Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case Nos: UI-2025-004711
UI-2025-004714

First-tier Tribunal Nos: EA/50512/2024
EA/50513/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 15th February 2026

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE JARVIS

Between

MD SOMIR UDDIN
SHAJEDA AKTER
(NO ANONYMITY ORDERS MADE)
Appellants
and

THE ENTRY CLEARANCE OFFICER
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Chowdury, Solicitor for Kingdom Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr A. Mullen, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard remotely at Field House on 27 January 2026

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. The Appellants appeal against the decision of Judge C.H. O’Rourke (promulgated on 20 August 2025) with permission granted on limited grounds by the First-tier Tribunal on 8 October 2025.
Relevant background
2. The Appellants in this case are the parents-in-law of the Sponsor, Mr Khatun who is a relevant EEA citizen as defined in Annex 1 to Appendix EU (Family Permit) of the Immigration Rules.
3. The Appellants applied to enter the United Kingdom as the dependants of their son-in-law and daughter on 14 March 2024. The applications were refused by the Respondent on 21 May 2024.
4. In the decision, the Judge made the following key findings/observations:
a. The Respondent accepted that the Sponsor is a relevant EEA citizen, §7.
b. The Sponsor was cross-examined in detail by the Presenting Officer as recorded at §11.
c. The Judge concluded that the Appellants had failed to show dependency upon the Sponsor either in whole or in part, §14:
i. The evidence at the hearing indicated that the Appellants had their own bank account which had not previously been mentioned and had not been disclosed in the documentary evidence despite the Respondent stating in the refusal and review and that the Appellants were required to provide full disclosure, (i).
ii. The Sponsor’s evidence as to how money was transferred to the Appellants was unsatisfactory. The Sponsor stated for the first time in the hearing that family and friends would convey cash to the Appellants or themselves provide cash gifts but had not provided any corroboratory evidence of such transfers or gifts being provided, (ii).
iii. The Sponsor also referred in the hearing, for the first time, to having another undisclosed bank account from which in fact much of the money sent to Bangladesh originates from but had also failed to disclose any statements from this other account, (ii).
iv. The Judge was also concerned with the reliability of the documentary evidence of money being sent to Bangladesh. The Judge noted that the Sponsor had failed to establish how he could afford to have made the documented payments and noted the belated evidence at the hearing that the Sponsor’s son would supplement the family income but without providing any corroboratory evidence of this assistance, (iii).
v. The Judge also questioned the provenance of some of the documentary evidence provided. The Judge expressly referred to grocery receipts which had been provided in the English language rather than Bengali, and was concerned by the typographical mistakes in the doctor’s letters (which were in English) and the extensive similarity in the wording between the two separate medical letters relating to the Appellants at digital pages 138 and 170 (of the First-tier stitched bundle) despite them being written three weeks apart.
d. The Judge concluded that the Appellants did not meet the requirements of the rules and dismissed the appeal under The Immigration (Citizens’ Rights Appeals) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
The error of law hearing
5. The error of law hearing was conducted in a hybrid format, and I am satisfied that there were no technical difficulties.
6. In his oral submissions, Mr Chowdhury accepted that the First-tier Tribunal had refused permission in respect of Grounds 1, 2 and 4 and therefore sought only to pursue argument in respect of Grounds 3 and 5.
7. Mr Chowdhury relied upon those remaining grounds and emphasised that there had been procedural error in the Judge’s conclusion that the Bengali language originals of the grocery receipts had not been provided. Mr Chowdhury asserted that the documentation provided was genuine and therefore the Judge would have reached a different conclusion if the procedural error had not occurred.
8. In response, Mr Mullen accepted that the additional Appellants’ bundle of 116 pages, which includes side-by-side Bengali originals and English language translations, was before the Judge but submitted that expenditure was only one part of the assessment of the question of claimed dependency.
9. Mr Chowdhury concluded by submitting that the medical certificates had only been submitted in order to show the Appellants’ medication costs and that they were not relying upon their illnesses in respect of the question of dependency under the rules.
Findings and reasons
10. I have assessed whether the Judge erred in law and, if so, whether any established errors could have made a material difference to the outcome of the appeal, as per ASO (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWCA Civ 1282 at §43.
