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Hi all,

My mother left Hungary in 1963 and has lived in the UK ever since. She has worked here all her life and currently receives a pension, council house etc from the government. She had married a UK national but is now divorced.

She has never been naturalised and does not hold a Hungarian passport.

Would my mum need to be naturalised still to get a British passport or do we need to go the route of a Hungarian passport which would be pretty much impossible as my mums parents died when she was a child and details of last addresses in Hungary etc etc are very sketchy.

Any help would be much appreciated.

It sounds as though your mother is not a British citizen but would qualify for naturalisation. As she lives in a council house, I take it that she has settled status.

I don't know how difficult it would be for her to get a Hungarian passport. I would think that she could obtain a birth certificate and use that to prove her citizenship. However, you should contact the Hungarian Embassy to ask if this is the case.

Thanks for your reply. I did kind of guess that we would have to go the naturalisation route, but i was just trying to see if the huge fee could be avoided.

Thanks again

Would my mum need to be naturalised still to get a British passport or do we need to go the route of a Hungarian passport which would be pretty much impossible as my mums parents died when she was a child and details of last addresses in Hungary etc etc are very sketchy.

The problem is that unless she can prove she is Hungarian, what rights does she actually have to be in the UK. More important, what would be the basis of a claim to Naturalise as British?

So I agree with JulesN19, she needs to contact the Hungarian embassy and take steps to get confirmation of Hungarian Citizenship. Armed with such confirmation, preferably in the form of a Hungarian passport, it will be easy to get Naturalisation as British ..... once she has passed the Life in the UK Citizenship test, that is.

The logic is ...... Hungary joined the EU on 01.05.04, so 5 years later, on 01.05.09, she automatically got PR status ... so anytime after a year later, from 01.05.10 .... she can apply for Naturalisation ... assuming the test has been passed.

gabyg, have you any concerns about your nationality?

Hi John,

I was born in the UK in 1974 and have a british passport and am a british citizen. What i could not get my head around is how my mum could of worked here all her life, recieve a pension and a council house without technically having a nationality i guess?

We have spoken to the Hungarian embassy who themselves said it would be difficult, and they have questions like, last address in Hungary (she was in an orphanage), and her parents last address (parents she never knew).

Its all quite bizarre and confusing, but i desperately want to get married in Budapest and of course want my mother there.

Does your mother have any birth documentation? On what basis did she enter the United Kingdom? She must have had either a Hungarian passport, or refugee documentation (if she was an escapee).

Not many Hungarian orphans arrived unaccompanied in the UK in 1963, so you need to do some more searching into the background of just exactly what happened.

There are people who are long-term illegals having been "waved through" on tourist status in the 1950s and 1960s, but before jumping to this conclusion best to do some research on what actually happened. The story you've given up to now doesn't make sense.

Just to update from speaking to my mum, she says that her father came to England in 1956 and her mother died in 1959 in Hungary. The red cross looked for her and her siblings and took them to England in 1963 to live with their father. She believes they entered on an entrance visa or similar.

Sorry for the conflicting information in earlier posts.

The UK had issued a certificate of identity in 1982 and my mum had travelled to Cyprus to work as a nanny for one year, before returning to the UK where she married a British citizen in 1984. That is the last time my mum left the UK and the last time she has held any type of travel documentation.

Does she still have her 1982 certificate of identity? Does it give any Home Office reference number? Unusual for Cyprus to have let her in without a passport/visa.

The National Archives and/or the Home Office may have records of her arrival.

Unusual for her not to have pursued British citizenship long ago.

gabyg, does your mother know where and when she was born? if so, can she obtain a copy of her birth certificate? And then, armed with that, she can hopefully get a Hungarian passport.