Dear Friends,

I would really appreciate it if any of you could shed some light on this.

I’m South African, I lived in the UK for 5 and a half years. I was initially on a 2 year working holiday visa–which we all start on -then I studied and was on a student visa ,an extension to the student visa was refused and as a result I overstayed for 22 months. My husband, who was then a boyfriend, is from Lithuania. We were living together for 17 months of these 22 months when he proposed. We were advised to get married in South Africa as we would not get permission to marry in England. This suited us perfectly as my parents had to meet my husband. We married 01/2007 in South Africa and applied for the EEA Family permit (here in South Africa) in February. We provided all evidence of our relationship with the application, my husband’s payslips (for a year) and bank statements, our marriage certificate, photographs of the wedding and of us before the wedding in England, a bill that has both our names in it.
The EEA family permit was unfortunately refused(because of me failing to comply with conditions of my previous leave to remain) however we were given the right to appeal which we have taken advantage of and appealed and apparently this is still pending. My husband has returned to England as he works and lives there with members of his family however we are both going through a terrible time as newly weds-its not our idea of a honeymoon period by the least. I am told that this refusal can in fact be found unlawful and that there’s a lot of unspoken laws around this EEA family permit .Does anyone have any advice or light on such matters? Can they actually refuse this? Surely, we can’t be forced to live 10 000 km apart from one another!

 

EEA Family permit that seems unattainable

Triple H,

Thank you for your response.Well i have seeked UK based legal representatives and both have agreed that i have good chances of success .Not knowing if that's "solicitor lingo".So we are going with the government funded legal organisation who don't usually take on a case if they think there won't be a chance of success -so im going on that hope !

do you perhaps know of any plausable grounds that one can use to protest against this !i know it depends on the individual case but i mean generic one's. for example,i underwent therapy (counselling )during that time for traumas that i experienced in my home country ,i have provided them with details of the counselling centre that i was under the care of .Do you think this can be a plausable one?

 

EEA Family permit that seems unattainable

Hi thsths,

wow....thanks for your kind response !I actually spent the whole weekend in tears so your response have done more than you can imagine and i feel i at least have the hope and faith back .Thank you and i'll look in to the websites you have provided!

 

Thanks you for your response.

I will visit the site as soon as I finish typing this 

I have been in touch with the EU commissioner as advised and as we are in process of appeal through the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, The EU commission cannot intervene at the moment ,they may however be able to do so if the final decision at the tribunal is a refusal and they find that in breach of the EU law and providing we have relevant and required evidence, etc.

They have however articulated the letter of refusal that I sent to them and that was a bit of an insight. This points out that the Entry Clearance Officer concerned is not convinced that our marriage is not a “marriage of convenience” hence his decision to refuse the EEA family permit. This is mainly because I overstayed my visa and that I met my husband during this period of overstaying. I personally cannot see how I can get around this as I did indeed meet my husband during this period but it is just a question of fate. I don’t believe that anyone can determine when they are going to meet their life time partners, unless I am missing something.

The EU commissioner advices that I try and provide more evidence of our relationship. We have already provided a 3 month utility bill(with both our names on it) and photographs and I am now honestly dumfound as I have not a cooking clue of what else to provide as evidence????????I was not working so we only used my husbands bank account and my parents were posting money for me through money gram therefore a joint account was not necessary. Can anyone advice on this? Does anyone else know of other authorities that we can raise this matter with and perhaps some literature or sites, if anyone knows of any that we can read educate ourselves with.

As I said previously ,I gather this process is going to take a while ,we have already been separated from one another for 3 months now and we are saving for another flight ticket for my husband to come to South Africa for the second time this year. It is the most draining process ,I’m sure if we weren’t a genuine couple we would have given up already but unfortunately we are so this is the most excruciating and mortifying experience.

 

Aga30

i'm looking to be in touch with user :Aga30.You have some really interestign points that you have mentioned while talking to "loozit"...and i think i can learn somtething from you as my case is similar to the one you and your husband went through ...if you are still logging on ,please be in touch !!!!

 

Triple H

Thank you very much for your kind responses .I note that you have not only endeavoured to help me but many other people on this forum and I'm much obliged.

On your previous posting to me you mentioned Ireland.

1)Are you suggesting that we make an application to the authorities in Ireland?
2)would that be another EEA family permit.

