Simple Question (hopefully!)

[Scotty123]

I have spent many hours reading the Home Office website and this forum but can someone please help me out with what I thought would be simple to answer.

Background
I have been a British Citizen for my whole life and my Czech wife of 14 years wants to become a British Citizen. She worked for 3 years when she first entered the UK 16 years ago but has not worked for the last 13 years as she has looked after the kids, although she is due to start full time work again next month. I've always worked in the UK. Apart from short holidays we've never been outside the UK.

My wife has passed her Life in the UK test and English speaking exam.

Question
What is the best route to apply for British Citizenship?
A) EEA residency card route - after reading the forums this route seems closed off as my wife does not have 5 qualifying years of work. Please let me know if I am wrong
B) ILR route - I am baffled as to whether this route is available and if it is, which form to fill in. The fees also seem high (£1,800?).
C) Naturalisation - Go for broke and just apply direct for British Citizenship without a Residency Card or Indefinite Leave to Remain. Do I have a chance of success given my situation is relatively simple?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Scott

[noajthan]

I have spent many hours reading the Home Office website and this forum but can someone please help me out with what I thought would be simple to answer.

...

Question
What is the best route to apply for British Citizenship?
A) EEA residency card route - after reading the forums this route seems closed off as my wife does not have 5 qualifying years of work. Please let me know if I am wrong
B) ILR route - I am baffled as to whether this route is available and if it is, which form to fill in. The fees also seem high (£1,800?).
C) Naturalisation - Go for broke and just apply direct for British Citizenship without a Residency Card or Indefinite Leave to Remain. Do I have a chance of success given my relatively simple case?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Scott

A) You are wrong.
EEA route is open if wife is a qualified person. That could be as a selfsufficient qualified person.
However selfsufficient EEA nationals require CSI to be in place.

B) Welcome to our world.
Decent, honest hard-working but hard-pressed Brits have to pay an arm and leg to bring their non-EEA families into UK. Then work through the UK visa pipeline (or minefield) to ILR, privilege of citizenship, holy grail of first British passport.

The EEA route is a walk in the park in comparison.
And it costs peanuts to get started. Or the same as a few crates of regulation size EU bananas.

However your wife is not on UK domestic route. She has no visa and no leave to remain.
Its EEA route or bust.

C) Zero chance.
Wife needs to be settled first. That means with PR status (and a DCPR) for a Union citizen.

If A) fails your wife may have no current legal basis to reside in UK.

Worst case: Get some CSI in place so wife becomes legal until she starts work.
CSI is not required if/when economically active (tax payer).

Apply for EEA (QP) too - to confirm status.
It will be too late to acquire PR in the normal way (and that's a vital prerequisite for naturalisation) but EU documentation may help if any transitional arrangements are to be put in place for the '000s of Union citizens still 'in flight'.

If now starting from zero, whether wife has a clear route to citizenship remains to be seen (depends on Brexit).

[ptstream]

did your wife hold a CSI when she stopped working?

[Scotty123]

Thanks for the responses.

ptstream
What insurance qualifies for CSI? She had no insurance herself but I used to have private health insurance at work which protected the whole family. Does this count?

noajthan
Thanks for taking the time to reply, it's much appreciated. I have few more questions;

1) What qualifies as an 'economically active (tax payer)'? By this I mean is there a minimum you have to earn. For example what if you earn just under the tax threshold? Also do dividends count as earnings (i.e. your earning but have no job?)?

2) Are you saying the ILR route is shut as she is an EEA citizen? Or are you saying it is shut because she has no visa. Note that she used to have a visa as when she first worked in the uk (2002) the Czech Republic were not part of the EU (they joined 2004). I can't remember what visa it was but we had to get it at the British Embassy in Prague (who were very helpful) because the English passport officers at Prague airport refused her entry to the UK. Once back in England she had no trouble getting an NI number and then got a job as a nurse for the NHS.

Regards

Scott

[Richard W]

What insurance qualifies for CSI? She had no insurance herself but I used to have private health insurance at work which protected the whole family. Does this count?

Quite possibly. It needs to have covered her for most medical expenses, but, beyond that, there is no clear guide.

Working full-time would have made her count as a qualified person - 15 hours a week should also suffice. Time on maternity leave counts as working. Having CSI and your income and savings making the family ineligible for means-tested benefits would also make her (count as) a qualified person. The requirement for PR is that she spent five consecutive years as a qualified person. These years can be before the Czech Republic joined the EU.

