From ILR to Natularisation-no travel for more than 90 days!!

[sunny69]

Hello friends, I am trying to find out an urgent issue with regards to Citizenship eligibility conditions. I got ILR in March'10 and I wud be elligible to apply for Naturalisation in March 2011 after completing one year. But the rules state that " During the last 12 months of the six-year period you must NOT have been outside the UK for more than 90 days in total". Now this is a worrying factor for me as I am travelling abroad quite often(about 3 weeks duration at a time but it doesn't mtter I guess!) on my UK based company's work (I am paying taxes in UK-if that helps) and might exceed that time limit if I carry on going like that.
Since getting this Citizenship is quite important for me as I satisfy all other rules, do you think I should STOP taking further trips abroad until my application is posted (I like to stress that this decision will not be seen possitively from my company's point of view- as we have important commitments from our clients where it requires my presence at any cost
Now I am in a great diliama what I should do- whether to forego my only chance of applying for Citizenship- I am not sure what happens if I exceed 90 days- do I have to stay one more year without any travels to re-apply? Or will they consider my business trips are not a part of those 90 days (if I can show them proofs that they are company's work)....please advice.

I found some similar issue raised earlier in this forum http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=63475 suggesting that UK Home office are very strict in this and there is no discreation as regards to personal or business visit - so I hope there is no other way except making no further trips or making sure they are within 90 days

I've got very good impression on this forum board since I got very valuable info when I applied for my ILR. I really appreciate if someone tells me what if I cross the limit of 90 days - the answer which makes me to decide should I take risk of my job just to qualify for Citizenship or not!!

[geriatrix]

See also section 4 & 5 in Annex B - The residence requirements


regards

[sunny69]

Hello sushdmehta,

Many thanks for your support, I got the necessary info after doing some deep (re)search and also your link was useful to understand how it works. I want to share this info for anyone who got the similar situation of overstaying more than 90 days during the last 12 months prior to applying for Natularisation.

At the time of your application - whenever it is -The total number of days when you look back for the last 12 months should be less than 90 days of travel (not including the days of departure and arrival to UK) So very simple in the end if you look at it!! So I made an excel sheet to put my 'days out' for every month preceding to 1 yr of my eligible date to see where I am and also continued further with the months to future, so that I can easily see at which 'time-line of 12 months 'it is best to apply.
Example: first line - months, second line - days outside uk

Now my only question is are we allowed to travel outside UK once we submit our application at NCS and got our pasport back - which many in this forum suggest is the quickest option and should not take more than 10-15 days for our documents to come back. My doubt is once I got back the passport, am I allowed to go on my business trips? Or do I have to stay in this country until my application is approved which might take from 3 -6 months??

Appreciate if you please clarify this point.

Thanks
Sunny