Case No. UKUT-00433-(IAC)

1. The first appellant (hereafter the appellant) is a citizen of the Netherlands born on 15 November 1966. She is the mother of the second to fourth appellants born on 3 December 1991, 21 August 1993 and 18 December 1997 respectively. They appeal with permission against the determination of First-tier Tribunal Judge Blum promulgated on 28 October 2013 in which he dismissed their appeals against the decision of the respondent who, on 23 April 2013, refused to issue them with documents confirming their right of permanent residence in the United Kingdom, pursuant to regulations 15 and 17 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 (“the EEA Regulations”). 2. The appellants arrived in the United Kingdom in 2005 and have lived here ever since. The appellant first secured a job on 24 September 2009, having attended training courses on three previous occasions from 11 June 2007 to 14 September 2007, 14 April 2008 to 25 July 2008 and 15 March 2009 to 18 May 2009. It is the appellants’ case that the first appellant has, since October 2005 been a qualified person as defined within the EEA Regulations, initially as a jobseeker from October 2005 and since 24 September 2009, as a worker. The second to fourth appellants’ case is that they have at all material times been the dependent children of a qualified person. They argue that consequently, they have been lawfully resident in accordance with the EEA Regulations for in excess of five years, and so, have acquired the right of permanent residence. It was on that basis that on 12 March 2013 they applied for documents certifying their right of permanent residence, pursuant to regulations 15 and 18 of the EEA Regulations. 3. The respondent refused the applications on the basis that the appellants had not resided in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 for a continuous period of five years. No further details were given. 4. On appeal, Judge Blum stated that while a jobseeker can be a qualified person, that requires the provision of evidence that the individual is seeking employment and has a genuine chance of being engaged. Judge Blum found that the appellant:- (i) had entered the United Kingdom in October 2005 to seek employment and had thus entered as a jobseeker [22]; (ii) had not worked prior to commencing employment in September 2009 [22]; (iii) had provided no evidence of seeking employment other than her word and although she did try to obtain employment when she first entered in October 2005, she was unable to do so for a period of three years and eleven months [23] and therefore he could not be satisfied that she had a genuine chance of being engaged when she entered the UK or throughout the period she was looking for work; 5. In respect of the second appellant, Judge Blum found: (i) her claim was dependent on that first appellant [24] and thus failed; or, in the alternative, (ii) her claim on the basis that she was a student failed given the absence of evidence of comprehensive sickness insurance in the United Kingdom as required by regulation 4 of the EEA Regulations [24]. Judge Blum therefore dismissed the appeals under the EEA Regulations and on human rights grounds. 6. The appellants sought permission to appeal on the grounds that the First-tier Tribunal:- (iv) failed to have proper regard to the appellant’s record of national insurance contributions and credits indicating that she had entered the system on 10 November 2005 and was a jobseeker for twelve weeks in 2006/7, remaining a jobseeker until the 32 nd week of 2009/10 [ground 1A]; (v) erred in concluding that regulation 6(2) of the EEA Regulations requires that someone could not be treated as a jobseeker unless he had previously been in employment [ground 1A]; and, (vi) erred in finding that the appellant had not worked in 2006 in preferring the evidence of HMRC over that of her daughter [ground 1B]. 7. On 13 December 2013 Upper Tribunal Judge Storey granted permission stating:- “It is arguable that the First-tier Tribunal did not adopt an analysis in accordance with case law principles by reference to which the first appellant’s situation should have been considered not just in relation to whether she was a jobseeker but whether she was a worker who continued to be a worker after becoming again a jobseeker. The parties will be expected to have regard to all relevant case law including