EEA1 and EEA2, claiming benefits

[lucia1984]

I have been living in the UK for more than 5 years now and married a Non-Eu national in 2006.

We have obtained EEA1 and EEA2 without any problems as I was working for more the 2.5 years for the same employer. After I have changed my place of work and become pregnat what my employer did not like and he fired me. I did take legal actions about it.

Since August 2007 we have been jointly claiming these benefits working tax credit, housing and council tax benefits, when our son arrived we add to those maternity allowance, child benefit and child tax credit.

My husband needs to go and do new passport so he will have to reapply for this stamp in his passport.

I am currently not working as I am staying with our son at home and my husband works 30 hours a week for minimum wage. I am looking for job, keep applying but I dont have much luck with it.

I would like to know if anyone applied for EEA2 while EU resident on benefits.

All benefits are on joint names and none of us has nothing like "no resourses to public funds" in passport.

Will this situation affect our future status in UK?

Thank you.

Lucia

[yankeegirl]

It won't affect anything. When I made my EEA2 application, we were receiving working/child tax credits and child benefit.

Is your husband re-applying just to have the sticker replaced in the new passport, or is the residence card almost expired? If the residence card isn't close to expiring, he should be able to travel with both the old and new passports. There are many people that do this.

[lucia1984]

His stamp will expire in 2011 in August. I am very annoyed to reapply again, as some of my friends waited 1 year for the documents to be return to them!!!!

When we applied we waited only 3 weeks not even that, but we had solicitor. So maybe that helped as well.

I already spoke to solicitor and to EEA enquires helpline, everyone keeps telling to me that is gonna be ok, it's probably only me thinking otherwise. When I spoke to EEA helpline they said to me to put myself as self-sufficient! but i read that selfsufficient means that you can look after your self without claiming any benefits!!! I am confused. All our benefits are income related. I dont really care if i get the status, but i want permanent residence for my husband. that is all. Where are you from?

[yankeegirl]

It's been my understanding that if a passport expires before the visa/residence card, you don't have to re-apply to have the endorsement put in the new passport and that you can carry both the old and new passports together. Hopefully someone can confirm this, but I've seen numerous people mention they do this on other forums (and I think it was mentioned on this forum also.)

I'm from the US and I live in Northern Ireland.