IA104912014

For the Respondent: Mr P Bonavero, Counsel, instructed by Kilby Jones Solicitors

The appellant in these proceedings is the Secretary of State. However, for convenience I refer to the parties as they were before the First-tier Tribunal. Thus, the appellant is citizen of Albania born on 21 October 1992. He made an application for a residence card as an extended family member under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 ("the EEA Regulations"), that is to say as a person in a durable relationship with an EEA national. The EEA national in question is Magdelena Naworska, a citizen of Poland.

The application was refused in a decision dated 10 February 2014. The basis of the refusal, in essence, was that it had not been established that the appellant and the sponsor are in a durable relationship and no evidence of cohabitation had been provided prior to 2013.

The respondent challenges the conclusions of the First-tier Judge on the basis that he failed to have regard to a decision of the Upper Tribunal, namely YB (EEA reg 17(4) � proper approach) Ivory Coast [2008] UKAIT 00062 . The effect of that decision, it is said, is that regard must be had, as a rule of thumb, to the criteria set out in comparable provisions of the Immigration Rules in terms of duration of a relationship under the EEA Regulations.

The Secretary of State's position is that the appellant needed to establish that they had been in a durable relationship as a couple for a period of two years. That was not the position at the time of the hearing before the First-tier Tribunal.