Post
by sagareva » Sun Oct 26, 2014 7:22 pm
HI karpu
several issues here
1- whether your wife worked or not before going back to india, is not important. if say, she was looking for work but unable to find it. economic acitivity as such is no longer a settlement requirement under tier1, you have to gain points instead. so for tier2 settlement, i do not think this will come up. plus, looking for work is also economic activity for this purpose.
2 - your wife's absences are a worse thing. they do break continuity and they have a special note for caseworkers, that electing to give birth to a child overseas and then not come back for many months, is not a valid medical reason. primarily because this is for most people a planned event. medical reasons that are excused are those you cannot possibly have planned for, such as, accidents that happen while you are on holiday, or illness of a close relative overseas.
so, maternity absence for over 6 months does break continuity. it will not be excused for over 180 days at a time
3 - you are gauging correctly, that under current rules -- which is saying little, they change them every time -- it does tend to work in your favour if you pick an application date that breaks your longer absence into two segments of less than 180 days each. so, in your example, if you pick a date in April 2016 that is 179 days from your wife's departure in 2010 and not more than 179 to her arrival back in 2011, it will likely work.
the absences,once managed into less-than-180days in every 12-month segment counting backwards -frame, will not hurt your wife further, since they were personal, not for reasons of economic activity overseas.
so this may all work