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Hi all

I am a Brazilian citizen currently on a 5 years Residence Permit as a Family Member of a EEA national.
I am on a civil partnership with an Irish national. Our relationship broke down about 3 years ago due to his erratic behaviour, drugs and alcohol taking and physical and emotional attacks on me. Since I left him, he has been diagnosed with some mental illness and have been living on benefits since then.
Albeit not being together anymore, we are still on good terms and he has agreed in helping me with my immigration status.
My current visa expires next month and I have been told that I cannot apply for a renew as his partner because if I do, he will lose his benefits. I have only involved the police in two occasions during the time we were together, but only to ask for help to stop him hurting himself. I have never reported the physical attacks and apparently this is not enough to prove domestic violence.
Please help! I'm at risk of losing my job and everything I have worked for in this country. We cannot afford him losing his benefits as I don't earn enough to keep both of us.
What could be done in this situation?

Cezardesouza wrote:Hi all

I am a Brazilian citizen currently on a 5 years Residence Permit as a Family Member of a EEA national.
I am on a civil partnership with an Irish national. Our relationship broke down about 3 years ago due to his erratic behaviour, drugs and alcohol taking and physical and emotional attacks on me. Since I left him, he has been diagnosed with some mental illness and have been living on benefits since then.
Albeit not being together anymore, we are still on good terms and he has agreed in helping me with my immigration status.
My current visa expires next month and I have been told that I cannot apply for a renew as his partner because if I do, he will lose his benefits. I have only involved the police in two occasions during the time we were together, but only to ask for help to stop him hurting himself. I have never reported the physical attacks and apparently this is not enough to prove domestic violence.
Please help! I'm at risk of losing my job and everything I have worked for in this country. We cannot afford him losing his benefits as I don't earn enough to keep both of us.
What could be done in this situation?

By "residence permit" I assume you mean residence certificate (RC). It is not actually a 'visa'.

Not sure why you think that by you applying for an EU document it will affect someone's benefits.
Do you mean partner has claimed benefits as a single person?

Are you still civil partners or has the relationship been officially & legally ended in some way?
It's unclear if you are together or not and what you are both living on.

How is sponsor exercising treaty rights as a qualified person?
If they are ill and living on benefits it appears they are not a qualified person & so may not be in a position to sponsor you.

If on EU migration route, and still legally in a partnership, you cannot apply in your own right as you cannot exercise treaty rights directly.

If legally separated maybe ROR would be an option (depends on timelines, etc), but your ex-partner would still have had to have been exercising treaty rights at the time of legal separation (as I understand it).

noajthan wrote:

Cezardesouza wrote:Hi all

I am a Brazilian citizen currently on a 5 years Residence Permit as a Family Member of a EEA national.
I am on a civil partnership with an Irish national. Our relationship broke down about 3 years ago due to his erratic behaviour, drugs and alcohol taking and physical and emotional attacks on me. Since I left him, he has been diagnosed with some mental illness and have been living on benefits since then.
Albeit not being together anymore, we are still on good terms and he has agreed in helping me with my immigration status.
My current visa expires next month and I have been told that I cannot apply for a renew as his partner because if I do, he will lose his benefits. I have only involved the police in two occasions during the time we were together, but only to ask for help to stop him hurting himself. I have never reported the physical attacks and apparently this is not enough to prove domestic violence.
Please help! I'm at risk of losing my job and everything I have worked for in this country. We cannot afford him losing his benefits as I don't earn enough to keep both of us.
What could be done in this situation?

By "residence permit" I assume you mean residence certificate (RC). It is not actually a 'visa'.

Not sure why you think that by you applying for an EU document it will affect someone's benefits.
Do you mean partner has claimed benefits as a single person?

Are you still civil partners or has the relationship been officially & legally ended in some way?
It's unclear if you are together or not and what you are both living on.

How is sponsor exercising treaty rights as a qualified person?
If they are ill and living on benefits it appears they are not a qualified person & so may not be in a position to sponsor you.

If on EU migration route, and still legally in a partnership, you cannot apply in your own right as you cannot exercise treaty rights directly.

If legally separated maybe ROR would be an option (depends on timelines, etc), but your ex-partner would still have had to have been exercising treaty rights at the time of legal separation (as I understand it).

Thank you for your response noajthan

You are right, It is not a visa but a Residence Card valid for five years. I should now be able to apply for an Indefinite Leave to Remain, if all the conditions were met.

As for the benefits, the reason why it would affect him is because he is claiming them as a separated person.
We no longer live together therefore I cannot apply as being his partner. If i did it, his local council would question as to why he has never told them he had a partner.

