Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-004086

First-tier Tribunal No: EA/00014/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 9 September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LODATO

Between

RAZI ABBAS
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

THE ENTRY CLEARANCE OFFICER
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Unrepresented
For the Respondent: Mr Wain, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Manchester Civil Justice Centre on 11 August 2025

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction

1. This is the remaking decision of the appeal brought by Mr Razi Abbas, a citizen of Pakistan, against the decision of the Entry Clearance Officer, dated 22 November 2019, refusing his application for an EEA Family Permit under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016. The appeal was dismissed by the First-tier Tribunal in a decision promulgated on 22 May 2024. That decision was subsequently set aside by the Upper Tribunal following a finding of a material error of law, as set out in the decision of Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce and Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Alis dated 24 June 2025.

2. The matter now comes before me for remaking. The appellant was unrepresented at the hearing. However, his maternal uncle and sponsor, Azhar Hussain, attended the hearing and gave evidence in support of his appeal.

Background

3. The appellant was born on 20 April 2003 and resides in a village in the district of Tehsil and Mandi Bahauddin, Pakistan. He applied for an EEA Family Permit on 23 October 2019 to join his maternal uncle, Azhar Hussain, an EEA national residing in the United Kingdom under the EU Settlement Scheme.

4. The application was refused on the basis that the appellant had not demonstrated dependency on the sponsor for his essential living needs, as required under Regulation 8(2) and 12(5) of the 2016 Regulations. The Entry Clearance Officer noted limited evidence of financial support, concerns about the sponsor’s income, and issues regarding accommodation capacity.

5. The appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal, which dismissed the appeal. Permission to appeal was initially refused but subsequently granted by Upper Tribunal Judge Lindsley on 18 September 2024. In the error of law decision, it was found that the First-tier Tribunal had materially erred in law by failing to properly assess the evidence of dependency and by applying an incorrect legal test as to the point in time when that evidence fell to be assessed.

Legal Framework

6. Regulations 6(b) and 12 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 provide that an entry clearance officer may grant a family permit to an extended family member of an EEA national who is a worker in the UK. “Extended family member” is defined in paragraph 8 of the Regulations which provides:

Regulation 8 — “Extended family member”
8.—(1) In these Regulations "extended family member” means a person who is not a family member of an EEA national under regulation 7(1)(a), (b) or (c) and who satisﬁes a condition in paragraph (2), (3), (4) or (5).
(2) The condition in this paragraph is that the person is—
(a)a relative of an EEA national; and
(b)residing in a country other than the United Kingdom and is dependent upon the EEA national or is a member of the EEA national’s household; and either—
(i)is accompanying the EEA national to the United Kingdom or wants to join the EEA national in the United Kingdom; or
(ii)has joined the EEA national in the United Kingdom and continues to be dependent upon the EEA national, or to be a member of the EEA national’s household.

7. These provisions were repealed on 31 December 2020, but it was uncontroversial that they remained applicable in the context of this appeal because the underlying application was made, and the refusal decided, under this legal scheme when it was in force.

8. The meaning of dependence for the purposes of the regulations was considered by the Upper Tribunal in Reyes (Regs: dependency) [2013] UKUT 314. The following principles were identified at paragraph [19] of the reported decision:

“From the [authorities], we glean four key things. First, the test of dependency is a purely factual test. Second, the Court envisages that questions of dependency must not be reduced to a bare calculation of financial dependency but should be construed broadly to involve a holistic examination of a number of factors, including financial, physical and social conditions, so as to establish whether there is dependence that is genuine. The essential focus has to be on the nature of the relationship concerned and on whether it is one characterised by a situation of dependence based on an examination of all the factual circumstances, bearing in mind the underlying objective of maintaining the unity of the family.[…] Third, it is clear from the wording of both Article 2.2 and regulation 7(1) that the test is one of present, not past dependency. […] Fourth (and this may have relevance to what is understood by present dependency), interpretation of the meaning of the term must be such as not to deprive that provision of its effectiveness.”

9. The Upper Tribunal, in Chowdhury (Extended family members: dependency) [2020] UKUT 188 (IAC), clarified that dependency must be ongoing and assessed at the date of hearing, not solely at the date of application.

