ILR SET M

[bermudas]

Hello. My spouse is coming up for her ILR application (SET M). I am a UK citizen. She is a Chinese citizen. We have a daughter with UK citizenship.

Last year (during her 30 month period of FLR), my employer sent me to China for 6 months. During this time, I lived in a hotel and my wife and daughter split their time between staying with me in the hotel and staying with my wife's parents in a different city. We continued to own a property in the UK, which remained empty during the time we were away.

Apologies if I am overthinking this but I have three questions that I would be grateful for any comments on.

1. Apart from disclosing this absence in the absences section of the form, do we need to include the hotel address in the previous address section? Or, would it be better to include the hotel address in answer to the question "Have you lived anywhere other than your current address during the past 2 years that you have not already entered on this application?" on the basis that the UK home continued to be our "residence" for the purposes of the application?

2. We don't have any correspondence in our joint or single names evidencing our cohabitation during this six month period (all of the utilities were paid for by my company). I have lots of evidence to show that my company sent me to China and our passport stamps will show that my wife and child were in China at the same time but is the lack of correspondence likely to be a problem?

3. We continued to receive mail to our UK address during the absence. I assume I should submit this as proof of cohabitation, even though we were abroad.

Thanks in advance.

[zimba]

SET(M) has no absence limit so it is not relevant. No need to enter hotel details. Do not overthink it

3. We continued to receive mail to our UK address during the absence. I assume I should submit this as proof of cohabitation, even though we were abroad.

Yeah that is good

[bermudas]

Hello.

In applying for ILR, my spouse is required to disclose "civil judgments". Her family had a dispute regarding an inheritance in which she was a party (defendant), despite not owning the property in question. A quirk of Chinese law meant she had to be named as a party. The judgment divided the property between her father and her aunts. Is this something that needs to be disclosed?

Thanks

[zimba]

Who told you that you must disclose civil judgements for ILR ??! Only a civil penalty must be disclosed which are often issued for committing a civil crime. Civil penalty has nothing to do with civil conflicts or issues. Civil issues are irrelevant to ILR

[bermudas]

Thank you for your replies Zimba. I thought this should be disclosed because the application form asks for disclosure of "A civil court judgment against you, for example for non payment of a debt, bankruptcy procdeedings or anti-social behaviour."

While an inheritance dispute doesn't fall within the examples, the result was that a judgment was given by a civil court so I thought it might be safer to disclose this than to run the risk of being accused of deception...

Thanks again.