Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-000771

First-tier Tribunal No: EU/51843/2023
LE/01795/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 18th of September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KEBEDE

Between

SHAMIA IRFAN
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Barton, instructed by Hi Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr A Tan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 8 September 2025

DECISION AND REASONS

1. This is the re-making of the decision in the appellant’s appeal, following the setting aside of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal which had dismissed the appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s decision to refuse her application for an EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) Family Permit.

2. The appellant is a national of Pakistan, born on 9 October 1993. She applied, on 6 December 2022, for an EUSS Family Permit under Appendix EU (Family Permit) to the Immigration Rules on the basis that she was a ‘family member of a relevant EEA citizen’. The ‘relevant EEA citizen’ was her father Mr Mian Ali, an Italian national exercising treaty rights in the UK, who was the sponsor for her application. The appellant’s three children, the sponsor’s grandchildren, had been granted EUSS family permits and had joined the sponsor in the UK.

3. The respondent refused the appellant’s application, in a decision of 28 February 2023, on the grounds that she did not meet the eligibility requirements for an EUSS family permit as a dependent child of a relevant EEA citizen. That was because the respondent was not satisfied that the appellant had shown that she was dependent upon her sponsor, given the lack of evidence demonstrating that she could not meet her essential living needs without the financial or other material support from the sponsor.

4. The appellant appealed against that decision. Her appeal came before the First-tier Tribunal on 1 December 2023. The evidence relied upon by the appellant before the First-tier Tribunal consisted of the sponsor’s witness statement, birth certificates for herself and her children, passports and residence cards for her children, money transfer receipts for remittances from the sponsor to herself, expenses charts for her expenses, and documents for the sponsor including his salary slips, tenancy agreement and pre-settled status document. The sponsor gave oral evidence before the judge at the hearing. The judge did not accept that the appellant had shown that she was dependent upon her sponsor and he dismissed the appeal in a decision promulgated on 4 December 2023.

5. The appellant sought, and was granted, permission to appeal the judge’s decision to the Upper Tribunal. The respondent opposed the appeal, in a rule 24 response.

6. The matter then came before the Upper Tribunal, sitting as a panel, on 11 March 2025. In a decision promulgated on 27 March 2025 the Upper Tribunal found there to be material errors of law in the First-tier Tribunal Judge’s decision and accordingly set it aside.

7. The relevant part of the Upper Tribunal’s decision is set out as follows:

“Discussion and analysis

… 10. The three grounds upon which permission to appeal has been granted overlap substantially and assert inadequate reasoning by the Judge on the single issue in the appeal, namely whether the appellant was dependent on her sponsor which, in turn, would require making a finding on whether the appellant had any sort of income rather than Sponsor. We remind ourselves that reasons only need to be adequate, not perfect, and the guidance provided by the Court of Appeal above.

11. At the outset of the hearing we gave a preliminary indication that the Judge’s decision appeared to lack meaningful reasoning on the issue of dependency and, in particular, did not make a finding on the key factual dispute of whether the appellant had no other source of income and was entirely dependent on her sponsor.

12. Ms Newton, in response, relied upon the rule 24 response, and whilst she did not concede this there had been a material error of law, she candidly acknowledged that the Judge had made no clear findings in either [18] or [19] and certainly no findings on whether the appellant had any other source of income.

13. Save for the implicit acceptance in [18] that the sponsor had made a number of money transfers to the Appellant, the Judge made no findings of fact in his decision. It follows that we are satisfied that overall the decision was inadequately reasoned, and that in particular the assessment of dependency was flawed in that it failed to make a finding on the key issue of whether the appellant had any other source of income. Furthermore, in recording that “the money transfer receipts do not chime with the appellant’s expenses” [19], in that the sponsor was making money transfers to the appellant far in excess of her claimed expenses, the Judge appeared to give weight to an irrelevant consideration in the assessment of dependency. These areas are errors of law which we find clearly material to the outcome of the appeal.”

8. The Upper Tribunal gave directions for the decision in the appeal to be re-made at a resumed hearing, and for the filing and service of further evidence for the hearing.

9. The appellant produced a supplementary bundle consisting of money remittance slips and a further bundle containing an updated witness statement from the sponsor and additional money remittance slips.