10. Tanveer Ahmed v SSHD [2002] Imm AR 318 established the following principles in relation to the judicial assessment of documentary evidence:
i. The appellant bears the burden of demonstrating that a document should be relied upon by the tribunal.
ii. In reaching findings on the reliability of documentary evidence, the tribunal must consider the document in the context of all the evidence.
iii. It is not necessary to conclude that a document is a forgery before finding it to be unreliable.

11. The appellant bears the burden of substantiating the primary facts in support of his case. The standard he must satisfy is on the balance of probabilities.

Appeal to the Upper Tribunal

12. Having found a material error of law, the Upper Tribunal panel set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and directed that the appeal be remade. The remaking hearing was convened to consider oral evidence from the sponsor and to assess whether the appellant meets the dependency criteria under the 2016 Regulations.

Discussion

13. As indicated above, there is a single substantive and factual question to be resolved in this appeal. The principal controversial issue between the parties is whether the appellant is dependent on his sponsoring uncle, Mr Hussain. The central evidence in support of that proposition was the narrative evidence of the sponsor, who attended the hearing and gave oral evidence with the assistance of an interpreter, and a range of documents which were said to establish a longstanding relationship of dependency. I found both forms of evidence to be unreliable and incapable of belief.

14. Dealing first with the documents relied upon to establish dependency, taken at face value, they tended to show that the appellant had been supported by his uncle consistently over many years in the shape of regular financial remittances from the UK. However, it was put to Mr Hussain, in Mr Wain’s skilful cross-examination, that at the time several remittances were sent from the UK, between February and July 2018, the sponsor was, on his own account, still residing in Italy and so could not have sent these funds from the UK as indicated by the transfer receipts. It was ultimately put to Mr Hussain that these receipts were fraudulent; a proposition which the sponsor accepted. I was left in no doubt that Mr Hussain admitted in his oral evidence that documents he had submitted on his nephew’s behalf in support of his appeal were false and that he knew them to be false. The sponsor’s premeditated dishonesty in producing false documents not only means that I approach any other documentation relied upon with the greatest of caution, but I also approach his narrative evidence with considerable circumspection.

15. The money transfer receipts were not the only documents to arouse the most serious concern about their authenticity. The appellant relied on a death certificate which showed that his mother, and only active biological parent, had died on 20 December 2022. Not only was this at odds with the sponsor’s oral evidence that she had died in 2020, but it was also in considerable tension with the NADRA Family Registration Certificate which indicated that she had applied for this document which was issued some 4 years after her brother said she had died. The sponsor’s evidence that his sister died in 2020 raised yet further questions as to how she could have been the recipient of money transfers he claimed to have sent to her between 2020 and 2022. In seeking to explain these stark discrepancies in the documentary evidence relied upon, the sponsor could only nebulously refer to the difference between the date of death and the date of issue, or registration, of the death certificate. This did not begin to satisfactorily explain how a close relative he believed had died in 2020, continued to receive money he sent to her as a named recipient until 2022, the year when the death certificate clearly recorded her death.

16. Quite apart from the highly questionable documents relied upon, I was also greatly troubled by the manner in which the sponsor gave his evidence. During Mr Wain’s cross-examination, I observed that Mr Hussain was looking towards the floor. I initially put this down to nervousness until it became clear to me that he was in fact interacting with his mobile phone. I asked him to put his device face down on the desk in front of him. After a few minutes, his mobile phone rang. It appeared to me that the witness was communicating with a third party during his evidence.

17. The reality is that the appellant’s case turns on the findings I must reach on the sponsor’s narrative evidence and the documentary evidence relied upon in support of the proposition that he is, and has been for the period claimed, dependent on his uncle for his essential needs. The appellant provided his own written accounts of the relationship with his uncle, but it could not be tested by the hearing process which necessarily has a bearing on the weight I am able to attach to it. In any event, he made many of the same factual points about the role played by his mother who he said died in 2020, not 2022 as recorded in her death certificate. Overall, the deeply concerning evidence relied upon in this appeal leads me to conclude that the claimed relationship of dependency is an elaborate fiction underpinned by documents the respondent has shown on the balance of probabilities to be false, and by dishonest oral evidence from the sponsor.

18. The respondent may wish to reflect on the findings I have reached in this decision and consider whether to request a transcript of the hearing and take any further steps considered to be appropriate in the circumstances.

Notice of Decision

The appeal brought under the 2016 regulations is dismissed.

P Lodato

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

22 August 2025