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visitor visa to residence card

Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 7:23 pm
by qwerty1
Hello everyone. I am an EU national living in London and my fiancee is currently in China. We have applied for a Fiancee visa but I am afraid I will get rejected as I do not have the permanent residence card myself and this has been asked. I am not eligible to obtain one.

However after I get married, elsewhere probably, I can exercise my treaty rights and my wife to be will be able to apply for an eea residence card. Now ideally I would like to be immediately with my wife, so I was thinking that we can get married in another country and she can visit the UK on a visitor's visa (which gets processed very quickly) and we can apply for an EEA residence card within the UK. However I have read somewhere that visitor's visas cannot be converted to anything else. But what is the case on EEA issues? All I want to be never apart from my wife after we get married.

Can someone provide advise please? Can my wife obtain an EEA residence card from a visitor visa within the UK?

Re: visitor visa to residence card

Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 7:53 pm
by sheraz7
Then why don't you keep the process more easier by simply marrying in china and apply for his/her visa called EEAfamily permit under EU route which will be free.

Re: visitor visa to residence card

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2015 10:13 am
by qwerty1
CAn she come to the UK with an EEA family permit and from there apply for an EEA residence card from within the UK? The idea is that we would like to minimise the amount of time away from each other and speed things up as well.

Re: visitor visa to residence card

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2015 10:43 am
by noajthan
qwerty1 wrote:CAn she come to the UK with an EEA family permit and from there apply for an EEA residence card from within the UK? The idea is that we would like to minimise the amount of time away from each other and speed things up as well.
Yes - that is the very purpose the two permits/cards are intended for:
FP for entry into UK;
RC for residence in UK as dependent family member of EEA national.