10. The matter was transferred to me under a transfer order and came before me on 8 September 2025. The only issue to be determined was whether the appellant was dependent upon the sponsor for her essential living needs.

11. The sponsor gave oral evidence before me through an interpreter in the Urdu language. The interpreter confirmed that they understood one another and I was entirely satisfied that that was the case.

12. The sponsor adopted his previous and current witness statements as his evidence in chief and was then cross-examined by Mr Tan. He said that his daughter separated from her husband around January 2020 and was divorced in February or March 2020, through a verbal divorce. Prior to that she was supported by her husband who worked as a labourer. The sponsor said that his daughter had no contact with her husband since the divorce. Her children were living in the UK with him. His daughter told him that her husband had kicked her out in February or March 2020 and he did not know if they had had any contact with each other after then. He knew that they had no contact now. Her husband did not send money for the children and he did not help his daughter with her visa application. Mr Tan asked the sponsor who had obtained the copies of the birth certificates and the sponsor replied that he had. When asked why they named the applicant as the appellant’s ex-husband, the sponsor said that he had obtained the papers from the council in Pakistan himself. Mr Tan asked the sponsor about the reference to ‘child support alimony’ in the expenses charts, and what that meant, and he said that the charts showed his daughter’s expenses which he would cover. The sponsor said that his daughter did not have a bank account. When asked about his own circumstances, the sponsor said that he worked for a telephone company in a shop, but he could not remember the name. He had worked there for the past three to four years. He had been working somewhere else when the visa application was made, for Uber and Just Eat and previously in a food factory. Mr Tan asked the sponsor if his June 2023 salary slips was for all the work he did that month and he replied that it was. He worked about 6 to 8 hours a day, Monday to Friday, at the shop and then otherwise for Just Eat. Mr Tan asked the sponsor how he managed to earn the same in June 2023 as he did in July 2023 when his passport showed that he was in Pakistan from May to June 2023. The sponsor replied that he was only there for about 2 weeks or so.

13. When re-examined by Ms Barton, the sponsor said that the alimony was the money he sent for the children before they came to the UK. In response to my further enquiries about the payment for utilities, the sponsor said that his daughter paid for electricity and rent and he sent her the money for those. I asked why there were no receipts for those payments, and he replied that landlords did not give receipts in Pakistan. I asked about receipts for gas and electricity and he replied that his daughter did not use gas, as they used wood, but she paid for electricity. I asked again why there were no receipts for electricity and he replied that she paid the landlord in cash for rent and utilities and the landlord paid the electricity bills. There were no receipts in Pakistan as everything was in cash. In response to Ms Barton’s further questions, the sponsor said that he believed that he had submitted receipts for groceries. In response to Mr Tan’s enquiry as to why gas was listed in the expenses charts if the appellant did not use gas, the sponsor said that he did not know about that.

14. Both parties then made submissions before me. The submissions were translated for the appellant.

15. Mr Tan submitted that there was no credible account of the appellant’s and sponsor’s circumstances so that the burden of proof had not been discharged. The documentary evidence contradicted the oral evidence in several respects. The birth certificates were issued after the date given by the sponsor for when the appellant had separated from her husband and had had no further contact with him, yet the appellant’s ex-husband was listed as the applicant. The appellant’s passport included her husband’s name despite being issued in 2022 and despite it being claimed that they divorced in early 2020. The evidence of dependency was limited. The expense charts were unreliable as they were not supported by any evidence and also included gas yet the sponsor said that his daughter did not use gas. The entry for child support alimony was not clear. No weight could be given to the evidence of the appellant’s circumstances. As for the sponsor’s circumstances, he was vague about his employment and his payslips contained anomalies in two respects. The June 2023 payslip gave £1800 as his total gross pay to date, yet he claimed to have worked there for some time, and also the pay was inconsistent with the evidence of him being in Pakistan from 30 May 2023 to 27 June 2023. The appeal should be dismissed.

