Child's citizenship

[User]

Hi All,

First off, a very good news - my wife is now pregnant!

Now, my quick questions:

1. If my wife wants to go to India (after a few months from now) for managing the pregnancy and finally to deliver our baby in India - it will be about 10-12 months that she would have been out of UK. Would her absence from the UK (for the baby delivery) cause any problems for her ILR that she is due to apply for, around April 2007 (when she will complete her 2 years of Marriage visa)?

Points to note:

Irrespective of her absence from the UK, we will have fulfilled the 10+ bills/documents per year (in our joint names) requirements though (as per SET (M)!

2. If we deliver our baby in India, would be able to get our child the British citizenship (because I am a British citizen) in India??

Or do we have to take an Indian citizenship for our child and then get a "Right of abode" in the Indian passport and then bring the child into UK and then apply for registering as a British citizen once in UK?

Please advise!!

Ta!

regards.

[Chess]

Hi All,

First off, a very good news - my wife is now pregnant!

Congratulations!!!!!!!

Why would you like Mrs. to give birth in India?...

[User]

Cheers Chess.

Actually - it's my wife's idea to have the delivery in India, and since during her pregnancy I will have to fulfill all her wishes :-), the indian visit is going to be one of them Ha!

Also there is one main advantage in it - she will have all of our relatives around her to take care of her. If in UK, i will be able to bring only her parents / my parent to help us. And this tourist visa needs to be applied - where i will have to make sure that they don't end up saying they are coming over here for my wife's pregnancy - which is not true in any case. So

Bu the main reason is that there is this "phsycological benefit" that is the bonus, if we did this in India.

That is the whole story

Ta!

regards.

[John]

User and wife ... congratulations!

As regards your questions, why 10-12 months outside the UK to have a baby? Sounds like an incredibly long pregnancy and recovery period! If she really does want to give birth in India then why not a maximum of say three months before the birth and three months afterwards? No more than six months in total?

In any case I don't think your wife should overlook ... err ... you! Most wives are all too pleased to have their husband/partner around ... but you presumably would need to work most of the time ... so apart from the odd short visit by you to India she would not have that first-hand support from you.

Anyway, back to your questions :-

1. I think 10-12 months outside the UK might cause a problem. Your wife has a settlement visa and is expected to use it to settle in the UK. Such a long time outside the UK might cause her to fail to get the ILR and instead be issued with another time-limited visa. Which is why I made the point above about a maximum of six months, because I don't think she would have such a problem if her time outside the UK was limited to that.
2. I recollect that you have been naturalised as British so your child born outside the UK will also be British from birth. What you would need to do is to register the birth in India in the normal way and obtain an Indian birth certificate, then go to the nearest British Mission and apply for a British-style birth certificate and British passport for your child. Needless to say proof of your British Citizenship will be required.
   
   However that is not the whole story, because you and your wife might want to look ahead and think of the time when your child has their own children. This is because a child of yours born in the UK will have the right to pass on their British Citizenship to their children irrespective of where those children are born. However, if your child is born outside the UK then your child will only be able to pass on British Citizenship to their children born in the UK, and not to children born outside the UK.

So all in all, I think you and your wife need to think this through carefully.

[User]

Cheers John.

I now think that the 3 month prior to birth and the 3 months afterwards - in all 6 months stay in India will be good.

Although I said she thinks she need to be India for all of the pregnancy period, she is also talking about being in the UK with me all through - so i guess its a sort of start-up period of thougts

So if she was in India for 3 months prior to and 3 months after delivery in india (all in all say 6 continuous months) we will be OK for her ILR?

That is great. So we will plan accordingly then.

Note: Looking at the way me and my wife have started to discuss pregnancy so far, it might be possible that we might finally end up deciding to have our baby delivered in the UK :-)

Ta!

regards.

[John]

User for ILR for a spouse visa holder there are no clear guidelines that it is possible to look up to give a yes or no answer to your reasonable question. However it does need to be clear that the person is actually living in the UK, and not just using their spouse visa like some sort of glorified visitor's visa.

It is also worth looking ahead to her application for naturalisation. There are clear guidelines there .... given that she will be applying as the spouse of a British Citizen .... no more than 270 days out of the UK in the three years up to when she applies ... and no more than 90 days out of the UK in the one year prior to her applying. There is a bit of leeway on those numbers of days, but not a lot.

So very clearly the 10-12 months you mentioned would tend to cause a problem relating to her naturalisation application. Six months would not, unless there are other long absences out of the UK.

User, your wife's first pregnancy? Hope you don't mind me saying pregnancy is not an illness! So there is absolutely no reason for your wife to think she needs to act as if she is ill .... because she isn't. She needs to take account of her pregnancy, and adapt accordingly, no more than that.