12 month requirement and permanent residency

[adinaedri]

I was hoping to hear your opinion about the following matter:

A non EU national lived here since 2004 and was able to receive a settled status based on his relationship to an EU member.
The EUSS was a late application (was made in 07/2021) and he received his settled status 12/2021.
Previously he held a permanent residence card issued back in 2017.

He thinks that the time spend here on PC can be counted toward the 12-months wait time and that he can immidiately apply to naturalize as BC.

However, we were told that because the PC was no longer valid from 30/06/2021 that means that there is a gap of 6 months and that he should wait now the full 12 months.

Any thoughts?

[alterhase58]

Looking at the AN Guidance document (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... _final.pdf) this section on page 15 may be relevant to your query - quoted here:

"12 months free from immigration time restrictions
Unless you are married to or are the civil partner of a British citizen, you should
normally have been free from immigration time restrictions for 12 months before
applying for naturalisation. This means that you may need to wait until you have
been in the UK for 6 years before you can apply.
From 1 January 2021, applicants have been able to show they have been free from
immigration time restrictions for 12 months using both EUSS status, and any time before
that when they held permanent residence under the EEA Regulations if needed. The
ability to use both EUSS status and historical permanent residence will continue after the
end of the grace period on 30 June 2021, where this assists an application.
If you have a permanent residence card, please provide its details, including document
number, in section 2.5 of the application form. We will use the date that you first acquired
permanent residence status (and not the date on which your document was issued) as
the date you first became free from immigration time restrictions. If you do not have a
permanent residence card, you will need to show us that you had been in the UK in
accordance with the EEA Regulations for 5 years and so had become permanently
resident. Or you may choose to wait until 12 months after you were granted indefinite
leave to remain under the EUSS. "

[adinaedri]

Thank you this is really helpful!
The text below contains an example, however it does not discuss the situation of applying after June 2021 deadline of June 2021 after which the Permanent residence status became invalid.

https://www.gov.uk/british-citizenship

<<
If you had permanent residence status before you got settled status
You can no longer apply for citizenship based on your permanent residence status.

If you had permanent residence status, you can count the time that you had it towards the 12 months you need to wait before applying for citizenship with your settled status.

Example
You came to the UK in 2013 and gained permanent residence status in 2018. In April 2021, you got settled status.

Usually, you would need to wait 12 months after getting settled status to apply for citizenship - but because you had permanent residence status for 3 years already, you can apply straightaway.