EEA Dependent VISA

[Rbemo]

Hi,
This is Rbemo. I have two doubts about immigration. Very much appreciate if someone could advise me:
1. I’m of EEA Dependent Visa valid for two more years. Due to Brexit – my partner has decided to apply for British Residency as she is eligible. My doubt is, do I also need to apply for new visa as my partner is changing her status from EEA to British. If so, within how much time I need to apply after getting her British Residency or can I continue of my old EEA Dependent visa.
2. As an EEA Dependent I’m I eligible to apply under the “10 years – residency” scheme. I keep getting too many views on this, but no one is clear. Appreciate if someone who faced this situation recently responds to it.
Thank you very much for your time in reviewing my queries.
Regards,
Rbemo

[noajthan]

Hi,
This is Rbemo. I have two doubts about immigration. Very much appreciate if someone could advise me:
1. I’m of EEA Dependent Visa valid for two more years. Due to Brexit – my partner has decided to apply for British Residency as she is eligible. My doubt is, do I also need to apply for new visa as my partner is changing her status from EEA to British. If so, within how much time I need to apply after getting her British Residency or can I continue of my old EEA Dependent visa.
2. As an EEA Dependent I’m I eligible to apply under the “10 years – residency” scheme. I keep getting too many views on this, but no one is clear. Appreciate if someone who faced this situation recently responds to it.
Thank you very much for your time in reviewing my queries.
Regards,
Rbemo

Those on EEA migration route do not have visas granting 'leave to remain'; your right to reside & etc in UK depends on your sponsor (who has to be a qualified person).

1) If your sponsor naturalises then (except in special cases) she cannot sponsor any family members, including you, any more; (this is UK law even before Brexit).
So your basis to stay in UK would be put in doubt if sponsor naturalises unless you have acquired the holy grail of PR status.

If you wanted to jump ship and apply for a UK visa under UK immigration regulations, my understanding is you would have to apply from abroad.

2) Its at HO discretion whether you can switch to 10 years LR. And for any/all EEA related elements of the 10 years qualifying period you would have to show you had a sponsor who was a qualified person.

[Richard W]

Hi,
This is Rbemo. I have two doubts about immigration. Very much appreciate if someone could advise me:
1. I’m of EEA Dependent Visa valid for two more years. Due to Brexit – my partner has decided to apply for British Residency as she is eligible. My doubt is, do I also need to apply for new visa as my partner is changing her status from EEA to British. If so, within how much time I need to apply after getting her British Residency or can I continue of my old EEA Dependent visa.

I'm afraid your terminology is so non-standard that I for one am not sure what your are asking. Noajthan assumes that you mean your partner is about to apply for British citizenship. While that is the most plausible interpretation, you might just mean that your partner intends to apply for ILR (a very unlikely interpretation) or for a document certifying permanent residence (DCPR). Neither of these would affect your status or your path to permanent residence, though her having permanent residence would make it easier for you to prove you had achieved permanent residence once you had.

If your are to change your status, this would best be done before your partner became British.

Are you your partner's spouse, civil partner or merely a 'durable partner'? In the last case, you depend on your residence card to be treated as a family member of your partner.

As an EEA Dependent I’m I eligible to apply under the “10 years – residency” scheme.

makes no sense to me.

Are you considering applying for ILR on the basis of having already spent 10 years lawfully resident under the EEA Regulations? This only makes sense if you have spent some of those years having only a derivative right of residence. Otherwise, you would already have acquired EEA permanent residence.

You might be basing the application on a mix of time with leave to remain, e.g. as a student, and as the family member of an EEA national who is a 'qualified person', e.g. a worker. Noajthan has already addressed that possibility.

If you are not a visa national, you could enter a 7-year period of being "in breach of the immigration laws" (so unable to naturalise or be 'settled') but not "in beach of immigration laws" (so currently qualifying for ILR for 10 years lawful residence - Immigration Rule 276B) by crossing from Ireland to the UK, but that loophole could all too easily be shut. You would have to make the crossing before your partner naturalised.

Alternatively, you might be thinking of the 10-year route to settlement as a spouse or equivalent of a settled person, e.g. a British citizen. Normally that would be a 5-year route, but it is possible to follow the 10-year route if one cannot meet the English language requirement or pass Life in the UK test at the right time. Other reasons for following that route include not meeting the financial requirement, but then you would have to justify your application by a human rights claim or similar. There is some doubt as to whether you could switch to that route without leaving the UK, and if you had to leave you would have to apply for the 5-year route.