Do non-EU nationals also "acquire" permanent resi

[ed2008]

Under the 2006 EEA rules EU nationals and their family acquire permanent residence after 5 years stay in the UK and do not need to apply for it. Does this also apply to their non-EU family members (spouse)? That is, as a non-EU family member of EU national exercising treay rights I dont have to apply for ILR. thanks for your responses.

[ensalmo]

Of course as long as you have a residence permit that covers you beyond the 5 years.

[ed2008]

Thanks for your reply.
I got a 1-year family entry visa in October 2003 and then a residence permit in November 2004 for five years until November 2009. in this case can i apply for naturalsiation in say october 2009 without applying for ILR?

[ensalmo]

You can apply for Citizenship 6 years from your date of entry into the UK as a family member of an EEA national. Say if you entered in October 2003 you can apply in October 2009 for Naturalisation without applying for the PR. Or from the date of marriage if you are already in the UK in another type of visa. I was on a training visa in the UK then got married in July 2002....applied for the PR in July 2007 because the 5 years had run out and applied for Naturalisation in July 2008.

[ed2008]

Thanks for this reply and sharing your experience. I will apply in March 2009 to see what happens. I got married in February 2003 when I was on a student visa (since 1999). I hope they will not penalise my absence (between March and October 2003) when I left for for a post-doc research fellowship in Bonn, Germany. My spouse remained in the UK and I made a three visits to the UK as breaking the continuos residence rule (being away for more than 6 months). I hope it will count in teh exceptions - getting posted abroad or taking training. What do you think? should I wait until October, but am afraid of waiitng as am not sure on the impact on the new proposls about citizenship. My spouse aquired PR in September 2003 under 2006 rules.

[ensalmo]

It is the 5 years that counts towards your citizenship application. If you look in the form they need only the previous 5 years so basically you have to go back to March 2004. They need 5 years and last one with PR. If you want to be absolutely sure apply in September but I do not think you would have broken you residence from March to September. If you look carefully in the informations they allow even more than 6 months for important reasons. In my opinion you should be OK.

If you had excercised your Treaty rights during that 6 months period you should be ok, probably on a self sufficient basis.

The new Citizenship rules do not affect EEA nationals and their family members as far as I know.

I found this forum very helpful and I got so much out of it.

Good luck.

My Citizenship application took 5 months from applying to getting the passport.

[ed2008]

Your answer has made me confident to apply in March as by then I could have completed six years since marrying an EU national. one issue though, do I need to provide any further evidence of my EU spouse exercising treat rights, resience card, marriage certificate, etc may be under further documents not mentioned. There is no requirement for this information in the application form for naturalisation. Only date of marriage and nationality is asked.

[JAJ]

The new Citizenship rules do not affect EEA nationals and their family members as far as I know.

What makes you think that? EEA nationals and family members timeline to permanent residence won't be affected, but citizenship may well be.

[ed2008]

I thought that way because the naturalisation application form requires EU nationals (without a PR certification) to provide evidence of exercising treaty rights for 5 years. Since non Eu nationals derive their right of residency from their EU family members, I suspected that by extention the same requirement may apply to them. Am I wrong? How would they then tell if the EU family member was excersing treaty rights?