Celebrating Pro Bono Week: Settled Status Application – German National

This post is part of a series celebrating Pro Bono Week 2019  in the UK, which runs from 4 to 8 November this year, providing an opportunity to encourage, recognise and celebrate the work of lawyers who volunteer their services for free to those who would not otherwise afford legal advice.

We have a long and proud tradition of engaging in community and pro bono work across the globe; giving back is not just a side note for us, it is one of our core values. We recognise we are fortunate to have opportunities and that we have a duty to share our talent and skills to help others find theirs. To celebrate the contribution of our staff and charity partners in furthering this goal and encourage others to participate, this Pro Bono Week we are highlighting our pro bono initiatives in this Fragomen Gives Back blog series.

Background

I recently assisted a German national with a pro bono application for Settled Status under the new EU settlement Scheme. She has lived in the UK for 33 years and has suffered from complex mental health problems. As a result, has been unable to work for the past 20 years. She was in receipt of benefits, including income-based Employment and Support Allowance. However, due to an inconsistency in her records, her case was not as straightforward as it should have been.

In 2001, my client informed the UK Authorities (including DWP), her local council and her bank that she had changed her first name, to ensure consistency with the name she was commonly known by in the UK. Unfortunately, she did not change her name officially with the German Authorities and her passport was not updated. The UK authorities accepted her name change and updated their records.

My client required assistance in applying for Settled Status and she was particularly concerned about the impact of her name change on her application. In addition, she was not computer literate and was quite anxious about her ability to complete the online application herself. She felt that the uncertainty about Brexit and her status had been very detrimental to her mental health and wanted to apply as soon as possible. Recent scare stories in the British press, detailing specific incidents of individuals being denied settled status had only served to exacerbate her fears.

Fragomen’s assistance

Here For Good contacted Fragomen regarding this individual, and I got in touch with her to arrange a meeting and talk about the next steps. Her Settled Status application was her top priority; thus I ensured I saw her as soon as possible and discussed what she needed to provide to us within order to proceed. I reassured her that since she had been living in the UK legally for many years, she should have no issue with obtaining Settled Status. The UKVI would be able to verify her residence through her national insurance number, without requiring any additional evidence. I explained that I understood how important her name change was for her, but I also made her aware that because she did not officially change her name in her passport, the UKVI may not accept her new name. We decided that we would see if her name could be updated in the UKVI systems more formally once her Settled Status had been granted.

On our second meeting, we assisted her with the application and completed all the necessary steps without any issues. The system was able to recognise immediately that she should be considered for Settled Status, and the decision in the affirmative was made a few days later – much to her delight.

Name challenge

Once a decision was had been made on her application, I liaised with the UKVI regarding the change of name. As expected, they were unable to make the change unless her passport was updated first. I asked them to issue an official letter to confirm this and that they have updated their internal records to show that she is also known by the new name. The UKVI accepted to do so and provided us with the letter.

The above outcome calmed our client and made her less anxious about the name change situation. I explained to her that the UKVI letter could be relied upon if she needed to explain the issue in the future.

I understand that she is now working to change her name with the German Authorities – a quite lengthy process. I have advised her that I will be ready to help officially update her profile with the UKVI once she obtains her new passport.

It was a pleasure assisting her and I am glad that she was satisfied with the outcomes of her case.

Read the other blogs of this series discussing our participation at Mayor of London ‘We Are All Europeans’ Event,  New Europeans – ‘Brexit & You’ Events, and our pro bono work in the U.S.