Verification Against EU Law Experience

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share my experience with the Verification Against EU Law process, now that it is (thankfully) over for me. 

I am a South African National and I met my boyfriend, a German citizen studying in the Netherlands, when I was in the Netherlands for my Au Pair year in 2017.

At the end of 2017, I went back home to South Africa and we did a year of long distance with the end goal of me moving over to the Netherlands the following year so we can live together.

So I came back to the Netherlands in the very beginning of this year (2019) with the intent of applying for Verification Against EU Law. My boyfriend called to make the application appointment a couple months before I arrived in NL, and still the earliest appointment we could get was at the end of January (so I would recommend making this appointment as soon as you know you will be applying).

We hardly met any of the requirements for Verification Against EU Law at the time we applied:
- We had never lived together for six months, as I was under contract to live with my host family when I was in NL as an Au Pair and the only thing we had was when Robjan came to visit me in South Africa for two months during our year of long distance.
- We were not in a registered partnership (but we did sign a notarized cohabitation agreement in South Africa)
- My boyfriend was a student (and therefore not working full time and earning a sufficient income)

However, we handed in as much information as we possibly could. I handed in copies of the contract that stated I had to stay with my host family, even though I would have loved to have lived with him. We also signed a tenancy agreement for the two months he was in South Africa. We handed in all proof of our relationship, including pictures, messages, emails, proof of him coming to visit me, everything. It felt a bit violating, but it was important to add substance to our application. We also handed in proof that my boyfriend gets some financial support from his parents every month and proof that he works part time student jobs.

At the application appointment, we handed everything in and paid €57. I received a residence endorsement sticker in my passport that allowed me to await the outcome of our application, but I was not allowed to work while I waited. The man who helped us said that if we were already in a registered partnership, I would be able to work while I waited. He recommended that we register our partnership in the Netherlands as our cohabitation agreement doesn't count as valid in NL. So, we made the appointment to do this, but the first available free appointment (the others all cost too much on our student budget) was only in August, so I posted the proof that we had made the appointment to the IND and called a few weeks later to check they had received it and it had been added to our application.   

It was a looooooong wait and the time was running out before my residence endorsement sticker expired. We received absolutely no information from the IND at all for six months.  I called to make an appointment to extend my sticker (this is something you have to do yourself, you will receive no reminders from the IND that your sticker might expire soon or has already expired). We went to get an extension on my residence endorsement sticker and the lady who helped us was very surprised that we have not yet received an answer or even any information about why it is taking so long. Unfortunately, she couldn't check on the status of our application as the systems were down on that day. She said she would call the following day to let us know what is happening. She never called.

Eventually, I managed to get through to the IND via phone and when I explained that my six months was up and we had received no news, I was put through to the lady who was deciding our case (eeek!). She said she had been waiting on a piece of information that she had just received and she needed to just go through it and she would post our decision later that afternoon.  Of course we could hardly sleep and kept checking the postbox every few minutes the following morning! And, there it was - our answer in the post - and it was a yes! I have the feeling that the information she was waiting on was the proof that we had been living together for the six months while we waited for the answer to our application. I think she waited until that exact date so that she could approve our application. 

So, for those of you still waiting or in the process of getting everything together before you apply - hang in there! The people at the IND are very helpful and they are doing the best they can. It can take long, but if they can see that your relationship is real and that you are not trying to fake anything, and if you are able to meet the requirements, there is no reason that they shouldn't grant your permit. 

Thanks to everyone else who posted their experiences on here, it was such a peace of mind to me to read them while I was stressed and waiting!

PS - I found the quickest way to get a response from the IND was to message them via Twitter. I always got a response within 2 days!