married to a Brit, here for 18 years

[DorothyL]

Do I really need to apply for British citizenship, or can I wait and see?

You should not worry, above all. The several million "children of divorce" in the EU i.e. EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the rest of the EU who have settled lives will not be thrown out and returned. Of that you can be entirely certain

Lets look at the FACTS that we have shall we?

When the referendum was announced as definitely going to happen, the home office made it HARDER for EU citizens to get proof of residencey, not easier (the Jan 2015 changes to EEA(PR).

When the referendum was an absolute certainty, the Home Office essentially (in practice, if not in paper) took away the naturalization through marraige route in December 2015.

Anecdotal evidence (MNers who have tried that route) has told us that the home office is turning down pretty much all Surrender Singh route applications since the announcement that we were deffinitely having a referendum

In April, the income requirements were INCREASED well above the average salary, again, just in time for the referendum

We know from families which are mixed British and non EU, that the home office have and do split families up

We also know that they do not have form for allowing people cross over time when they change the rules: proof being when they changed the naturalization through marriage, people whose applications arrived for processing under the old rules _as they were at the time on the gov website were rejected and had their 1k taken anyway

BoboChick please share some proof that makes you so certain that I'm wrong, if you can't STOP GIVING PEOPLE POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS ADVICE!!!!

I've been looking into citizenship / IDL / residence card and since we are still in the EU (for another 2years) I've been told (by a gov agency) I cannot apply for the residence card and IDL is the only option. Anyone else been told this?

It's the other way round, since we are still in the EEA, you can apply for the EEA(PR), you can't really apply for ILR at this point because while we're still in the EU, you sort of on paper have it. They are very similar so if you have a EEA(PR) you may find it easier to convert that to ILR once you need ILR once we leave

Years spent as a STUDENT might no longer qualify since the December 2015 rule change WHICH WAS APPLIED RETROSPECTIVELY TO ANY QUALIFYING YEARS BUILD UP BEFORE 2015 that students or self employed who wanted their years to qualify needed to have FULL health insurance in order for those years to qualify….. even if their years DID qualify at the time because they were accrewed before 2015, they don't now *this is the warm fuzzy Home office people are dealing with here Bobo

Normandy, look into him qualifying with you as his sponsor (particularly if you were living in the EEA for the last 5 years even if he was)

Look into the Surrender Singh route to see if it applies to your situaion, but only try applying for that if he can't apply any other way. I haven't heard of anyone using that route sucessfully since the announcement of the referendum.

If he doesn't qualify for PR (and then conversion to ILR) by the time any changes are enforced, then I expect it'll come down to income requirements (which currently are at around 35Kish)

What you can do straight away to help cover a spectrum of future possible claims he might need to make, is for him to get FULL health insurance, if you can't afford that don't bother with cheapo health insurance. When the HO does ask for it, it's FULL private healthcare or nothing

You'll probably be fine but DH (non EU citizen) got his British citizenship as soon as he was able to after getting ILR. There have been so many changes on immigration in the past few years that it just seemed safest to go for it. It really wasn't too onerous - a few lengthy forms, he found the test easy and we were both bemused by the whole ceremony but went along with it to get the piece of paper at the end. Far better to have that peace of mind than to have it nagging at you every time the UK decides to change their immigration rules ime.

So the six years altogether of work and studying, though split by time at sahm time, are not enough? By the time Brexit will happen it will be five years employment, so should that be enough or will it be too late by then

Unfortunately, if you've been a full time student without full health insurance in the last 5 years, that may work against you in claiming EEA(PR). Apply anyway though.

If you wait until Brexit (and whatever rules they decide to implement) to start applying, it may be too late to start the process, because without it you might not be able to stay for long enough to go through the process. Its a LONG process. Do not count on them allowing for cross over time, by then they'll just tell you that you would have applied for it by now if you were genuine

Apply now, you might be lucky with the student thing

Adulting how do I find the information to apply for EEA(PR) ? I couldn't find it on the GOV website.