Ground 3
The grocery receipts
11. There appears to be no dispute between the parties that the Judge erred in the finding that the grocery receipts had only been provided in the English language and that it was not credible that they would have been produced in this language.
12. I have some sympathy for the Judge as the Appellants’ documentary evidence is not clearly paginated and this may well explain why the Judge missed the Bengali language documents which are said to be grocery receipts from the Jannata Department Store in Moulvibazar at digital page 174 (of 436) onwards. I also note that they appear to have been translated by an advocate/notary public in Bangladesh.
13. I accept then that the Judge erred when concluding that the Appellants had not provided the grocery receipts in Bengali in the evidence before the Tribunal. I accept the Appellants’ argument that the receipts were within the supplementary bundle referred to by the Judge at §5.
The doctor’s letters
14. The Judge also doubted the provenance of the letter from Dr Singha (dated 8 April 2024) at, what is now, digital page 169 of the consolidated Upper Tribunal bundle. The Judge noted that the footer of the letter had misspelt ‘chamber’ and ‘Friday’.
15. The Judge also had concerns about the reliability of the letters from Dr Singha relating to the Appellants: the first (relating to Mr Uddin) dated 16 March 2024 (digital page 137) and the second (relating to Mrs Akter) dated 8 April 2024 (digital page 169) on the basis that they had effectively the same wording.
16. The Appellants argue that the Judge had to do more than show similar wording and that this was not especially suspicious as the author was the same person and the letters written just three weeks apart.
17. In my view this part of the argument is a disagreement. I find that the Judge gave sufficient reason for rejecting the reliability of the two medical letters relating to the Appellants on the basis that the wording of the letters was extremely similar in apparently describing that both Appellants had deteriorated in the previous six months, would be better treated in the UK by their daughter and should not engage in daily activities.
18. I also find that the Judge gave sufficient reason for additionally doubting the provenance of the letters on the basis of the typographical differences in the footer. In any event, even if the Judge was wrong to take this point it could not have made a difference to the overall assessment of weight for the reason I have given above.
19. Furthermore, even taking the Appellants’ argument at its highest: that the Judge erred in her assessment of the grocery receipts and the medical letters, I would still have concluded that the error was not material.
20. It is important to note that the grocery receipts and medical documents do not directly show that any of the listed groceries or medicines were paid for by the Sponsor or his wife. Mr Chowdhury was at pains in his submissions to emphasise that the medical documents were relied upon solely in respect of the claim to financial assistance from the UK and not by reference to the medical conditions themselves.
21. I find that the effect of the Judge’s earlier adverse findings amounted to an overall conclusion that the Sponsor had not sufficiently/credibly established that he could actually afford to send money to Bangladesh as claimed and that there was serious doubt about the evidence that money had in fact been sent. The Judge also concluded that the Appellants had failed to provide documentary evidence of their own financial circumstances without good reason.
22. In my view then, the adverse findings made by the Judge at §14(i)-(iii) are so strong that a judge could not have come to a different decision even if the Bengali originals of the grocery receipts had been noted and even in the alternative, that the medical letters were worthy of appropriate weight.
The remittance slips
23. Contrary to the way that Ground 3 was put in writing, I do not accept that the Judge failed to make clear findings on the remittance slips. I have already laid out that the Judge expressly engaged with the documentary evidence of money sent at §14(iii) but concluded that the Sponsor had failed to credibly establish that he had sent the money or that he could afford the remittances in the first place at §14(i)-(iii).
The witness statements
24. I also see no force in the brief reference in the written grounds to the witness statements. The Judge has given sufficiently clear reasons for not accepting that the Sponsor has been supporting the Appellants as claimed at §14(i)-(iii).
Ground 5
25. Finally in respect of Ground 5, I see no merit in the submission that the Judge made “mixed findings” on the disclosure of financial circumstances. I find that the Judge made adequately clear findings about the problems with the underlying claim and the evidence in §14(i)-(iii), reading the decision as a whole.

Notice of Decision
26. The decision does not contain a material error of law and therefore the Appellants’ appeal is dismissed.

I Jarvis

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

5 February 2026