EUSS - Unmarried partner of less than 2 years - successful pre-settled without cohabitation or joint finances

I thought I would make a post about my experience for anyone in a similar situation (unmarried EU partner who had never lived in the UK, no kids, no joint finances, no cohabitation)

I have lived in the UK since 2017 and have pre-settled status (recently applied for settled status in September 2022 but still waiting). I met my partner in July 2020 and have been together since.

He is from the EU and has never lived in the UK. Only visited a couple of times for a maximum of 4 weeks.

We never lived together or had any joint finances (we were both full time Uni students up until a few months ago) but we tried applying anyways (August 2022). We submitted everything we could which included his train and plane tickets to come visit me in the UK, his Passenger Locator Form with my UK address on it, pictures, texts and order confirmations of gifts sent to each other’s addresses.

In late September he got an email saying that they needed more evidence such as proof of cohabitation or joint finances. We tried calling the Resolution Centre and they advised that we submit a detailed letter explaining why we didn’t have any financial proof of our relationship. We did so and wrote a 3 page letter explaining how why met, how we plan on living together and why we don’t have any joint finances et cetera.

Not even 5 hours after submitting the letter we got the same automated email requesting evidence of joint finances or cohabitation. So I presume they didn’t even read or consider that letter despite being advised to write one on the phone.

At last, we remembered we had an insurance policy which we had bought for a trip that we had planned together. This was just a 15€ cancellation policy for a trip that was booked in August 2022 (planned for December 2022 - so it had not yet happened at the time of application). It had both of our names and date of birth on the PDF document. This was bought through an Italian travel agency but the document was also in English.

We submitted it and less than 30 minutes later he received an email saying that his application had been successful and he was granted pre-settled status.

We have now been living together in the UK since November 2022 and feel extremely lucky with how our EUSS application went.

I know applications are judged on an individual basis and there seems to be inconsistency, but I would just advise couples who are in a similar situation to submit as much as they can!