excess of absences 5 year - follow up

[ukwannabe555]

Dear all,

I have the following situation:

- total permanence in the UK 6 years and a half (since October 2017)
- last five years 685 days of absence (of whom 161 days out for work proven by letters) -> if we remove the days I was out for work, I am left with 524 days of absence.
- last 12 months -> 81 days
- strong ties to the UK demonstrable via full-time employment, long-term investment, creation of limited company, and volunteering.
- last 24 months 188 days of absence. (not sure whether this means anything though)

All absences are typically the sum of trips of 2-3 days each and an average of 40 days in summer and 25 in winter. So I believe I am showing a pattern of someone who clearly lives in the UK.
I have another 42 days due to three surgeries I have done in my European country of origin privately, although I fear it would not help me in any way. (maybe it does?)

Keep in mind that the bulk of absences were done in 2020-2021 because I had serious health issues and I had surgery privately in my home country plus every trip outside the UK got me 10 days in isolation in the other country. So waiting for the absences to go away means at least 2-3 extra years.

I have three questions:

1) the part "at least 2 years residence (for applications under section 6(1)), or 1 year (for applications under section 6(2)), without substantial absences immediately prior to the beginning of the qualifying period - if the period of absence is greater than 730 days (for section 6(1)) or 450 days (for section 6(2)) the period of residence must be at least 3 or 2 years respectively" means 2 years before my five years?
2) I need the citizenship ASAP. My full-time job (a researcher for a British top-tier university) requires me to travel a lot. My supervisors have been very kind to limit my travel to allow me to take the citizenship but this has a detrimental effect on my career (and mental health). Is it something that could be presented? Of course, they would write a letter if needed.
3) In general, how does it look? should I need a solicitor?

[contorted_svy]

Dear all,

I have the following situation:

- total permanence in the UK 6 years and a half (since October 2017)
- last five years 685 days of absence (of whom 161 days out for work proven by letters) -> if we remove the days I was out for work, I am left with 524 days of absence. You can't remove the days you were absent for work.
- last 12 months -> 81 days This is ok.
- strong ties to the UK demonstrable via full-time employment, long-term investment, creation of limited company, and volunteering.
- last 24 months 188 days of absence. (not sure whether this means anything though) It doesn't.

All absences are typically the sum of trips of 2-3 days each and an average of 40 days in summer and 25 in winter. So I believe I am showing a pattern of someone who clearly lives in the UK. Doesn't matter
I have another 42 days due to three surgeries I have done in my European country of origin privately, although I fear it would not help me in any way. (maybe it does?) Unless you can demonstrate it was a life saving surgery, you could have done it here through the NHS. Unlikely for this argument to work sadly.

Keep in mind that the bulk of absences were done in 2020-2021 because I had serious health issues and I had surgery privately in my home country plus every trip outside the UK got me 10 days in isolation in the other country. So waiting for the absences to go away means at least 2-3 extra years.

I have three questions:

1) the part "at least 2 years residence (for applications under section 6(1)), or 1 year (for applications under section 6(2)), without substantial absences immediately prior to the beginning of the qualifying period - if the period of absence is greater than 730 days (for section 6(1)) or 450 days (for section 6(2)) the period of residence must be at least 3 or 2 years respectively" means 2 years before my five years? Yes. You would need to show you were resident here for overall at least 7 years.
2) I need the citizenship ASAP. My full-time job (a researcher for a British top-tier university) requires me to travel a lot. My supervisors have been very kind to limit my travel to allow me to take the citizenship but this has a detrimental effect on my career (and mental health). Is it something that could be presented? Of course, they would write a letter if needed. No, citizenship is a discretionary application. You want UK citizenship, but it is not necessary for you to have it to keep your job.
3) In general, how does it look? should I need a solicitor? Most applicants don't need a solicitor, the guidance is for the most part straightforward. You need to work out if you meet the statutory requirements and if you need to apply for discretion understand what extra evidence to submit.

You would need to wait to apply under your current circumstances until you have been in the UK for at least 7 years and supply extra evidence you have established your finances, employment, family, etc in the UK. I suggest you compile a list of all trips you took since 2017 and enclose those to the application as well to show you didn't have significant absences before the start of the 5 year qualifying period.

[ukwannabe555]

Hi,

thank you for your answer.

To be sure I understand, there is no way I can apply before I reach 7 years, i.e. October 2024 (well November, as October 2019 I was abroad). Is that correct?

In the two years before I had a tremendous amount of days of absence (306) because exactly until November 2019 I spent 129 consecutive days abroad for a mandatory fieldwork part of my PhD. What happens then?

