Non-EU EEA family PR - married, under 5 years

[vicky4000]

Hello all,

I have received letter that inform me and my husband that our joint PR application have been successful - We have only been married for 2.5 years. I'd like to share our experiences as I have asked in this forum and called many immigration lawyers - most have advised me to wait until we are married for 5 years before trying. In fact, my experience shows, married EEA family members do not necessarily have to wait if they had been co-habiting before marriage and for the whole period the EU national has been exercising treaty rights.

Our situation roughly is: We met in 2008, started our relationship in 2010. We started living together in 2011 and got married in August 2014. As a non EU, I got EEA 2 in 2015. My EU national husband has been working full time since Feb, 2012 and myself have been working full time in the UK since July 2010. We applied for PR (prompt by Brexit!) in April 2017 and both got PR in Oct 2017. Most lawyers said I have to wait until five years from the date we got married, or (even more strangely) 5 years since I got my EEA 2 card.

I decided to give it a try, as I believe I met the requirements set out in the PR guidance document - that I have been living with my EEA family member for 5 years while he exercised treaty rights.

We made sure that first of all, my EEA husband's application is solid and water proof - in addition to submit P60s, he also printed all almost all past 5 years' bank statements. As for me, I provided proof of employment, all my past visas (I was on student, post-study-work, Tier2 and EEA2), multiple sources (bank, utilities, NHS, HMRC) to prove living together with my husband for the past 6 years, as well as proof that we met in 2008 in university by enrollment letters and our photos. I think it is much more than required, but since it is not the most straight forward case, it is safe to over do it.

Wish all best of luck getting what you need.

Vicky