Marriage and EEA Family permit.

[Jarrugia]

Hello!
My partner (of the opposite sex) and I both hold Australian passports and he also holds a Maltese passport. We are currently holidaying in the UK and France/Germany and for the UK have been given a 6 month tourist visa from May this year.

In August/September we are planning to move to the UK for two years. My partner will use his Maltese passport to enable him to work in the UK. I have looked at applying for the youth mobility visa (I am eligible for it) but overall it seems to be cheaper for me to apply for an EEA family permit and then the EU settlement scheme through my partner instead. We are unmarried and have been together for 4.5 years with documentation of living together for 1 year. Because of this we think it might be difficult (but not impossible) to prove we are in a durable relationship and so we have been thinking of returning to Australia to get married. We would be married the end of August and then apply for my EEA family permit right after then.

Question: are we likely to be refused the EEA family permit as it may be quite obvious that we went back to Australia to be married so that we could apply for the visa? Is this something immigration would look at / consider when assessing the application?

[kamoe]

Question: are we likely to be refused the EEA family permit as it may be quite obvious that we went back to Australia to be married so that we could apply for the visa? Is this something immigration would look at / consider when assessing the application?

Every case its considered on its own merits.

If you have documentation of a 4.5 year relationship, even if not living together throughout, then chances are you have a strong case (once you are married). There are obvious red flags, and a recent wedding can be one, but as discussed in another post, an application right after a wedding is not necessarily suspicious if all other strong and valid evidence is there (evidence of long relationship, some cohabitation, pictures of both families attending the wedding, etc.)

Just make sure you all all documents in order; you should be fine.