Legally we are still civil partners because we have never applied for a dissolution. But the relationship has broken down about 3 years ago and we have been living separately since then.

What I have been told is that because I am a non-EEA citizen, I can only stay in UK under someone's sponsorship. In my case, my sponsor is my partner and I have been given my Residence Permit based in our relationship.

Although he was born in Ireland, his family moved to England when he was six years old, so he has lived his whole life in London and still is.

I am a full time worker and do not depend on anyone to support myself.

Can I apply for an ILR based on the civil partnership, even if we no longer live together? And, if I did that, could the Home Office inform his local Council that he has me as partner and therefore would no longer be entitled to his benefits?

If I fail to send an application to the Home Office before the end of May I will lose my job and I desperately need to avoid this to happen.

Cezardesouza wrote:Thank you for your response noajthan

You are right, It is not a visa but a Residence Card valid for five years. I should now be able to apply for an Indefinite Leave to Remain, if all the conditions were met.

As for the benefits, the reason why it would affect him is because he is claiming them as a separated person.
We no longer live together therefore I cannot apply as being his partner. If i did it, his local council would question as to why he has never told them he had a partner.

Legally we are still civil partners because we have never applied for a dissolution. But the relationship has broken down about 3 years ago and we have been living separately since then.

What I have been told is that because I am a non-EEA citizen, I can only stay in UK under someone's sponsorship. In my case, my sponsor is my partner and I have been given my Residence Permit based in our relationship.

Although he was born in Ireland, his family moved to England when he was six years old, so he has lived his whole life in London and still is.

I am a full time worker and do not depend on anyone to support myself.

Can I apply for an ILR based on the civil partnership, even if we no longer live together? And, if I did that, could the Home Office inform his local Council that he has me as partner and therefore would no longer be entitled to his benefits?

If I fail to send an application to the Home Office before the end of May I will lose my job and I desperately need to avoid this to happen.

On the EU migration route the next step is permanent residence, PR (not ILR).

If you still have a legal partnership then under EU law you don't actually have to be co-habiting.
(Although HO may expect that and may well be looking for evidence of co-habitation in any application as they have derived their UK-flavoured rules from the UK's domestic Immigration Regulations).

So your partner can still be your sponsor in an application for confirmation of PR.
The problem is it appears your partner is not exercising treaty rights.
If so then your application will fail as you won't have acquired PR yet.

You cannot apply in your own right. The fact you are working is immaterial and you only have a right to work via your partner.
If your partner is not a qualified person (or does not already have PR) then your right to work and reside in UK is in doubt too.

The benefits claim seems to be in a bit of a pickle but you still need to apply as a dependent of an EEA partner/sponsor.
There's nothing anyone here can do about that.
Your partner will have to sort that benefits claim out with the authorities (and face any consequences).

Most unfortunate - but there's no obvious way out of this if partner is not exercising rights (& does not already have PR).

Hi all,

Hope you are well.
I have made an application for a permanent resident card as a Family Member of an EEA National through a solicitors office.
The Home Office received the payment and my documents on 3rd of June 2016. The Certification of Application was sent to me four weeks later stating they should send a response no longer than necessary or up to six months.
After this I have not received anything else to this date. I called the EEA hotline to ask what's happening and someone called me back on 12/01/2017 saying they had already made a decision "a few weeks back" but the case handler did not posted it back to me for some reason and they should do it now.
I waited until 20/01/2017 and called back as nothing came through the post and, for my surprise, they said that whoever told me the decision was already made did not give me a right information because my case was still being analysed.
What can I do in this situation? It has been almost 8 months now since they have received my application. The solicitor told me not to call them anymore as it could p*** them off and it could cause an undesired effect on their decision. The only advice they give me is to wait as long as it takes... Is it really right? Can the Home Office deny my rights to stay in this country just because I call them and urge them to do their job, which by the way has exceeded the deadline by almost two months?

Cezardesouza wrote:Hi all,

...

What can I do in this situation? It has been almost 8 months now since they have received my application. The solicitor told me not to call them anymore as it could p*** them off and it could cause an undesired effect on their decision. The only advice they give me is to wait as long as it takes... Is it really right? Can the Home Office deny my rights to stay in this country just because I call them and urge them to do their job, which by the way has exceeded the deadline by almost two months?

There is no evidence for this.
Solicitor justifying her fee perhaps?
This is not some banana republic and your case is completely anonymous and impersonal to any caseworker.
Caseworkers don't even handle the enquiries, that's probably done by some outsourced call centre with no direct access to the caseworker system.

There has been Christmas and New Year office slowdown as well as the Brexit rush.
Simply sit tight and wait in line.