wife of EEA national expired passport

[souren]

Hi

My wife came to the UK as the family member of an EEA National, and has a paper residency card (not a biometric one)
She has now been here three years and her non EEA passport is about to expire.

I rang Visa and Immigration to see how we could transfer the visa to her new passport (it is in fact a separate piece of paper as we had asked for her passport back during the application process)
I asked whether we could replace the paper based visa with a new Biometric card.
I was advised that we would have to re-apply for a new visa, go through the whole process all over again and it would take at least 6 months.
This does seem over the top, and since I hold dual British and EU citizenship, I understand she would be refused, unless I gave up my british citizenship due to the recent rule changes.

Has anybody gone through the process on passport renewal?
(I was advised that she could carry the old passport with her and that should work “although you may have difficulties with some border control staff” were their words)

Appreciate any comments and advise

Souren

[noajthan]

Hi

My wife came to the UK as the family member of an EEA National, and has a paper residency card (not a biometric one)
She has now been here three years and her non EEA passport is about to expire.

I rang Visa and Immigration to see how we could transfer the visa to her new passport (it is in fact a separate piece of paper as we had asked for her passport back during the application process)
I asked whether we could replace the paper based visa with a new Biometric card.
I was advised that we would have to re-apply for a new visa, go through the whole process all over again and it would take at least 6 months.
This does seem over the top, and since I hold dual British and EU citizenship, I understand she would be refused, unless I gave up my british citizenship due to the recent rule changes.

Has anybody gone through the process on passport renewal?
(I was advised that she could carry the old passport with her and that should work “although you may have difficulties with some border control staff” were their words)

Appreciate any comments and advise

Souren

It may be your wife can carry the old passport with her to go with residence document.

The more significant question is around the current immigration statuis of your wife.

If you were the original EEA national sponsor & have since naturalised as a BC then your wife will now only be recognised as the dependent family member of an EEA national if there is some transitional arrangement that can be used in order to maintain her original status.

This is because HO do not (any longer) recognise the EEA citizenship of a dual national who is also British (whether British born or recently naturalised).

In your case, your wife's current status will depend on the timelines, eg date of entry into UK, date of RC & etc.

The provisions of the transitional arrangement apply where a person:
Has a right to reside in the UK on 16 July 2012 and on 16 October 2012 (either):
i. Holds a valid registration certificate or residence card issued under the 2006 Regulations

fyi - for background see:
http://www.mcgillandco.co.uk/Blog/2012/ ... gulations/
&
https://eumovement.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... y-british/