Challenge to refusal of EEA residence card rejected for lack of dependency

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against the refusal of an EEA residence card as an extended family member where further education was considered not to be an essential living need in circumstances where the appellant had applied for a working holiday maker visa before instead continuing with his education. This meant that there was a three year gap in the provision of support by the EEA family member and so dependency was broken during this period. The case is Tipu v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 215

The appellant is a national of Bangladesh who came to the UK as a student and subsequently applied for an EEA residence card as an extended family member of his cousin, a Portuguese national. The appellant’s cousin had financially supported the appellant since he was 14 years old in Bangladesh, and that he had covered all of the appellant’s living expenses since 2011 and the appellant also lived with him since then.

The application was refused on 30 November 2020. The First-tier Tribunal dismissed the appeal following a hearing on 23 November 2022. The appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal which concluded that there had been an error of law in the First-tier’s decision which was set aside.

The Upper Tribunal proceeded to remake the decision and the appellant’s appeal was again dismissed. The tribunal held that at the point the appellant had entered university education in Bangladesh his education “ceased to be an essential living need”. The tribunal considered it relevant that the appellant had applied to come to the UK as a working holiday maker in 2008, considering that “he had, in his own estimation, sufficient educational skills to travel and work internationally”.

It followed that there was then a gap of three years between that point and the time the appellant joined his cousin’s household in 2011. The tribunal referred to Chowdhury v SSHD [2021] EWCA Civ 1220 as authority for the position that “it is only permissible for there to be a de minimis interruption in the dependency or household membership”.

In granting permission, the Court of Appeal said:

I have real doubts whether there is any error of law in the UT’s well-reasoned decision, but I accept that the Appellant’s two grounds raise arguable points with a real prospect of success. I also accept they each raise an important point of principle, namely:

(i) whether dependency can be shown by establishing financial support for tertiary education and

(ii) whether a gap of three years between a sponsor meeting essential needs and an applicant living in a sponsor’s household defeats a claim where the sponsor is in fact supporting the applicant throughout.

The Court of Appeal concluded that there were no errors “in the clear and careful judgment of UTJ Lindsley” and the appeal was dismissed.