3)Does that mean we have to settle in Ireland?

4)What about if my husband returned to Lithuania and applied for me to join him there?and then both applying to return to the UK.

 

EEA Family permit that seems unattainable

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive and informative!

Everyone of you however keeps advising me to try Ireland.What i'm not clear about and keep asking is :if my husband need to be resident in Ireland for us to apply for this?

A lot of you have suggested that i make a 2nd application to the BHC which we will be doing as soon as my husband gets to South Africa !!!!!


Thank you so much for your help and please advice if any of you know of additional evidence i can provide either than our Life/Funeral cover policy held in South Africa,photographs ,text messages and text messages ?

 

EEA Family permit that seems unattainable

Thank you for your response Pacy ,

Well, I could n’t risk not disclosing my overstay as they are not obliged to respond immediately .In fact I had n’t disclosed it when applying for the EEA on the form as there was no question that asked that .The form asks if you were ever deported or refused a visa .I have never been deported but an extension to my student visa was refused .So I answered what the form asked. i.e., yes I have been refused a visa before but no I have never been deported. It was at the interview that I had to disclose it but the ECO already knew.

They did not however articulate that they wanted evidence in a form of emails and text /telephone calls. Had it been clear ,I would have gladly provided them as I have kept most of the emails and text between my husband and I .In fact I was asked to prove extensively if I was indeed studying in the U.K and then the final respond came back with an accusation that my marriage is a sham .

We are now trying to raise funds to buy a ticket again for my husband to come back to South Africa and we can make a fresh application ,while we are still waiting for the appeal date .I’m told I can apply at any time if I wish to and even though we have lodged an appeal and getting legal assistance with it .I’m told this can take up to a year and we really don’t want to wait that long so we’ve decided to apply again while waiting .This time providing all emails ,birthday&christmas cards, text messages, phone cards ,photo’s, my husband bank statements ,our marriage certificate, and more photo’s .If anyone knows what else I can provide as evidence please let me know !

 

EEA Family permit that seems unattainable

Hey,

Thanks a lot for your response.

As I was overstaying and not working ,we do not have much evidence to show that we were together before we got married except for text messages ,greeting cards , emails and photo’s .We had a three months electricity bill which we have already submitted for evidence to the AIT for the appeal.Well because I had overstayed the ECO finds me not credible and that we have married for the right reasons.I was going through counselling for sometime of my overstay not the whole duration of it .But he says that he did not find that reason enough .The whole thing overstaying started when an extension to my student visa was refused.Then I sort of stayed on and then met my husband.He also noted that we met when my stay was irregular and the he says is motivating his decision.

 

EEA family permit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!SA+LT=Lon

Hi,

Thanks to everyone who has been ever so supportive and imformative in the past i.e Pacy, Brownbonno ,Triple H and Aga 30!

Just for the record ,my husband and i are still living apart -him in London and myself in South Africa .We werel ucky tho' that our date of appeal is not so for to go (July).We managed to get legal help from the IAS and advies on what to provide as supporting evidence.However, as our case is a bit complex with regards to my immigration history (which was non intentional ),we are worried that we may not win the appeal (although the IAS reckons we have a good chance of success)

My question today is :Should we loss the appeal ,can i travel to the UK with my husband and attempt to enter in that way (ofcourse with proof that we are indeed a married couple)?I know that one of you adviced me before that this may be possible and in fact i can be provided (at the uk border) with a quicker way of applying for some sort of entry clearance before i'm turned back -as a right!

Although we have a faith in our case now ,we are panicing a bit as i was refused the EEA before (when we thought our chances were good)and we just want to make sure that we have a "Plan B" ,so to speak....!

 

eea family permit that seems unattainable

Hello



Hello Lieie

Thank you for the kind words and sorry that it took so long for me to respond.

I was interviewed in Pretoria on the 15 Feb ,got a response on the 23rd of Feb. The BHC is obliged by law to provide you with information of where to seek legal assistance should you find their judgement unjust. Although mine was not so articulated and I found more help on the internet .The Asylum & Immigration Services is a government funded legal service and assist with legal advice and representation should you qualify for it .I think their website is www.iasuk.org .I lodged my appeal on the 12 March and I was given a date for early July !This however ,varies depending on their “waiting list” and so on !

Why do you feel so pessimistic about your application ?