If she has not achieved PR, she is currently here in breach of the immigration laws and is present in the UK unlawfully. There are a lot of people in a similar position to your wife. There are some possible exceptions to her formally poor immigration position. She is not in breach of the immigration laws if she re-entered the UK in the last 3 months. If her last trip abroad was to Ireland and after mid October 2014, she is actually present in the UK lawfully - but still 'in breach of the immigration laws', so she would not be 'settled'. (The law is an mule.)

There is also a possible route through FLR(M) to start the 5-year (or perhaps 10-year) route to ILR. It will be based on the very strong argument that it would be unreasonable to expect your children to leave the UK.

[Richard W]

The law is an mule.

I had the right equid. The board software clearly has a fake bowdleriser.

[Casa]

The FLR(FP) route (not FLR(M)) could only be applied for under the 10 year partner route and not as a parent as the OP and her husband aren't living separately.

[noajthan]

Thanks for the responses.

ptstream
What insurance qualifies for CSI? She had no insurance herself but I used to have private health insurance at work which protected the whole family. Does this count?

noajthan
Thanks for taking the time to reply, it's much appreciated. I have few more questions;

1) What qualifies as an 'economically active (tax payer)'? By this I mean is there a minimum you have to earn. For example what if you earn just under the tax threshold? Also do dividends count as earnings (i.e. your earning but have no job?)?

2) Are you saying the ILR route is shut as she is an EEA citizen? Or are you saying it is shut because she has no visa. Note that she used to have a visa as when she first worked in the uk (2002) the Czech Republic were not part of the EU (they joined 2004). I can't remember what visa it was but we had to get it at the British Embassy in Prague (who were very helpful) because the English passport officers at Prague airport refused her entry to the UK. Once back in England she had no trouble getting an NI number and then got a job as a nurse for the NHS.

Regards

Scott

1) If you have earnings but no job then you are not a worker qualified person.

Get up to speed on qualified persons here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _clean.pdf

2) In practice its for both reasons.

[ptstream]

as soon as she starts working she'll be lawfully resident.

[Richard W]

The FLR(FP) route (not FLR(M)) could only be applied for under the 10 year partner route and not as a parent as the OP and her husband aren't living separately.

My view on this backstop is that FLR(M) is better than FLR(FP). If there were an unannounced concession on immigration status for EU wives of British citizens, an FLR(M) application would contain the evidence required for the 5-year route, but an FLR(FP) application would not. If an FLR(M) application falls to be rejected as such, it is automatically considered as an FLR(FP) application.

As the rules stand, I think it is the consideration of the children that is key to the application for the partner route. I wouldn't like to have to argue that there were insurmountable obstacles to the OP moving to, say, the Irish Republic.

[Casa]

As you have already commented in a previous post "If she has not achieved PR, she is currently here in breach of the immigration laws and is present in the UK unlawfully"

FLR(M) is only applicable when the applicant has a legal status in the UK. Has there been an 'unannounced concession' or is this hypothetical?

It is a misconception that if a FLR(M) application fails, FLR(FP) is automatically issued. Each case is decided on an individual basis, taking into consideration issues such as whether it would be unreasonable with "insurmountable circumstances” to expect the British children to leave the UK with their parents.

[vinny]

What insurance qualifies for CSI? She had no insurance herself but I used to have private health insurance at work which protected the whole family. Does this count?

Apply for confirmation of PR for an appropriate 5 year period. Include evidence of private health insurance during the periods that she wasn't working.

[Casa]

What insurance qualifies for CSI? She had no insurance herself but I used to have private health insurance at work which protected the whole family. Does this count?

Apply for confirmation of PR for an appropriate 5 year period. Include evidence of private health insurance during the periods that she wasn't working.

+1 Good advice

[noajthan]

What insurance qualifies for CSI? She had no insurance herself but I used to have private health insurance at work which protected the whole family. Does this count?

Apply for confirmation of PR for an appropriate 5 year period. Include evidence of private health insurance during the periods that she wasn't working.

+1 Spot on.

In this case EEA Regs rule.

This topic is not here to be turned into an interminable debate about FLR bla bla bla.

[Casa]

What insurance qualifies for CSI? She had no insurance herself but I used to have private health insurance at work which protected the whole family. Does this count?

Apply for confirmation of PR for an appropriate 5 year period. Include evidence of private health insurance during the periods that she wasn't working.

+1 Spot on.

In this case EEA Regs rule.

This topic is not here to be turned into an interminable debate about FLR bla bla bla.

I'm with you there.

[CR001]

+1 to all three mods that advised