Oops found it. But it's not easy to find nor to understand

So how it works is you follow the form and it will guide you as to what sections you need to complete

Not all sections will apply to you

Don't second guess which sections you think apply to you, follow the form it'll tell you

You need A LOT of paperwork to support your application form.

So to get started, read through and write down which sections it tells you you need, then go back and write down the documents you need for each of those sections. This stage can take some time so do this before filling in the form (as what you write will need to match your documents anyway)

You may need things like:
Letters from each employer, dates of every holiday you've taken outside of UK in last 5 years, All your p60s for that time, utility bills, pay slips, contracts of employment, that sort of thing

And you'll be without your passport for some time, so don't book any holidays for now

Yea I clocked the passport thing. We have already booked to go to a wedding in South America in Oct. I'll work on getting my docs together and apply when we get back.

the form is updated about twice a year (and they made significant changes last year) so make sure you re-check you still have the right up to date docs when you get back

adulting I don't think surinder Singh will work for us. We were living in Canada together for 4 years prior to moving here, so he's only lived in the EU for 2 years total.

He doesn't have health insurance now - why is that important for his status? I didn't realise it was a requirement. This is such a mess.

Well in Jan 2015 they introduced a retrospective (nasty shock for people who had been following the rules and building up their years accordingly) change to EEA(PR) about people having FULL health insurance if they were employed or self employed during the qualifying years.

So with that as an indication/hint about what they might impliment in the future in relation to Brexit, I would in your case if you can't do anything else, try and see if you can afford full health insurance, it might help you down the line

It might not, but if you can't do anything else now then IMO it might support any future applications or appeals as it shows he was supporting himself IYKWIM

Prior to Jan 2015, i.e. prior to the confirmation that the referendum was going ahead, there was no mention of needing health insurance to get EEA(PR) if self employed or a student.

But why change it?

IMO it hints at their future intentions.

And it was follwed in Dec 2015 by the change to naturalisation.

So there's a trend IMO

I might be being tinfoil hat-ey, but if you aren't sucessful with getting anything else sorted, it's at least something you can pull out of your hat in the future

Ok thanks adulting I'll look into it.

So what would be the position of a non UK (but EU) SAHP who's UK spouse was working and earning over £20k per year? Would the health insurance rule still be applied to them?

at this point it only asks for health insurance for students or self employed, and not SAHP or people on benefits or otherwise unemployed.

So just follow the form and answer what it asks for your particular situation if you are eligible for EEA(PR)

My guess that Health Insurance might help was to people who don't qualify for EEA(PR)

The min income is now around £35k for non EU, so with a partner on just £20 they wouldn't qualify to sponsor you if you end up without any other documents allowing you to stay post Brexit (again my guess, based on rules for Non EEA), so while you can, get EEA(PR) and then you can also go for citizenship after that if you want to be sure you're covered.

At this time there is no min income requirement for EEA(PR) at all, it's just showing settlement, so in that respect someone on benefits might actually be in a better position to prove settlement/residency than someone who isn't

Don't assume it's about savings or income at this point

There are sections for "your sponsor" on the EEA(PR) form, but you DON'T go down the sponsor route unless the form tells you to based on your circumstance.

Wherever possible, qualify in your own right if you can. Just IMO.

Marraige often doesn't help you with regards to the home office, so sort your self out in your own right if you've been here 5 years

Adulting - where are you getting the figure of £35k from? Appendix FM still says at E-ECP.3.1. that £18,600 is required. The £35k figure has been proposed as a minimum earnings threshold in the points based routes, but as far as I am aware does not apply to spouse routes.

My understanding from another thread is that a UK spouse can't be your sponsor unless you are using the Surinder Singh route - i.e. they would have to have lived with you and worked in another EU country and then come to the UK.

Otherise your sponsor needs to be an EEA qualified person, not a british citizen.

Thistledew, I don't know much about incomes Vs spouse incomes because at the moment it doesn't apply to EU citizens in their own right at this point in time, I just know that rules are changing and the thresholds are going up

And trying to predict what the requirements for EU citizens might be post Brexit based on the changes they shoe horned in before the referendum.. but it's still just a guess