Travelling with COA while waiting for Residence card

[JandE1726]

Hi i need advise please.
I (non-eea national married to Portuguese) have applied for Permanent residence and requested my passport back. We are planning to go on holiday in Portugal to visit family. The problem is can i apply for schengen visa with an expired resident permit just show them my COA to prove that I am waiting fir the Rsident card? I am planning to apply for eea family permit in Portugal so I can come back to the UK.
THANK YOU

[ijjlian]

I have not tried this but would be interested in hearing how it will turn out for you with the application for a Schengen visa.

My husband (dutch) and I emailed a couple of embassies a while ago as I needed to travel to the Schengen area, among which were Switzerland and the Netherlands. We noticed that embassy worker are mostly not aware of the status of an EEA spouse. At the end we did not apply for the visa as we didnt need to travel anymore.

I think you should definetely write a covering letter explaining your status and rights as an EEA family member with your application to mitigate the risk of a potential rejection.

For coming back to the UK, in theory you should not need a family permit if you travel with your spose and present at the border all kind of proof such as marriage certificate, proof that oyu live in UK together and your certificate of application. However I nkow that Home Office recommends applying for a Family Permit. So maybe best is to do that if you have enough time in Portugal to wait for their processing time of circa 2-3 weeks.

Good luck and please keep the forum posted with what happened eventually. It is not easy to find information on people's experience with such applications.

[noajthan]

Examples about returning to be found if you search, here's a recent one:
http://www.immigrationboards.com/eea-ro ... 23840.html

[JandE1726]

Examples about returning to be found if you search, here's a recent one:
http://www.immigrationboards.com/eea-ro ... 23840.html

Thank you for quick the link but I think that is too risky. Better wait for the RC I guess

[sistersjuan]

My story was a bit different: I haven't received my COA when applied the Schengen visa.

My husband is Greek. On 27th Jan. 2017, I applied with the Greek Embassy a Schengen visa. By that time, my student visa expires in one week, and I haven't received my COA (only submitted my biometric information on 24th Jan.). I took the biometric letter and proof of requesting my passport back letter from the HO to the embassy, but the Greek embassy rejected my application, and the reason was that my UK visa expires soon, and those letters from HO can't guarantee they will approve my application.