16. Ms Barton submitted that the appellant had met the burden of proof. The sponsor had given credible evidence which was corroborated by the documentary evidence. The appellant was a dependent family member and met the requirements of the regulations. Financial dependency was a question of fact. There was no requirement to show the length of the dependency, but in this case the appellant had been dependent on her father for a number of years, as the money transfer receipts showed. The evidence showed that the sponsor sent the money to the appellant and that she collected it in person. She did not have a bank account but the evidence was that she spent the money on rent, electricity and groceries. The respondent had been unfairly dismissive of the evidence. There was a full chain of money transfers from March 2022 to August 2025. The appellant had no other source of income. There was nothing odd about the birth certificates mentioning the appellant’s ex-husband, but in any event the sponsor gave clear evidence that he did not know when contact ceased between the appellant and her husband. There was no evidence to show that the appellant was receiving money from her ex-husband. As for the respondent’s submissions about the sponsor’s employment, the evidence showed that he was a hard-working man who had had more than one job for many years. The suggestion that the payslips were false was unfair as that had never been suggested previously and the sponsor had had no opportunity to respond to that or to produce relevant supporting evidence. The sponsor had sufficient money to send to the appellant for her essential needs. The sponsor did not need to cover all of his daughter’s essential needs, but the caselaw required only that he covered part. The appellant had provided sufficient evidence to show that she had met the burden of proof. The sponsor had made it clear that it was not possible to provide receipts for rent and electricity. The appeal should be allowed.

Analysis

17. As agreed by all parties, the only issue in this case is the appellant’s dependency upon her father, the sponsor.

18. The appellant’s application was refused by the respondent, in the initial refusal decision, on the grounds of a lack of evidence in that regard to show that she could not meet her essential living needs without the financial or other material support from the sponsor. The respondent’s review referred again to the lack of evidence of dependency. The review made it clear that the act of transferring money alone was not sufficient to demonstrate dependency and that more was therefore required than money remittances, such as evidence of the appellant’s own domestic circumstances, including evidence corroborating the items in the expenditure breakdowns. The appellant’s appeal was dismissed on the grounds of a lack of supporting evidence, with the judge making particular reference to the table of expenses not being supported by any receipts. Although that decision has since been set aside, it is relevant in so far as the appellant has been reminded numerous times that additional evidence was required and what type of evidence would be required. Yet despite the passage of time, there remains no further evidence before the Tribunal other than additional money transfer slips.

19. Ms Barton submitted that the evidence of long-term and consistent remittances from the sponsor and received by the appellant was strong evidence of financial dependence. However as the respondent made clear, and as is indeed the case, remittances of funds only go so far to demonstrate dependency. What is required is evidence to show that the appellant required those funds for her essential living needs and that the funds were not simply supplemental to her essential needs which were otherwise met from other sources. She therefore needed to show what her circumstances in Pakistan were and to demonstrate how the funds sent to her were used to support her in her daily expenses. The appellant relies upon 5 expenses charts, for March 2023 to July 2023, in that respect. Other than the sponsor’s evidence in his statements and his oral evidence, (and the money transfer receipts), that is the only evidence the appellant has produced.

20. With regard to the sponsor’s evidence, I did not find him to be a reliable witness. He was vague in his evidence in many respects, with regard to his own circumstances and those of his daughter. He could not name the place where he claimed to have worked several years and his evidence about his daughter and her marriage was vague and inconsistent, making it difficult to accord any significant weight to his testimony. Mr Tan asked me to find the evidence of the sponsor’s financial circumstances and ability to support his daughter to be unreliable and to give little weight to his evidence about his ability to support his daughter. However I agree with Ms Barton that, since there had been no prior challenge to the evidence in that regard, it would be unfair to reach an adverse conclusion about the reliability of his documentary evidence in relation to his employment when that had not previously been raised as an issue in dispute. I therefore do not make any adverse findings about the sponsor’s ability to provide financial support the appellant. Nevertheless I did not find his evidence as to his daughter’s circumstances, in particular her marital and financial circumstances, to be reliable. I shall address his evidence below when dealing with the overall evidence.

