Forum Immigration UK

[Shady Ahmad]

I am Egyptian married to a Hungarian girl for more than 2 years. We are living in Hungary at the moment and want to move to England.

My Wife has been living and working in England already before we met (She has English National Insurance number) for more than 2 years, then she moved to Egypt where we married officially and we stayed in there for over a year. (The Marriage sbeen authorized and confirmed by the Hungarian authorities)

Due to the culture differences she wanted to move back to England and we thought that it might be better to move to Hungary first and then from Hungary we go to England. I got my Residence Visa for 5 years in Hungary already more than 8 months ago and due to her extreme love for animals, she bought a puppy and thus we needed to wait 6 months so we can take him with us to England.

I want to apply for an EEA family permit, but according to the current EEA Family permit there might be some problems:

1) I dont have a job as I don't speak Hungarian and it is really hard to get any job with only the knowledge of the English Language. (Was working though but without a contract). Will this affect my application that I dont have a job and it might be rejected?

2) I have some friends in Italy who offered me a job and I can go anytime, is it better to go there and apply for the EEA Family Permit from there considering that I will be having a job as we can go and work both of us, or is it better to apply from Hungary directly with the current situation (that I am jobless), or she go to England (as she can get a job easily and a flat in there) and i can go to Italy and apply from there for the Permit to catch up with her in Uk?

3) There was a requirement to have a flat rented in the application with some extra details about the flat address and description. Is this is a must for the permit to be accepted (Considering that we will go together from Hungary, I don't know how can we rent a flat and wait for the Embassy permit), or this can be replaced by having enough money in my wifes's bank account for renting a flat ?

4) How much money least should be in the Bank account when applying for the application as we dont have much at the moment and I hope this shouldn't be a problem.

5) How long does it take to get the acceptance for the EEA Family permit? I saw some posts talking about 6 months . I hope I have misunderstood those ones.

Sorry for sending such a long post but I just asked all the things I am thinking about at once and I hope somene can Help us with some answers.

Many thanks in advance and if any more information is needed to clear things in order to help I will post them.

[Yousafzai]

The very first thing you need to do is to STOP worrying so much ! You have been married for quite some time, have a daughter and there is every reason for the ECO to believe that your marriage is not that of convenience and thats your strogest point.

As for the place where you should apply from, I don't think that really matters. I would rather suggest you do it from Hungary because it can be presumably quicker than in Italy ( because of bigger number of applications )

Whether you work in Hungary or not is irrelevant as long as you have enough money in your account ( which should ideally be a joint account between you and your wife ). How much depends on many things and I am sure you will never get a fixed estimate of how much is enough because its upto the ECO to decide if the money is enough or not but usually, if you have money for three months of your expenses in UK, that should be safely called as enough.

As for that flat, you need to search a bit on the internet. There are lots of estate agencies in UK who do send out some kind of confirmation or a provisional contract once you pay some token money which can state that flat has been reserved for you and once you arrive in UK, you can sign a full contract. I personally am not aware of this procedure but I am sure you can sort it out somehow if you search a bit.

I would suggest not to try getting help from friends/family in accomodation matter because that can create lots of complications.

The time it takes to process the application depends again on more than one things but it doesn't take so long usually. I have seen cases where the family permit was issued on the same day. Just make sure your documents are complete.

I hope I have answered all the questions. Feel free if there is anything else you need to ask.

and in the end once again, its your right to have a family permit and move to UK and no one can deny it to you. They can only make it difficult but you should be ready to fight for your right if needed !

Good luck !

[Shady Ahmad]

Thanks a million for your kind detailed and clear reply as it helped me alot to see things more clear.

Didn't think before about the Joint account and already going tomorrow to the bank to make it shared. ( I don't have bank account on my own due to some law restrictions in here; Need to have work contract)

Also started to check for agencies that might help with reserve a flat in the way you described

And I think I will apply from Hungary as the job is not irrelevant which is logical thing.

I wanted to ask a newbie question though as I have all the documents translated into English to give them to the Embassy, the Marriage paper is written in Hungarian still and not translated, should I translate it too?

Thnx again for your reply.

[Yousafzai]

Definitely Yes.

You will need the english translation of your marriage certificate. I am not sure if you should get it translated from an authorised translator or just a simple translation on a word document for example from your wife would be enough but you need to find it out from the British embassy in Budapest.

If they don't reply ( which is quite possible ), get it from an authorised translator to save time.

Good luck

[fadhle]

Hi guys, I think the questions and answers are more than great, I have the same condition, I am Canadian, my wife is Romanian, I live and work in france for +20 years, we have children (are Romanian and canadian), myself I have Permanent Resident card of Romania for all those years, I have no inentiion to become a sitizen of Romania. we are planing to relocate in UK, but we have no exp. in all those matters of immigration.
My question is: can we apply for family permit from canada or not? we will spend this summer in canada then we will be back.
many thanks,
John

The very first thing you need to do is to STOP worrying so much ! You have been married for quite some time, have a daughter and there is every reason for the ECO to believe that your marriage is not that of convenience and thats your strogest point.

As for the place where you should apply from, I don't think that really matters. I would rather suggest you do it from Hungary because it can be presumably quicker than in Italy ( because of bigger number of applications )

Whether you work in Hungary or not is irrelevant as long as you have enough money in your account ( which should ideally be a joint account between you and your wife ). How much depends on many things and I am sure you will never get a fixed estimate of how much is enough because its upto the ECO to decide if the money is enough or not but usually, if you have money for three months of your expenses in UK, that should be safely called as enough.

As for that flat, you need to search a bit on the internet. There are lots of estate agencies in UK who do send out some kind of confirmation or a provisional contract once you pay some token money which can state that flat has been reserved for you and once you arrive in UK, you can sign a full contract. I personally am not aware of this procedure but I am sure you can sort it out somehow if you search a bit.

I would suggest not to try getting help from friends/family in accomodation matter because that can create lots of complications.

The time it takes to process the application depends again on more than one things but it doesn't take so long usually. I have seen cases where the family permit was issued on the same day. Just make sure your documents are complete.

I hope I have answered all the questions. Feel free if there is anything else you need to ask.

and in the end once again, its your right to have a family permit and move to UK and no one can deny it to you. They can only make it difficult but you should be ready to fight for your right if needed !

Good luck !

[Yousafzai]

Of course you can. There is no restriction on the place where you can apply for family permit from but I wouldn't recommend you apply from Canada because that would be with a lot more hassle which you don't need to go through at all.

If you live in France, thats the best place for you to apply from.

Good luck

[GPnv]

Hi everyone. Im new to this website and found answers really helpful.
Just wanted to ask for advice.
My husband is italian and im non-EEA and visa national. In november we planning to move to UK. What documents do we need in order to receive EEA Family Permit?
We both currenty working in Italy and I have my 5years Residence Permit here. We've been married for 7months. He never lived in UK but I lived for 4 years on student visa before coming to Italy.
In October im flying to Uk on tourist visa for couple of days to get some papers. The job we will have as soon we come to UK through friends of mine. But for visa he need to have it, its a must if I got it right.
We dont have much saving(about£4000 and on my name) so we need employment letter for him. Can it be just Email job offer or kind of written confirmation that some sort of job been offered to him and he expected to come on certain day to begin his job. About place where to stay we can get letter from private landlord. And ofcourse we will be travelling together to UK.
Many thanks