Post
by Feb4 » Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:50 pm
Man, I am in a similar problem. May be my experience so far can help you, and I will need help from others as well.
I am British, living in the UK. My wife is Nigerian and she gave birth to our son in Nigeria last year.
She applied for a spouse visa and has got it; She will be here in UK on 5 March 2015.
My son, even though born in Nigeria, is British by descent since at the time of his birth I was already a British citizen.
I assumed all along it was a straightforward matter to apply for a British passport for him here in the UK as I am living in the UK.
However, on the passport application form, my son is required to be present in the UK before I can apply for a British passport for him with the usual passport form I am currently using. Otherwise, I will have to apply for a British passport for him as someone living overseas, using a different form, a process that would take AT LEAST 12 weeks (3 months) to complete. As I said, my wife has already got her spouse visa and we assumed it was the normal maximum of 3 weeks to apply for a child's first UK passport (didn't realise the process was way different for children born overseas and living in overseas). I tried to get a consular birth certificate to expedite his passport application - this didn't help as they wrote to say he must already have a British passport else the process could actually take abnormally longer.
To cut my frustration short, I am going to do something desperate.
I am going to apply for a child visitor visa for my son (how strange, for a person who is genuinely British by descent). That takes a mere 15 days to process. Then when they get here, I can apply for a British passport for him as an applicant living in the United Kingdom.
I hope this at least consoles you that you are not alone. Any advice for you will also help me.
Good luck to us and others.
