Any ideas on exactly what is needed for an EEA family permit? Italy to UK...

[shalona]

Hi .... am Uk citizen and also a legal Resident of Italy and with my wife & kids from the Philippines all here with me (via Family visa, valid til Aug 2012). Am working full time here and maybe next year my employment base will almost certainly transfer to the UK....so, any idea what exactly to do so my family can join me in the UK when work eventually moves there next year?
Am especially concerned on documentation required by my Filipina wife and kids and as their residents permit (permissio sigiornio) application to stay here in Italy may take a long time (12months + maybe to sort out here possibly), can they therefore still apply for an EEA family permit just on their existing Family visa basis in which they entered Italy originally a couple of months ago? Or, if we they dont have a permission sigiornio by the time I move back to work in UK, can we apply for an EEA family permit for them whilst I am being a Resident in Italy and they maybe come in from the Philippines to join me in UK that way instead?
I also wonder how long it would take to get an EEA family permit 'usually'....
Am finding the different rules and intepretations of European Law difficult to understand sometimes! Especially trying to do my best so that the family dont have to be apart is the main thing...
thanks from us
ciao

[Terpe]

Hi Shalona,

Normally, British citizens living in UK are not EEA nationals for the purpose of the European rules. That means that their family members don't qualify and need to apply under the national rules.

There are some possible exceptions if the British citizen is exercising economic treaty rights in another EEA state whilst they and their family members live there.
Requirements are strictly applied in order to prevent circumvention of immigration rules, or the avoidance of visa fees etc.

It would appear that your case does not follow any of the 'normal' routes to UK.

Such cases as yours MAY sometimes use what is commonly termed 'the Surinder Singh route' to access immigration to UK.
If your case could be accepted under this ECJ ruling, your wife would get a five year UK residence card and then at the end of five years she MAY get permanent residency.
To be honest I haven't reviewed this ruling for a long time and have not kept up to date on recent uses.
However, just based on the information you have provided and given that a residence card has not yet been issued, I would very much doubt that you could meet the requirements needed.
To completely satisfy yourself on these points I would suggest you seriously consider just having a 30 minute chat with a specialist immigration advisor (with experience of Surinder Singh cases)

The safest and easiest way, is to submit the regular UK spouse visa application (together with all documents and evidence) and the ILR would be after only 23 months.

To be fair I should mention that there's a good chance that UK immigration for settlement visa's will likely change around April 2012 so by the time you come to apply for whatever visa/route you go for, the rules could have changed significantly.

Hope this helps a little

[shalona]

Thanks for all the advice & thoughts ..some +ive change of circumstances are that we all do now have Italian Residency & Italian ID cards + Permissio Sigiorno et al + we all genuinley live & work here and will be being relocated by employer next year to UK ... so seems the SSingh route could maybe be fully open to us ......however, the best route would be UK spouse visa application (as is much quicker for settlement) - however (despite we have many month bank statements & salary slips & I have an income/surplus that would put us properly above the lowest required threshold) we are concerned that we dont have savings or may only have max 1000 by the time we would apply in March. But my employer has said would give me two thousand towards the visa app & other costs ........ did you think having no or little savings in this circumstance would be accpetable to an ECO given the assistance of my employer? ..thks