EEA (PR) Self employed + jobseeker advice

[eea_pr_4_me]

Hi, I'm an eea national considering applying for PR via form eea(pr). I'm trying to prove I have 5 years residence, mainly as a self-employed worker, and to a lesser extent, as a jobseeker. I'd like to present my case and get a few opinions on the likely success of my application.

Firstly, the tally of days abroad:
Year 1, 18 July 2014 - 17 July 2015, 3
Year 2, 18 July 2013 - 17 July 2014, 6
Year 3, 18 July 2012 - 17 July 2013, 0
Year 4, 18 July 2011 - 17 July 2012, 175
Year 5, 18 July 2010 - 17 July 2011, 85
total days abroad: 269

As I understand it, less than 180 days in any 12 month period is acceptable.

A brief outline of my activities:
18 July 2010 - 19 Aug 2010 - Jobseeker
20 Aug 2010 - 09 April 2011 - Self employed
10 April 2011 - 25 April 2011 - overseas holiday
02 May 2011 - 31 Oct 2011 - Worked overseas
5 Nov 2011 - 28 Jan 2012 - overseas holiday
2 Feb 2012 - 1 Sep 2014 - Self employed
2 Sep 2014 - 28 Sep 2014 - Jobseeker
29 Sep 2014 - 30 Oct 2015 - self employed

the evidence I've gathered includes:

Identity and nationality:
National Identity Card

 Evidence of residency:
Mortgage statements for 5 year period
Council Tax statement for 5 year period
Personal Bank Statements for 5 year period

 Evidence of self-employment:
Income tax – SA302 for financial years 2010/11 to 2014/15
National Insurance – P60s for years 2010/11 to 2014/15
VAT – Registration certificate and returns for years 2010/11 to 2014/15 (2 per year)
Earnings (Wages & Dividends) – Invoices, personal & business bank statements (5 year period), proof of access to business bank account and letter from accountant summarising annual Turnover, VAT, PAYE & NI, Wages and Dividends
Business is active – Invoices (x4 per year), Contracts (x2 per year)
Business is a Limited Company – Certificate of incorporation and annual returns (AR01)
Qualifications – University diploma

 Evidence of Job seeking:
Emails to/from recruitment agents
Registration with recruitment websites such as jobsite.co.uk

My main concern stems from my first 3 purchase orders carried out consecutively between Aug 10 and April 11.

The first issue is that I started working in late Aug and my company formation/registration was not completed until late October.
The second and more worrying issue is that I could only invoice (and get paid) for work upon acceptance by the client, so 2 to 3 months elapsed between doing the work and getting paid:
1st PO: issued 20/08/2010, completed mid Sept 10. Invoiced 02/12/2010, Paid 03/12/2010
2nd PO: issued 13/10/2010, completed 26/11/2010. Invoiced 21/02/2011, Paid 25/02/2011
3rd PO: issued 08/12/2010, completed 09/04/2011. Invoiced 06/06/2011, Paid 10/06/2011

The remaining periods of self employment were invoiced and paid weekly, so no issues there.

I am worried about i) the gaps between the first three purchase orders and ii) the time between doing the work and getting paid for it.

My financial documents are pretty solid with x5 SA302, x5 P60, personal & business bank statements, letter & summary from accountant, vat returns as well as invoices and contracts. Also, the SA302s show a good income evenly distributed over all 5 years, therefore establish that the work was genuinely full time.

One final point is that I'd like to apply for naturalisation, so started the PR application from 2010 to acquire the mandatory 6 years residence.

Any advice on how to strengthen my application? Do I have a good chance of success?

thanks for reading,

kind regards

[noajthan]

What month did you arrive in UK? July?
You have a 9 month chunk out of UK.
Hope it splits well based on that anniversary.

You may have an issue with jobseeker phases which morphed into self-employment.

There's case law that determined you can't be a jobseeker/self-employed.
So you may have some problem gaps which stopped your PR clock.
I'll see if I can find a reference once I've had my dinner.

You could work on residency docs with any more official paperwork, letters etc that you may have in the archives.
Suggest you need to pin down your dates of absence by showing presence/residence in UK before and after travel.

Can you show the work was genuine and effective?
Will it stand up to UK's MET/PET tests?

[noajthan]

Accordingly, a person cannot combine a period of self-employment with a period of seeking employment, so as to achieve a requisite period of residence under the Regulations.

Zubair (EEA regs: self-employed persons) [2013] UKUT 196

Ref: https://tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac/37411

[eea_pr_4_me]

Thank you for replying to my queries. It's greatly appreciated.

What month did you arrive in UK? July?
You have a 9 month chunk out of UK.
Hope it splits well based on that anniversary.

I've been living in the UK for much longer than 5 years so I picked a date on which I returned from a holiday abroad. I flew into the UK on the 17th July 2010 and my 5 year continuous period started the following day.

You could work on residency docs with any more official paperwork, letters etc that you may have in the archives.
Suggest you need to pin down your dates of absence by showing presence/residence in UK before and after travel.

I have all the etickets for my flights in/out of the UK. I also have credit card statements showing purchases in the UK for the dates that I claim to be in the country. Is that enough? After all, I own my property so letters etc could have been received whilst I was abroad. Have you any more specific suggestions?

You may have an issue with jobseeker phases which morphed into self-employment.
There's case law that determined you can't be a jobseeker/self-employed.
So you may have some problem gaps which stopped your PR clock.
I'll see if I can find a reference once I've had my dinner.

I work as a freelancer. Technically speaking, i was employed by my company throughout the 5 years and was seeking work on its behalf. Not sure what else I can do here. I mean I looked for work and when I found it the contract was signed between my company and client company.

