Immigrationboards.com

Hi everyone,

I have a question to which nobody managed to give me a straightforward answer to:

My husband is an EU national working in the UK since beginning of March 2018. I am a Serbian (non-EU) national. We've been married since July 2017. We lived together in Germany (where I still live and work on my work visa - not connected to his nationality or our marriage). Can I apply for the EEA family permit already now (in May) or do I have to wait for three months to pass in order to apply? Did anyone have a similar situation?

One immigration lawyer told me that my husband will be considered a qualified person only after he's been working in the UK for three months and I am therefore not allowed to apply before. But I couldn't find this information anywhere on the website and when I asked her where is this stated, in which official document, she didn't know. Does someone on this forum have an answer to this?

Thanks in advance!
Best
Sara

If an immigration lawyer can't tell you where things are stated one shouldn't bother with them.
Have a look here:
https://www.gov.uk/family-permit/eligibility

Applying as a family member or extended family member
The EEA citizen you’re joining must either:

be in the UK already
be travelling with you to the UK within 6 months of the date of your application
If they’ve been in the UK for more than 3 months they must either:

be a ‘qualified person’ (working, looking for work, self-employed, studying or self-sufficient)
have a permanent right of residence

My reading of this is as your husband is already exercising treaty rights you can apply now.

I might suggest that you check this for yourself, because this is exactly the wrong way around.

Any EEA national is a qualifying person from day 1, but after three months, you need to have found work, study, by self sufficient, or demonstrate that you are still realistically looking for a job. So by that logic, you could apply any time, and you could in fact have come with your husband (although processing times can vary quite a bit).

Thank you both!

This was my understanding as well, but then the lawyer confused me. I think I will apply now, because he has a job, has an apartment - I really don't see why would I wait..

Hi

How did your application go?
Thanks
Regards