EEA family permit refused - Urgent advice as I'm traveling on Tuesday

[lucasn]

Hello everyone. Let me explain my situation.
I am double national Uruguayan/Italian student. I have won a Chevening scholarship to study at London in 2018-2019 academic year. My current partner is from Argentina and moved to my country to live with me. We lived together for more than two years and I want her to come with me, as she has no one else in her life. So we applied for an EEA family permit. The refusal states the following:

On your application you state that you have been in a relationship since 03 July 2015. As
evidence of your relationship you have provided photographs and a cohabitation statement.
However, this evidence alone is insufficient in demonstrating that you are in a genuine and
subsisting relationship akin to marriage.

This is because you have provided no further evidence of your relationship in the form of
cohabitation or joint financial commitments, for example. Whilst it is noted that you have
provided a cohabitation statement document, without further corroborating evidence in the form
of joint tenancy/rental agreements and utility bills addressed to you and your sponsor jointly, this
document alone is insufficient in evidencing your cohabitation as it is a document produced by
information provided the applicant as opposed to enquiries by independent officials. Given that
you state you have been in a relationship for over three years I would expect a couple in a
genuine and subsisting relationship akin to marriage to be able to document this.

In light of all of the above, this casts doubt upon your relationship as claimed.

The thing is the photographs and the cohabitation statement was not the only documents we provided. We did provide utility bills addressed to my name and to her (separately as utility bills jointly are not used in my country) from 2016 and from 2018 and I also provided a document from my accountant that we have joint investments and savings. We provided both our bank statements.

We have tickets to travel on the 18th because my courses are about to start, so unfortunately we don't have time to do another application. I have collected more evidence of our relationship including all the utility bills from the period 2016-2017-2018, also a letter from my parents giving faith to our relationship and testifying that we also lived with them for a period of time when she first moved to Uruguay. I also have a letter from the British embassy in our country saying I won the scholarship and I intend to travel with my partner and she's been participating with me on Chevening events.

Staying here and doing another application is not our first possibility because she has to travel to another country to do so, and also the tickets are non refundable so we are taking the risk.
The problem is, should we aim for an EEA family member stamp at the border with all the extra documents or should we aim for a visitor visa, saying that as her EEA permit was denied she wants to join me for as much as she is allowed by the government. Both options has pros, cons and risks. The best would be to get the EEA stamp but that would mean overturning an already made decision from another officer. On the other side the visitor visa would only let her stay for maximum 6 months but the officer at the border might doubt that she won't be staying longer.
Can anyone assist me in what to do, and what red flags should I avoid when we're at immigration control?
Thanks a lot

[lucasn]

BUMP
Please I need advice

[kamoe]

We did provide utility bills addressed to my name and to her (separately as utility bills jointly are not used in my country) from 2016 and from 2018 and I also provided a document from my accountant that we have joint investments and savings. We provided both our bank statements.

Unfortunately, I see that the guide to required documents for a Family Permit is quite vague in what concerns unmarried partners, so the next best thing is to stick to the recommendations for residence card, (page 4 of 16): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... -04_KP.pdf

A few questions, then:

• Did you supply at least 12 different documents, 6 addressed to each of you, from 3 different sources? (That's the recommendation for residence card, for when couples cannot show joint bills, as described in the above link).

• Were the supplied bills originals? (Copies are not accepted).

• Did they cover the two previous years evenly spread? (At least two documents per person, per year, and from different months.

The above not being met are really the only reasons I can think of for your refusal.

The ideal scenario is that your partner re-applies for and obtains her Family Permit before traveling.

Since you are not married, I am not sure that you can ask for a stamp on arrival. Unless she's your wife, she is not officially part of your family, and the right to live with you in the UK is not automatic. In other words, and this is an answer from the top of my head of which I am not 100% sure, I believe only married couples can attempt the stamp on arrival. This is a gap for unmarried partners, and it is precisely the Family Permit that covers this gap and confirms you are a durable couple.

Now... since she's Argentinian, she could enter the UK without a visa as a visitor, and stay for 6 months; but this is risky as it will be clear for the immigration official that her intent is to stay with you. She'll need to show that she intends to leave before 6 months, for example, showing a return ticket; but again, this might or might not do the trick.

The recommendation of the Home Office is that if she intends to stay long-term with you, she enters with a family permit. Take a look at the "Do I need a visa?" page, and choose the criteria that apply to your case (Argentinian national, visiting family member for a long term): https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa

The only other advice I can offer is my compilation of tips for residence card applications for unmarried partners (this mainly applies to unmarried couples living in the UK, but might give you an idea). You can look at it here: eea-route-applications/unmarried-partne ... 03285.html

[sebasb21]

BUMP
Please I need advice

Can you tell us what you ended up doing? as a fellow Uruguayan i would like to know if everything is fine, and maybe someone can use the information in the future.

Regards
Sebastian