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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Residence issues  →  Thread

EU national, off-shore working for foreign employer and UC

Tracey D
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Welfare benefits advisor - Peterborough City Council

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Total Posts: 127

Joined: 18 June 2010

Hi all

This is a new situation for me and I’m needing some help to be pointed in the right direction.

I have a client who is a Polish national living and working in the UK with his child and partner. He has full Settled Status and is a worker, his partner has Pre-Settled status. 

I’ve been able to get the couple rate of UC sorted by lodging an appeal with HMCTS and UC actually doing a proper review to confirm she qualifies for UC under another route, so we didn’t need to rely on Fratila, so far so good!

Now - my client is considering a job vacancy for a German/Dutch employer working with wind turbines, which will be based off-shore. His home will remain the UK and his partner and child will stay here in that home. But - would he and his partner still be able to claim UC as UK residents or would he fall foul of the absence abroad rules (assuming abroad for more than 1 month at a time)?

Many thanks!

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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The residence issues in this case are complex, but just a preliminary sanity check: is there any point worrying about UC once he starts this job, sounds like it’s going to be very well paid.  Maybe the problem will sort itself out as they will no longer be entitled to UC purely because of their income.

Leaving that aside, the next issue to consider is absence from GB.  This very much depends exactly where the installation he will be working on is situated.  Off whose shore is it?  If it is in a UK offshore area mentioned in the definition of “continental shelf worker” in UC Reg 11(5), he can be absent from mainland GB for up to six months at a time without losing UC entitlement.

Then there is the partner and whether she can be a joint claimant.  The easiest way would be if he already has a permanent right to reside (not the same as his settled status - he needs to have spent five years as a worker etc).
If he has an underlying permanent right to reside, his spouse (if she is a spouse) also has a right to reside off the back of that.

Otherwise, as I understand it (and there is quite a high chance I could be wrong, you want someone like Martin Williams to answer this) the position is as follows:

- if he works in the UK continental shelf area he will still have a right to reside as a worker, which rubs off on his partner with pre-settled status
- if he is working on the Dutch or German continental shelf with his employment based in Germany/the Netherlands, he will no longer be a worker in the UK
- again if he is no longer a worker in the UK, Article 17 of the Withdrawal Agreement allows him to change his status without losing his preserved rights.  He will therefore acquire the status of a frontier worker residing in the UK and working in the EU.  Assuming the wages are high enough to support the family without them becoming an unreasonable burden, he would continue to have a right to reside as a self-sufficient person, and here is the bit I am least sure about: whether he could satisfy the comprehensive medical insurance requirement through the coordination rules making an institution in the state of employment responsible for healthcare costs in the UK.  The Withdrawal Agreement preserves the coordination rules for people within their scope as of 31/12/20: he wasn’t relying on a competent institution in Germany/Netherlands at that time, need to research whether or not he could do so now.  Feel like I need to draw a diagram to decipher Articles 30 to 33.

Tracey D
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Welfare benefits advisor - Peterborough City Council

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Total Posts: 127

Joined: 18 June 2010

Many thanks for your comprehensive response HB Anorak

Now you’ve pointed me in the right direction I can see what further information I need from the client to advise him along the lines of your well explained reply.

You are probably right though that in the end it all may become a mute point of law, depending on what his earnings would be ...