I've been doing regulations, although granted they were US regulations which tend to be very precise, for 30 years. What I see is in EU4 a statement that once she has pre-settled status, the requirement for financial dependence no longer applies. But then lower down in the later regs it states she has to be a family member for the five years, and the definition of family member for a child over 21 involves financial dependence.
It could just be a matter of poorly-written regulations, or it could be the "Catch 22". As we have a statement from the HO that says she's good to go, we're going to proceed on that. A clarification line added to the adult dependent children wording, or anywhere, really, stating that the requirements apply only when one first applies for ANY status - pre-settled or settled - rather than having this odd split, would be helpful. But I doubt it'll ever be added.
There had been several websites, a few months ago, that were stating that she had to remain my dependent, but that info has been removed from them as far as I can tell. There used to even be something on the HO's page that stated that, but that is also gone. So either it was initially misunderstood, or they've decided EU4 is the predominant regulation, or we'll get a nasty surprise in a few years. We have to move forward, so we'll go with the EU4 and the letter.
I don't think health would work in this case. In other regulations they indicate the health issues would have to be so severe she couldn't care for herself, nevermind work. I assume they'd apply the same criteria here.