21. It is not disputed that the sponsor has been sending funds to the appellant over a lengthy period of time which continues to date. I turn, therefore, to the question of how the appellant spent those funds and whether they went to meet her essential living expenses. As already stated, other than the sponsor’s evidence, the only evidence in that regard is the expense charts. I agree with Mr Tan that those charts carry little, if any, weight. They are simply a table of numbers produced by or on behalf of the appellant which are not supported by any receipts or invoices or any other independent evidence. They are, additionally, undermined by the sponsor’s oral evidence. The sponsor’s evidence about his daughter’s expenses arising from the expense charts was initially that his daughter paid for her electricity and her rent out of the money he sent to her. However, when asked why there were no receipts for either expense, he said that his daughter’s landlord paid her electricity bill from the money she paid him in cash and that landlords in Pakistan did not give receipts. I do not accept that. The appellant was aware that the respondent required corroboration and could have asked her landlord for receipts for rent and for any utilities which may have been paid by him. No credible explanation is provided as to why she did not do that. There is no credible explanation why the appellant could not have obtained copies of the utilities bills and produced those, even if they showed the landlord’s name as the payee.

22. There is, furthermore, no explanation why items such as medicine, telephone bills and groceries could not be supported by receipts and invoices. In addition, the item ‘child support alimony’ is not at all clear. The sponsor said that it was money he sent to be used for the appellant’s children, but that is not what it says. There is nothing to show what that money was used for. Further, and significantly, the expenses charts include gas bills as an expense, yet the sponsor said that the appellant did not use any gas and he could not explain why it was included as an expense. Clearly, therefore, the expenses charts have little or no evidential value and I cannot accept that the appellant has provided a reliable account of her financial and living circumstances. Whilst it is not implausible that she does not have a bank account, the fact is that there is no reliable evidence of her outgoings and of any other income she may have aside from that received from the sponsor.

23. With regard to the question of any other possible source of income aside from the remittances from the sponsor, the appellant relies upon the fact that she is a single mother, following her divorce from her husband, and only receives the financial support from her father. However the evidence in that regard is unsatisfactory and unreliable. Firstly, there is no evidence to show that she is divorced. Indeed, she stated in her application form that she was separated and did not mention divorce. It was the sponsor who referred to divorce, in his statement. The sponsor, in his statement, explained that there was no evidence of the divorce because it was a verbal one. However that does not explain why the appellant could not have sought evidence to confirm that she was divorced, such as from her local mosque or council or otherwise. Secondly, as Mr Tan pointed out, the appellant’s passport, issued in December 2022, gives the name of Jabbar Ahmed as her husband, despite the claim that she divorced him in early 2020. Thirdly, and again as pointed out by Mr Tan, the copies of the birth certificates issued in May 2022 and October 2020 for the appellant’s three children give Jabbar Ahmed as the applicant, despite the sponsor claiming that his daughter had no contact with her husband. The sponsor claimed that he obtained the birth certificates himself and could not explain why the name of their father was given as the applicant rather than himself.

24. Fourthly, the sponsor’s evidence as to when his daughter lost contact with her husband was vague and Mr Tan had to repeat his question in that respect a few times. At first the sponsor said that his daughter did not stay in contact with her husband after they were separated and divorced, which he said was in February/ March 2020. When asked twice if he was saying that his daughter last had contact with her husband in February/March 2020, the sponsor eventually said that he did not know. He also said that he did not know if his daughter’s husband sent the children any money prior to them coming to the UK and after the separation. I simply do not accept that the sponsor would not have known, at least approximately, when the appellant and her husband ceased contact, and when her husband stopped sending money to the children, particularly as his evidence was that he started supporting the appellant with money for herself and her children after her husband stopped supporting them.

25. In the circumstances, given the unsatisfactory and unreliable nature of the evidence, I do not accept that the appellant has demonstrated that she was a divorcee whose husband no longer provided her or their children with any financial support. I therefore do not accept that the appellant has had no other source of financial support than her father. Further, I cannot accept, from the very limited evidence before me, that the remittances sent by the sponsor were to meet the appellant’s essential living needs and that she would be unable to meet those needs without her father’s financial assistance.

26. For all these reasons I do not accept that the appellant has demonstrated, on a balance of probabilities, that she is dependent upon her sponsor for her essential living needs, either wholly or partly. She is accordingly unable to meet the eligibility requirements for an EUSS family permit under Appendix EU (Family Permit). The respondent’s decision was in accordance with the EUSS Family Permit Rules. The appellant’s appeal therefore fails.

DECISION

27. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal having been set aside, the decision is re-made by the appellant’s appeal being dismissed.

Signed: S Kebede
Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

8 September 2025