One year and one week!

[andy and ann]

Hi Everyone, I sincerely hope that you are all well.

I am sure you will all remember our trials and tribulations of getting to the UK. I just wanted to update the board that my wife was granted her 5 year residence card this week. It was one year and one week since we flew out of The Philippines.

I honestly don't know where we would have been had it not been for this board and all the wonderful advice that we received from here. It has no doubt saved us a small fortune, but more importantly, we were able to stay together the whole time and eventually our little girl was born here in the UK a full British citizen. She is now six months old and doing fabulously!

We applied for the EEA2 in May. I didn't hear anything from them for a few months other than the standard letter granting work etc. I decided to request her passport back as I believed that would get them moving a bit. It worked. They sent it back with a request for further documents.

The only proof that I had of working in Bulgaria was my employment contract and the translation. The proof of our residing together was our apartment rental agreement, again with official translation. They required more proof of both of these things. Since we had no further documentation I sent the Bulgarian Residence card and explained this was the ultimate proof of our residing together in another EU country. For the employment I pointed out that it was not possible to get further proof and I felt that since the employment contract was a legal document it was sufficient. I told them I felt it would be unfair for me to be penalised for the fact that documents such as wage slips are not issued in Bulgaria (for whatever reason) and that I was more than happy for them to contact my former employer which is an extremely large German company with a branch in Bulgaria. I was, however, able to include a whole wedge of paperwork proving our residence together here in the UK.

About a month later, everything was returned with the residence card. I had been planning to write here this weekend, and by coincidence I met a man today who is also married to a Filipina. It took him 3 years to get her to the UK and their immigration worries are still far from over. This highlights even more to me how amazing the help has been to us.

Once again, thank you so much for the amazing help which we recieved, and good luck to all those still battling on!

Very Best Regards to all!

[Rozen]

Hi Everyone, I sincerely hope that you are all well.

I am sure you will all remember our trials and tribulations of getting to the UK. I just wanted to update the board that my wife was granted her 5 year residence card this week. It was one year and one week since we flew out of The Philippines.

I honestly don't know where we would have been had it not been for this board and all the wonderful advice that we received from here. It has no doubt saved us a small fortune, but more importantly, we were able to stay together the whole time and eventually our little girl was born here in the UK a full British citizen. She is now six months old and doing fabulously!

We applied for the EEA2 in May. I didn't hear anything from them for a few months other than the standard letter granting work etc. I decided to request her passport back as I believed that would get them moving a bit. It worked. They sent it back with a request for further documents.

The only proof that I had of working in Bulgaria was my employment contract and the translation. The proof of our residing together was our apartment rental agreement, again with official translation. They required more proof of both of these things. Since we had no further documentation I sent the Bulgarian Residence card and explained this was the ultimate proof of our residing together in another EU country. For the employment I pointed out that it was not possible to get further proof and I felt that since the employment contract was a legal document it was sufficient. I told them I felt it would be unfair for me to be penalised for the fact that documents such as wage slips are not issued in Bulgaria (for whatever reason) and that I was more than happy for them to contact my former employer which is an extremely large German company with a branch in Bulgaria. I was, however, able to include a whole wedge of paperwork proving our residence together here in the UK.

About a month later, everything was returned with the residence card. I had been planning to write here this weekend, and by coincidence I met a man today who is also married to a Filipina. It took him 3 years to get her to the UK and their immigration worries are still far from over. This highlights even more to me how amazing the help has been to us.

Once again, thank you so much for the amazing help which we recieved, and good luck to all those still battling on!

Very Best Regards to all!

I so remember your story (and all the upheaval ) Hearty congratulations and all the best to you and yours...

[Obie]

Congrats to you again Andy and Ann.

Best wishes for the future