Settled status for EU citizens - cost

[Sussexlad]

I'm not really involved with this issue at all but have had a few casual conversations with a woman on a checkout, who is really concerned about this.
She says that it costs £5000 - which she cant possibly afford - to get this but I can't find any reference to such a sum, more like £65.
I know she's been here for more than 25 years and it's horrific that she should be made to feel this way - although I voted to leave.
She even said she was badly racially abused on the bus the other day, she still has a slight German accent. Is she right about this figure?

[UncleIan]

I'm not really involved with this issue at all but have had a few casual conversations with a woman on a checkout, who is really concerned about this.
She says that it costs £5000 - which she cant possibly afford - to get this but I can't find any reference to such a sum, more like £65.
I know she's been here for more than 25 years and it's horrific that she should be made to feel this way - although I voted to leave.
She even said she was badly racially abused on the bus the other day, she still has a slight German accent. Is she right about this figure?

Indefinite leave to remain or becoming a British citizen costs a lot more than £65. Thousands, but not £5000.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -fees-2018

[JamesMuenchen]

I think she is wrong

https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families
If you’re an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen, you and your family can apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living in the UK after 30 June 2021. If your application is successful, you’ll get either settled or pre-settled status.

Fees
It’s free to apply to the scheme.

I think that previously there was a small charge if you applied before the Scheme was officially open.

Even fees for full citizenship are nothing like £5000
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... fees-table

[SalvorHardin]

Settled status applications for EU citizens to remain indefinitely in the UK are free. It used to be £65 but this was scrapped a year ago.

https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... led-status

[dionaeamuscipula]

I'm not really involved with this issue at all but have had a few casual conversations with a woman on a checkout, who is really concerned about this.
She says that it costs £5000 - which she cant possibly afford - to get this but I can't find any reference to such a sum, more like £65.
I know she's been here for more than 25 years and it's horrific that she should be made to feel this way - although I voted to leave.
She even said she was badly racially abused on the bus the other day, she still has a slight German accent. Is she right about this figure?

Indefinite leave to remain or becoming a British citizen costs a lot more than £65. Thousands, but not £5000.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -fees-2018

Yes but assuming one is eligible for settled status, then you do not need to get indefinite leave to remain or become a British Citizen, although there may be circumstances where one might want to take such a step.

The fee has been scrapped so it is free to apply.

As long as an applicant has the right document trail, then AFAICS the process should be quick and easy - and at no cost.

Certainly one of my workmates has gone through the process and said it was easy (but then they had the documentation trail).

https://www.gov.uk/eusettledstatus

Apparently 80% of eligible people in England have already applied.

DM

[Sussexlad]

Thanks all for the replies. It's not easy but I'll have to quiz her some more on my next visit ! I feel really sorry for her, it's so unnecessary.

[UncleEbenezer]

Perhaps the £5k involved professional fees for help with evidence that TPTB will accept?

Apparently 80% of eligible people in England have already applied.

I expect many of the 20% have no problem. Or have decided their least-bad solution is to get out[1]. How many, who knows?

Likewise I'm sure 99%+ of Windrush people experienced no problems with the Home Office's recent actions. The problem is that there were any.

[1] Including a family I used to know: Brit dad, German mum, teenage daughter born and lived all her life in Blighty.

[Nocton]

It sounds as if your 'woman at the checkout' does not read or listen to the news. The scheme has been heavily advertised and mentioned on the news. Where I live in Lincolnshire, where there are lots of migrants from Eastern Europe, it has been mentioned frequently on the regional BBC news with case histories and the fact that it is free. I think that it is perfectly reasonable to ask people who are living in another country to register. After all if you move to somewhere like Germany you have to formally register where you are living - at least you did when I lived there. The UK is very lax in this respect as we don't have ID cards. The UK is a very popular place to live and work and few EU citizens have left, probably no more than intended to anyway after they had made a bit of money. If I had lived 25 years in another country I should apply for citizenship.

When I type 'uk settled status' into my browser the first thing that comes up is:
https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families

[richfool]

It sounds like she is getting mixed up between EU citizens applying for registration, and NON EU citizens having to go through a 5 year programme of initial leave to remain, Further Leave to Remain (FLR) and the Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), each part of which incurs fees of over £1K. The total cost of that lot does come to in the region of £5K.

[UncleEbenezer]

If I had lived 25 years in another country I should apply for citizenship.

Would you really?

It wasn't 25 years, but I lived and worked in Italy more than the five years needed to claim settled status under EU rules, giving me rights to things like healthcare and benefits on the same basis as a native[1], and thence to citizenship. I never even contemplated it: I had no reason to suppose it offered any advantage over UK nationality, and I really didn't want to spend my time waiting in queues (in those days, inevitably made sheer hell by smokers) to deal with bored officialdom. I was never even interested enough to look into the cost.

In retrospect, how naïve. An Italian passport now would be ... like that penny-share you'd written off years ago that suddenly makes a million.

[1] In practice I already had healthcare under reciprocal arrangements, and never had cause to seek any (other) benefits. The one time I used the healthcare it worked well, though my prescription charge was much higher than in Blighty.

[elkay]

It sounds like she is getting mixed up between EU citizens applying for registration, and NON EU citizens having to go through a 5 year programme of initial leave to remain, Further Leave to Remain (FLR) and the Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), each part of which incurs fees of over £1K. The total cost of that lot does come to in the region of £5K.

Is it possible, that despite her German accent, she is not an EU citizen?

[Sussexlad]

Thank you for the further replies. I'm fairly sure she's a German ! It's difficult to quiz her in detail, because it's both a fairly casual and brief 'relationship' though given the opportunity, I will ask if she's sure, she's not confused about the different categories.