Settled Status from the personal point of view of a EU citizen living in the UK

[Enko]

As a rule I try to stay out of anything political when I post on social media. However I am well aware that posting this likely will turn into some sort of political debate.. So can I just ask you all to consider that " this is my life" I am talking about and it is the life of 3 million people living in the UK.

I went to bed in tears last night.. tears of frustration of a system I am forced to now go through in a vote I had no voice in.

I have lived in the UK 29 years that is almost ALL my adult life. Paid taxes. I am married to a Britt (23 years) and We have 4 children who all identifies as British (with some Danish heritage) My Danish family say when I talk in Danish now I speak with the English sentence structure and there are things I simply do not know what are in Danish as I have not lived there for so long.

I do not go back to Denmark often.. Many reasons but the main one was cost when the children were younger and also its actually not much of a holiday when you spend all of it translating.. My children do not speak Danish (yes I know that's a shame and yes I know how beneficial that would have been for them.. However there were valid reasons why that happened) My husband can say " a beer please" and Mother in law... (so he does well over there as you can imagine) As a rule the Danish are keen to speak English and does so very well.

As a family we are more British in manner than Danish However we celebrate Danish Christmas on the 24th in the evening (and then do it all over again on the 25th the British way) Friends say they notice little things in our house that are Scandinavian influenced however I do not think it is massively so. (However apparently my insisting on people taking their shoes off before they enter the house is Scandinavian-- who knew?")

Denmark is NOT home. Home is here.. with my husband and our children.. My friends MY LIFE... it's here in the UK..

I have to apply for settled status. I have as I said paid taxes here but apparently that is not enough to tick me in as allowed to remain. So I duly apply for this.. My passport is too old so doesn't have the " chip" in it that is needed.. I duly send in the " proof" of living here for the last 5 years.. One of these documents is my pension statement from my last employee. The Letter explains that I am entitled to a pension from them for the period between 2017 - 2019... It also explains I have obtained this pension because I worked for the company for 3 years previously to this.. This is proof of my living in the UK for 2017-2019.. However they wish further proof of my living in the UK from May 2016- December 2016.. The pension letter (that explains I worked for this company for 5 years) is not enough, I have lost my P60 from 2017 can't find it.. However I had sent in the pension letter and a payslip from May 2016.. Not enough they need further proof.

I have this morning resolved it by going into my online banking and sent through statements from the year.. However last night on having received this email. I felt trapped..

Trapped because I can't just " go back to my own country" because its not "my" country anymore.. I can't simply up and leave my life.. My family. Friends.. Like I said above " this is home" Only it appears that it is made as difficult as possible for me to actually be"home"

I spoke to my friend who asked " Well haven't you got ILR...?" (Indefinite leave to remain) well no as an EU citizen I didn't need it so I would not have applied for that. Another friend said " well why don't you just apply to become a British citizen you are married to a Britt so its easy... " well no as actually being married doesn't make a great difference to this - my children have more swaying power there".. Also it will cost me about £1800 to nationalise.. (& I will still be asked " where are you from?")

Peter Rasmussen said it incredibly well in this
"comic"

I agree with his.. I feel sad.

What a horrible situation for you - I'm British but I've lived in Spain and I think an awful lot of people have no comprehension of what freedom of movement has meant for many, many people.

I've heard others in a similar position to yours say the same kinds of things and that they have experienced people being openly racist towards them in a way they wouldn't have been prior to the referendum. It's horrible and shows just what some people are really like.

I can't help you with your application as I don't know what it entails. I know of one person who obtained British citizenship in order to ensure they wouldn't have issues staying. I can only imagine it makes you feel unwelcome, which is terrible.

A shameful period in Britain's history.

I’m no expert but can’t you just apply for pre settled status then upgrade once you have the proof of a full five years residency?

@aposterhasnoname No because pre settled states I have not yet lived here for 5 years and that would be a lie.

Just checked with one of my colleagues in the same boat. Apparently you don’t apply for one or the other, you just apply and if you don’t have sufficient proof you are automatically granted pre settled status, which you can then upgrade as soon as you do have proof of five years residency. No lying required.

Like I said I have supplied bank statements. & after 29 years here I really would mind very much to be seen as " pre settled"

I am in the same situation except I would love to go back to my home country and plan to once my children are grown up. At the moment they are in the middle of exams and I cannot uproot them.

I totally agree with you and think the whole thing is a farce, but youre clearly stressed about it and I was trying to help. I assume you’ve applied for an administrative review, and been refused that too, therefore you have little choice but to accept pre settled status.

