Right of abode & citizenship

[gibbodpe]

I have a friend who is unsure about what form to use to apply for citizenship. She has been in the UK for 3 years and has right of abode. She has recently accepted a job in France and would like to gain citizenship for herself and family to gain working rights to the EC. Am i right that she can register as a citizen by decent? Her husband would also need to apply as he intends to work aswell which form does he use? Are they eligible?

Thanks

[Xzibit1]

Hi,

All British citizens have the right of abode in the United Kingdom. Against this background, I would guess that every one with the right of abode is therefoore a British Citizen.

As your friend has the right of abode, she may already be a British Citizen. She should then just apply for a Passport.

[JAJ]

Hi,

All British citizens have the right of abode in the United Kingdom. Against this background, I would guess that every one with the right of abode is therefoore a British Citizen.

There is no basis for that leap of logic.

Although many (non-British) ROA holders are eligible for British citizenship by descent.

[Christophe]

I have a friend who is unsure about what form to use to apply for citizenship. She has been in the UK for 3 years and has right of abode. She has recently accepted a job in France and would like to gain citizenship for herself and family to gain working rights to the EC. Am i right that she can register as a citizen by decent? Her husband would also need to apply as he intends to work aswell which form does he use? Are they eligible?

Thanks

How did she gain her right of abode?

[gibbodpe]

Through her mother, looking at the guide for citizenship for descent i believe she qualifies through this avenue.

[Christophe]

Through her mother, looking at the guide for citizenship for descent i believe she qualifies through this avenue.

Yes, that's right, provided that she herself was born after 7 February 1961. (If she was born at any time in 1983 or later, she is already a British citizen.) Information and forms can be found here.

This will mean that she is a British citizen by descent. If she were to wait and naturalise on the basis of meeting the residential requirements, she would become British otherwise than by descent, and any children born to her in the future outside the UK would be automatically birth. However, she would have to wait for 2 more years (and it would cost more and there are more requirements to be met). And that is less sensible, obviously, if she is looking to move to France soon.

Once she becomes a British citizen, her husband could naturalise on the basis of marriage to a British citizen, which reduces the residential requirement from 5 years to 3 years (though he doesn't have to be married to a "British citizen" for the full 3 years, only at the time of application) and means that he does not have to have had indefinite leave to remain for a full year before applying but, again, only at the time of application. It also means that he wouldn't have to undertake to continue living in the UK. Information and forms can be found here, but he can't think about applying until his wife is a British citizen. He would also need to pass the Life in the UK test. What is his immigration status at present?

I am sure that others will jump in about the children...

[Christophe]

Hi,

All British citizens have the right of abode in the United Kingdom. Against this background, I would guess that every one with the right of abode is therefoore a British Citizen.

There is no basis for that leap of logic.

Although many (non-British) ROA holders are eligible for British citizenship by descent.

Xzibit, that would indeed seem to be the usual run of things, but under the the British Nationality Act 1981 (which came into force on 1 January 1983), certain Commonwealth citizens and certain British nationals who did not gain British citizenship under the Act but who had had the right of abode in the UK before the Act came into force nevertheless retained that right of abode.

Therefore, there exists the rather unusual situation that there are residual groups of people who are not British citizens but who nevertheless have the right of abode in the UK as if they were. (I say "residual groups" because no numbers have been able to be added to these groups since 1 January 1983.) Primarily they are Commonwealth citizens who were born before 1983 to a UK-born mother (people born in 1983 or later are British citizens) and female Commonwealth citizens were at some time before 1983 married to a man with the right of abode in the UK. There are other groups as well, including people who are British subjects by connection with the Republic of Ireland, but those two are the main groups affected.

Anyone (Commonwealth citizen or not) born after 7 February 1961 to a mother who was a British citizen otherwise than by descent (which includes a UK-born mother) is now entitled to register as a British citizen, and there is talk that this entitlement will be extended to all people born to such a British mother, whatever their date of birth.