amanda, I see why you would think that, but the refusal wordings etc all indicate a Home Office refusal (NINO question for instance in the application). I wonder what happened in the end!

OP has not been back for 16 months, let it go.