Tanveer Hasan Tipu v Secretary of State for The Home Department

For extended family member status under regulation 8(2), dependency requires material support needed to meet essential living needs. Whether a particular expense, including education, is essential is a fact-sensitive question requiring a case-by-case assessment. Tertiary education is neither automatically included nor excluded.

Dependency or household membership must be continuous, subject only to a de minimis interruption. Close or stable family ties cannot replace economic dependency in the relevant sense. A substantial gap therefore defeats the claim, even where the sponsor later provides financial support.

The appellant, a Bangladeshi national, applied for an EEA residence card as an extended family member of his Portuguese-Bangladeshi cousin. The Home Office refused the application. The First-tier Tribunal dismissed his appeal.

The Upper Tribunal found an error of law, set aside that decision, remade the decision and dismissed the appeal. It accepted that the appellant had been dependent while receiving support for school education in Bangladesh and had later become a member of his sponsor’s household in the UK. It held, however, that tertiary education was not an essential living need on the facts and that the gap between 2008 and 2011 defeated the claim.

The appeal concerned whether education could constitute an essential living need and whether the intervening period prevented the required continuity.

The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal.

1. Dependency. Under regulation 8(2) of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016, dependency has the meaning given in Jia v Migrationsverket [2007] QB 545. The applicant must need the sponsor’s material support to meet essential living needs. Support which is useful but not necessary does not establish dependency.
2. Education. The court rejected any fixed categories for educational expenditure. Whether education is an essential living need is a question of fact to be determined case by case, with clear and sufficient factual findings. There is no automatic rule based on the age of the applicant, the distinction between secondary and tertiary education, or whether tertiary education follows immediately after school. The approach in SM (India) v Entry Clearance Officer (Mumbai) [2009] EWCA Civ 1426 was applicable.
3. Continuity. An extended family member may move between dependency and household membership without losing that status, as recognised in Dauhoo (EEA Regulations - reg 8(2)) [2012] UKUT 79 (IAC). However, the relevant connection must continue without more than a de minimis interruption. Secretary of State for the Home Department v Rahman [2013] QB 249 did not permit close family ties to replace economic dependency. Chowdhury v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1220; [2021] 1 WLR 5544 established that the requirement is a persisting and stable state of affairs, not intermittent support. Sohrab (continued household membership) Pakistan [2022] UKUT 00157 (IAC) was consistent with that approach.
4. Application. By 2008 the appellant was an adult, had begun university in Bangladesh and had applied to enter the UK as a working holiday maker. The Upper Tribunal was entitled to find that payment of his tertiary education costs from 2008 onwards did not meet essential living needs. The later payments made in the UK could not cure the earlier gap. No error of law was shown in the Upper Tribunal’s decision.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Appeal dismissed unanimously.
• Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber): Permission was granted after the Upper Tribunal found an error of law in the First-tier Tribunal’s decision. The decision was set aside and remade; the appellant’s appeal was dismissed on 1 October 2023.
• First-tier Tribunal: The appeal against the Home Office refusal was dismissed after a hearing on 23 November 2022.