There is one thing I don't understand though. The bulk of my absences are for work, and they are mandatory (i.e. I don't go abroad to conferences and fieldwork I am fired, because my experiments are abroad). I will never be able to go down a certain amount of work absences. Is it really so that the system doesn't take this into account even when clearly motivated and certified? Most academics or top managers would never be able to become British then. For example, even if wait until November 2024, I have at least two months abroad for work between now and November. Either so or my contract is not renewed. It sounds absurd that work days cannot be counted out, it is a small island and most high profile jobs require you to travel. I am complying with the system I am just trying to understand if I have to decide whether to stop my academic career for years or never become British. Thanks!

[contorted_svy]

Hi,

thank you for your answer.

To be sure I understand, there is no way I can apply before I reach 7 years, i.e. October 2024 (well November, as October 2019 I was abroad). Is that correct? correct

In the two years before I had a tremendous amount of days of absence (306) because exactly until November 2019 I spent 129 consecutive days abroad for a mandatory fieldwork part of my PhD. What happens then? Not sure, but doesn't sound good.

There is one thing I don't understand though. The bulk of my absences are for work, and they are mandatory (i.e. I don't go abroad to conferences and fieldwork I am fired, because my experiments are abroad). I will never be able to go down a certain amount of work absences. Is it really so that the system doesn't take this into account even when clearly motivated and certified? Most academics or top managers would never be able to become British then. For example, even if wait until November 2024, I have at least two months abroad for work between now and November. Either so or my contract is not renewed. It sounds absurd that work days cannot be counted out, it is a small island and most high profile jobs require you to travel. I am complying with the system I am just trying to understand if I have to decide whether to stop my academic career for years or never become British. Thanks!

I don't know what to advise, because it is not *compulsory* for an academic to travel. Plenty of academics do become British because they manage to comply with the rules. For your current state of things, even if you waived the days you were away for work (which you may need the help of a solicitor to make the case they were necessary) you are still way over the absence limit and you would need 7 years of residence, which again is an issue. I don't know what your pattern of absences is like, and how a solicitor could help with your situation, but as your job demands you travel you could cut down on holidays abroad for a couple years, focus only on work trips, and make your absences go down that way. Up to 480 days in the last 5 years are normally disregarded, so if by doing some juggling around you can get below that threshold you should be OK. At teh present moment it is unlikely your application would succeed.

[ukwannabe555]

Dear all,

this is simply a follow-up post. The original topic has been locked so I cannot answer there. I think it is very useful for other people to see the end results of an application since most of the time we read about the issue but never about the outcome.

I wanted to apply for British naturalisation and I was in this situation:

- total permanence in the UK 6 years and a half (since October 2017)
- last five years 685 days of absence (of whom 161 days out for work proven by letters) -> if we remove the days I was out for work, I am left with 524 days of absence. I work as an academic in the UK.
- last 12 months -> 81 days
- Another 42 days due to three surgeries I have done in my European country of origin. Surgeries were done during covid outside the UK because it was impossible to use NHS.
- other 14 days for bereavement.
- strong ties to the UK demonstrable via full-time employent, long-term investment, creation of limited company, and volunteering.

I was suggested in this forum not to apply, and wait for more years until the bulk of absences was gone. My work as an academic requires me to travel very often, and clearing up the absences would have meant basically pausing my career for years. I have decided to apply nevertheless, and I did so with the help of a solicitor. I sent the application in summer 2024, and in September 2024 I was granted UK citizenship.

As you can imagine, before deciding if it was worth spending money on the (costly) solicitor, I asked people in different forums for their opinions. In many of them, including this one, people were quite adamant that I had little to no chance. This is also due to a poor understanding of some job requirements. I was told that "an academic is not required to travel", which is, well, just plain wrong as it obviously depends on the contract. A professor of English literature is probably expected to stay in Oxford, but a researcher in China/US relationship has a different career path...

This post is just to say that, based on my experience and on what the solicitor told me, if you have an excess of absence days but all the rest is fine and you strongly believe you have a good case consider going for it. Obviously, there is a risk you will lose the money of the application. But if you are helped by a professional, you are able to clearly motivate each absence, you can demonstrate strong ties to the UK, you can back up everything you say with documents, and every other aspect of your application is absolutely perfect, you might even get it.

My experience does not make statistics, but I hope it helps other people. In my case, it changed my life and I could not be happier.

[contorted_svy]

Congratulations. good to know that an academic going on conferences/travelling for work may be able to exercise discretion.