hi all,
Slightly convoluted situation and was wondering if anyone could shed any light:
I'm a full UK citizen and have been married to my wife (who's from Kyrgyzstan) for 10 years and we have two kids with UK citizenship. Five years ago we came to live in the UK after we'd lived abroad for a while. At the time we were living in Bulgaria and when we came back, we actually only came back for a holiday so used the non-EEA temporary visa as it was free to apply for. However, on coming back to the UK to visit, the business I was working for in Bulgaria collapsed and we decided to stay here.
Unfortunately, because my wife came in on a non-EEA visa, she was treated like the spouse of an EU rather than a UK citizen, and despite numerous phone calls, we were told that she couldn't move across to get a spousal visa for a UK citizen without leaving the country again and reapplying for the spousal visa. This wasn't practical for us either financially or logistically as we had two young children and for there are few places my wife can't go without an additional visa. In the end, time was against us and we settled for a five-year visa as the non-EEA spouse of an EU citizen.
Now my wife's visa is up for renewal and we could go the easy route and get permanent residence, which is she is eligible for after being here five years. However, we would really like to work towards getting her citizenship and was wondering whether there's any way for us to do that from within the country rather than having to leave and apply from outside. Again, this would be quite difficult for us logistically.
Any help/advice would be very welcome.
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