Can you show the work was genuine and effective?
Will it stand up to UK's MET/PET tests?

The income generated by the work (as evidenced by my invoices and personal/business bank statements) shows that the the work is genuine and effective. I'm sorry, I couldn't find anything on google re: MET/PET. How do I apply these tests?

once again, thanks for your constructive feedback.

regards

[noajthan]

Thank you for replying to my queries. It's greatly appreciated.

What month did you arrive in UK? July?
You have a 9 month chunk out of UK.
Hope it splits well based on that anniversary.

I've been living in the UK for much longer than 5 years so I picked a date on which I returned from a holiday abroad. I flew into the UK on the 17th July 2010 and my 5 year continuous period started the following day.

You could work on residency docs with any more official paperwork, letters etc that you may have in the archives.
Suggest you need to pin down your dates of absence by showing presence/residence in UK before and after travel.

I have all the etickets for my flights in/out of the UK. I also have credit card statements showing purchases in the UK for the dates that I claim to be in the country. Is that enough? After all, I own my property so letters etc could have been received whilst I was abroad. Have you any more specific suggestions?

You may have an issue with jobseeker phases which morphed into self-employment.
There's case law that determined you can't be a jobseeker/self-employed.
So you may have some problem gaps which stopped your PR clock.
I'll see if I can find a reference once I've had my dinner.

I work as a freelancer. Technically speaking, i was employed by my company throughout the 5 years and was seeking work on its behalf. Not sure what else I can do here. I mean I looked for work and when I found it the contract was signed between my company and client company.

Can you show the work was genuine and effective?
Will it stand up to UK's MET/PET tests?

The income generated by the work (as evidenced by my invoices and personal/business bank statements) shows that the the work is genuine and effective. I'm sorry, I couldn't find anything on google re: MET/PET. How do I apply these tests?

once again, thanks for your constructive feedback.

regards

Use anniversary of arrival in UK to calculate your absences in 12 month periods. By chance you seem to have done that.
The 9 month stretch is troubling but it seems to split around July.

Yes travel bookings, ticket stubs etc all help pin the entry/exit dates down.

For residency, use all the usual stuff:

• tax letters/docs (which you have);
  also council tax
  medical doc/letters (doctor, dentist, optician, UK EHIC & etc)
  drivers docs (licence, insurance, etc)
  utilities' bills;
  any voter registration (?)

& etc.

If you class yourself as a jobseeker my understanding is you are setting yourself up for a refusal as per Zubair.
You have not been jobseeking at all then.
You are a self-employed qualified person.

The UK is not in compliance with EU law with its MET/PET test but its still being used - get up to speed here:
https://www.freemovement.org.uk/using-m ... ne-worker/

[eea_pr_4_me]

Thank you for getting back to me noajthan.

Use anniversary of arrival in UK to calculate your absences in 12 month periods. By chance you seem to have done that.
The 9 month stretch is troubling but it seems to split around July.

Let me also add that I was commuting to work during the six month overseas work posting. I was travelling abroad for about 30 days at a time and returning to the UK for weekends, thus:

Departure date , Return date, Days abroad
05/12/2010 07/12/2010 1
10/04/2011 25/04/2011 14
01/05/2011 03/06/2011 32
05/06/2011 07/07/2011 31
10/07/2011 28/07/2011 17
01/08/2011 08/09/2011 37
12/09/2011 13/10/2011 30
16/10/2011 01/11/2011 15
05/11/2011 28/01/2012 83
17/06/2014 24/06/2014 6
22/04/2015 26/04/2015 3

yes, it's troubling but is within guidelines (only just!) as far as I'm aware and is not one continuous absence.

Yes travel bookings, ticket stubs etc all help pin the entry/exit dates down.

For residency, use all the usual stuff:
tax letters/docs (which you have);
also council tax
medical doc/letters (doctor, dentist, optician, UK EHIC & etc)
drivers docs (licence, insurance, etc)
utilities' bills;
any voter registration (?)

Ok, I'll add flight etickets
tax letters - OK
council tax - OK complete for entire period
medical docs - none, but i do have a UK EHIC
car insurance - yes, I have this for all 5 years
electricity bills - OK for all 5 years
voter reg: yes, I am registered. Will have to get that in writing/confirmed.

If you class yourself as a jobseeker my understanding is you are setting yourself up for a refusal as per Zubair.
You have not been jobseeking at all then.
You are a self-employed qualified person.

The UK is not in compliance with EU law with its MET/PET test but its still being used - get up to speed here:

Very well, I'll remove this to avoid giving HO ammo for refusal.
As for the MET test; it depends how it is actually applied in practice. For the most part my invoices are issued and paid weekly, therefore I would pass the MET test without any doubt. However, for the 3 contracts in 2010, where there were gaps between the work carried out, the issuance and payment of invoices, if the MET test is applied on a weekly basis, i would fail as there is no income for several weeks. If however, the MET test is applied per fiscal year, then I would certainly pass. It all depends on how the test is applied.

I'll study the freemovement website some more. Thank you for all your advice. You've been very helpful indeed.

kind regards, Michael.

[noajthan]

I didn't have time to calculate your absences - just tot them up per year (July-July).
Even piecemeal trips will break the continuity if it adds up to more than 180 days in 12 months.
Less than that and you're laughing.

As far as I know the MET/PET would not be applied weekly, probably year on year.

As for the rest of it, you seem to be on track and are clearly organised with good records.

The key to this is rock-solid documentary evidence.
Don't give HO any 'wriggle room'.