No I have not applied for an administrative review. I have like I said supplied the further documentation they needed. Stressed is not a word I would use about it. Frustrated.. yes.. sad yes. stressed not so much no... I knew how to resolve it I just find it frustrating that the fact I have a pension and a letter that shows this pension is not enough.

& That is before we even get near the entire " this is my home"

100% agree @Gilbert1A (was more my point of just how normal and British our house was - I Know many who has this rule hence the "who knew")

My DH was the same. Apparently having 20 years of tax, NI and pension contributions was not sufficient and he needed endless documents to get settled status or ILR (I can't remember now what he did.). As it is, he's now applied for citizenship purely because of the brexit nonsense that's going on.

It cost us upwards for £2000 for all the admin etc but at least we don't need to worry about potential NHS access / pension etc in the future. Look at what happened to the Windrush generation - people being threatened with deportation to a country that was never home because the government didn't stick to what the promised.
If we hadn't had children, he potentially wouldn't have bothered but now we do, we felt it was essential.

It sounds like a horrible process to go through, very unsettling and out of your control.

This has been happening to thousands of people of Caribbean heritage who were brought here by their parents with their British passports. Many, if not all, were children when they came here. Many have been deported, denied healthcare, denied their pensions etc. And that is all by a country that they have served and their parents have served. At least as an adult you have some scope as to where to start with dates and documents as per work. What does the Danish embassy say on its website with regards to Brexit? I say this as someone who lives in Germany, so I get the frustration

It can be a very straightforward and a stupidly complicated system.
I could have written your starting post with a different country. :-)
But please don't take it personally, this is not against you and ot just shows how rubbish they are with keeping records.
(Mine took about 3 weeks, just had to send in my passport.)
It actually has no financial consequences just a lot of hassle.
When it's done I suggest you sort of a citizenship. Despite the costs, that's the only way we can avoid another Windrush situation. (I wish I sorted mine as soon as I was eligible ... for about half the money.)

Yes sadly we have decided I am going to have to nationalise.. However once I do that I am NEVER AGAIN agreeing to be from anywhere but the town I live in.. IF I have to pay £1800 for a British passport then I will be British.... (obviously I say this sorta almost kinda tongue in cheek)

Will that allow you to keep your right to complain about the weather?

I'm sorry you are having to go through this. We were worried for quite a while that my husband would have to, but thankfully Irish nationals are being treated differently from other EU citizens for this. He has lived here since he was a baby. Other than about a year spent working abroad, he has worked and paid taxes here all his adult life. He went to school here, and university. But like you he would struggle to find sufficient pieces of papers to please the bureaucrats. We are treating EU citizens, who have given so much to this country, disgracefully.

Hi, with missing P60 there are two options. You can ask your previous employer to send you a copy (I have lost mine and I was sent a copy dated 5 years back. You can speak with your tax office to send you some paperwork for that year.

I understand that thank you @mamamiass however the response time I had was 2 weeks. I contacted my previous employer 1 month ago asking them for a letter confirming my years with them (easiest way to prove my 5 years I thought) I have only just received an acknowledgement (this is a LARGE concern I am talking about) So I was not hedging my bets on them doing this on time.

As I said my bank statements sorted it out, however it doesnt change how I feel about it all.

Enko I feel for you. I would advise that you call the settled status helpline on UK.GOV (03001237379) and explain your predicament. I had to call them today to go through the settled status online application and they told me that even parts of the online website are out of date, they are working on updates. Fills you with confidence doesn't it. They were helpful though - do give them a call and see if they can find a way for you to provide the evidence you need.

To others who are Irish and not applying for settled status, I would urge a word of caution. The CTA between Ireland and the UK is not legally binding, and that's important. It betstows rights that in theory could be withdrawn, at any point in the future. It also covers predominently free movment, it does not provide cast iron legal right to things like eg disability benefit, pension, eduation in the far future. Any successive government could in theory drop the CTA, in which case Irish residents here will find themselves simply having EU rights. I never thought I'd see Windrush happen and yet here we are. I don't want to be fighting for my pension in 20 yrs because the government recognise me simply as having EU rights and nothing more. I am not a lawyer but I have been listening to legal points of view on this and as it costs nothing more than the time to apply for settled status, it would be worth considering, or at least reading up about it. THe bottom line for me is do I trust the government to not change the CTA post-brexit, and the answer is sadly no. After 2 decades raising a family here and married to a Brit, the whole things leaves me sad and annoyed. But thats not going to change anything - try the helpline I mentioned and see if they can advise. I wish you well.