From completing the 85-page application form to producing an average of 7 kilos (15 lbs) of supporting documents from tax returns to details of their movements over the last five years, as well as handing over their passports to the authorities for months, it’s proving a difficult and expensive task.
Government figures show applications for permanent residency have soared since last year’s EU referendum, with the numbers six times higher in the last quarter of 2016 than a year earlier.
But 12,800, or more than 28 percent, of those submitted in the last three months of 2016 were rejected or declared invalid.
One was Dieter Wolke, 59, a German who is professor of psychology at the University of...