Jambo wrote:Well, the documents may (or may not) be the same but the case workers are looking for two different periods:
- For PR - evidence of continuous 5 years prior to the application.
- For BC - evidence of continuous 5 years ending one year prior to the application.
For a PR card application, there is no need for the period to be 5 years immediately preceding the application.
The PR card is simply a confirmation of an already existing state known as PR.
So if somebody is meets the requirements to qualify for PR from 2004 for 5 years, and then was out of the UK for 14 months, and since then has been back, the period considered would be the 5 years from 2004 to 2009.
If you do a non-obvious period, then it is very important to explicitly tell UKBA over which period you got your PR. Best to write a cover letter that says "
This application is in respect to 5 years of continuous residence from 2004 to 2009"