Hello helpful moderators,
I'm a happily married Canadian living and working the UK; ultimately on the road to naturalization here. I'm hoping to clarify the next steps of the process to make sure that everything goes as smoothly and quickly as possible. I'd also like to ask someone who knows about the possibility of extended travel during the time that I'm waiting to become a citizen.
A little background: I arrived June 18th 2005 on a working holidaymaker visa to be with my boyfriend. He proposed in 2006 and we were married in September of that year. It'll soon be a year that we've been married (and switched to a spouse visa), and 2 years and 3 months since I've been here. As I understand it, I'm to apply for Idefinite Leave to Remain near the end of the 2 year period, first having taken my citizenship exam. Does this 2 year period include only time after my spouse visa started, or can my time prior to that be counted as well?
I'm a little unsure of what happens after that, to be honest...
My next question is regarding time spent away from the UK during this whole process. From what I've read, there are restrictions on how much time I can spend out of the country until I'm officially a citizen. My husband & I both love Canada and plan on moving back there (temporarily) at some point to spend time with family, friends and do as much travelling as we can. I'm sure we'll be repeating this whole immigration process for my husband at some point over there. We've just recently been exploring the idea of heading over as soon as next year. It may be the only chance we'll have to travel for awhile before we begin the long drawn out (not to mention bank account draining) process of building a house here. It appears, however, that I can't be outside the country for more than 270 days during the 3 year period, and no more than 90 days over the last year. Is this the case? Not that's I'd be willing to risk any setbacks to my immigrating, but what would be the consequences to a year spent abroad?
Pretty demanding to want to become a citizen but also come and go as I please in the mean time I know, but I figured I should get some answers now before we start to get ahead of ourselves with exciting, unrealistic plans.
Thank you for your time. Your help is really appreciated.
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