Passport and naturalisation enquiry

[dhruv45in]

This is for my wife. She holds a French Passport and we were looking at different options of getting her a British Passport as well.

I was born in 1982 in india to a british mother and french father. However, i was unable to acquire british nationality because at the time an unmarried britidh mother could not pass on her nationality to her children. There were further complications as my mother herself was not born in the UK. She was born in Hong Kong where her father at the time was in Crown Service and he was an Australian national born in Peking but later on in his life when he returned to Britain, he became British. The last person in my family who was born in Britain goes back about 5 generations.
In 1983, the law was changed so that mothers could pass on their nationality. I want to know if I could still acquire British nationality through my mother.
I have been resident in Britain for about 7 years. So I could also apply for naturalisation( which takes longer and more expensive). Also the total number of days I have been out of the UK in the last 5 years exceeds 450 (about 490). I don't know if the home office will apply discretion to that or maybe it would just get rejected if I apply now. My son was issued a British passport 2 years ago as I had been resident here for 5 years when he was born. But I spent about 10 month out of the country when I was on maternity leave which is causing the problem now.

If anyone can give an insight or helpful information. Thanks!

[vivdubes]

What nationality you hold as of now? What visa you were on while living in UK ?

[dhruv45in]

I am an Indian national livng in UK on a EEa family permit. My wife is french and we have a son whos both french and british.

[vivdubes]

This is my informed guess... if you have lived say around 7 years then the caseworker might put discretion in your favour as your qualifying period is less than the stipulated days.. so i guess you should be fine. This would only hold good if you fullfill other nationality conditions.
See this link and see if it makes sense to you (look for section 5)

http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy ... let-an.pdf


Good luck

[dhruv45in]

She took an appointment at check and send where first they told here all papers were okay except she has to take an english test as the uni where she did her PGCE is not in the list of approved centres. She did pearsons english test which costed her £150 plus £50 for another check and send where they pointed out that she was a student in 2009/10 and as she didnt have private medical insurance she doesnt qualify not for naturalisation. I remember asking someone here on this forum about this year that my wife took off when I was applying for my sons British PP in 2012 and was told that if the year taken for studies was in the same field then that year is treated as a work year. Now I am a bit confused, they gave our son a British PP on my wife's papers but refused her naturalisation application. Also the first person that saw her papers said everything was fine and only english test was the problem and the second person spotted this, costing us another £200. Any suggestions or actions i may take here?

[dhruv45in]

link to the last thread i posted here regarding my son's PP:

http://www.immigrationboards.com/britis ... 74-20.html

[dhruv45in]

any suggestions/ideas folks?

[vinny]

Your wife's mother may be British otherwise than by descent if her father was in the crown service.

[dhruv45in]

Your wife's mother may be British otherwise than by descent if her father was in the crown service.

Thanks, this could be of help if we apply for british citizenship through her mum. Also, is there a way we can know if her mom is British by descent or otherwise than by descent? I think she got her BC and her PP as she was born in HK and it was UK at that time. Any supporting documents we can use with the application?