Changes in citizenship App from 12/11 PR Doc Required

Damn! I disappeared and tried to book a NCS meeting to do this for next week - and now it seems I might need to wait for PR card AND a year?

This is what I was advised over the phone again today... the lady told me I need to hold the PR card for a year before applying.

But the Booklet clearly states:
'But remember that, unless you are married to or the civil partner of a British citizen, you should normally have held permanent resident status for 12 months before applying for naturalisation. This means that you may need to wait until you have been in the United Kingdom for 6 years before you can apply. You will need to provide evidence of 6 years continuous residence when you apply for your permanent residence card'

It doesn't say 'hold a permanent residence card for 12 months' but that you need to hold permanent residence STATUS.

In my opinion that clearly means that if I apply for PR card now and it arrives in 2 months confirming my residence earlier, I should still be able to apply immediately.

I might have cried a little bit this morning..

Question 2: do I need the PR card https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-a-uk-resid ... dence-card (which seems to be for family of EEA nationals, not EEA nationals themselves) or a registration certificate https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _07-15.pdf - which seems to be for EEA nationals?

This appears to be typing error: "You will need to provide evidence of 6 years continuous residence when you apply for your permanent residence card'
Only 5 years continuous residence are required to qualify for PR.

Good eye. I wonder if it is a spelling mistake or not.

Also - my bad, it seems what I need is EEA PR which is 85 damn pages https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _07-15.pdf .

Christ! They really do not want us to become citizens, do they...

If this changes are to be lawful and not face the full wrath of the law, UKVI should have provision is place to to retrospective confirmation otherwise there is bound to be an enormous amount of legal challenges.

I am an EEA national, married to a British citizen - my 5 years of Treaty rights ended in 2010 but I have only just got my permanent residence certificate. Now I have discovered the changes re citizenship application from 12 November.
The booklet to Form AN says:
If married to British citizen: You must be free of immigration time restrictions on the date of application.
If not married to a British citizen: You must be free of immigration time restrictions on the date of application,and have been free of immigration time restrictions for the twelve month period before making the application.
I called the Nationality Help Desk today and was told: Married to British citizen makes no difference, I need to wait one year. I am confused.
They also questioned my newly acquired " Document certifying permanent residence" , saying that I would need a "residence card" instead. What is the difference??

That is not the law, they seem to be wrong, as it is possible to apply now.

The advice given on the 'help line' is incorrect. As the spouse of a British citizen you can apply now, assuming you meet the standard requirements, KOL etc.
Also they are also incorrect regarding a PR card:
"a document certifying permanent residence (if you’re an EEA national) or permanent residence card (if you’re a non-EEA national) as
confirmation of a right of permanent residence under the Immigration (European Economic
Area) Regulations 2006 (‘the EEA Regulations’)."

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _07-15.pdf

That is what I had understood, too. Very worrying that these people get paid to pass on information - and they seem to know nothing at all. My previous encounters with the Help Desk were the same. The trouble is, if I apply now and I got it wrong - over a thousand pounds are lost ....

It seems like this thread has been hijacked.

I may have to extract your post, as it seems different from the topic, and i am not sure why i initially replied to it.

In regards to your last post, unless you don't meet other requirements for naturalisation, but i believe you will be fine on residency requirement and free from immigration control requirement.

In my opinion they cannot refuse on that.

I apologize .... I didn't realize .....

A thoughtful & well-argued piece analysing the recent change requiring PR card for naturalisation:
https://www.freemovement.org.uk/are-the ... -citizens/

Hi everyone,

Does anyone already have the document certifying permanent residence? I wonder what date it shows - e.g. date of when it was issued, or date of when the right would have been first granted.

In my case, I've been here legally for 8 years so my understanding is that once I prove that, the card should show that I gained PR 3 years ago. But will it show that, or will it be dated e.g. 2016?

The reason I ask is that you need to hold PR for a year before applying (as before), but a lady at NCS told me this means I need to have the *card* for a year before applying for British citizenship.

To me it makes no sense, since in fact I will have held PR for longer than that by the time my card has arrived. Hence the question - can I expect it to show e.g. my first arrival so that I can show that I've held PR for more than a year? Or is the lady right that the PR will only be dated from when the card is issued?

And a simple question #2 - I don't need a Sponsor to apply for EEA PR, if I'm Polish, right?

natienka wrote:Hi everyone,

Does anyone already have the document certifying permanent residence? I wonder what date it shows - e.g. date of when it was issued, or date of when the right would have been first granted.

In my case, I've been here legally for 8 years so my understanding is that once I prove that, the card should show that I gained PR 3 years ago. But will it show that, or will it be dated e.g. 2016?

...

The new Residence Cards (biometric format) closely resemble Biometric Residence Permits. They are of a standard credit card size and contain:
holder’s digital image, name and signature, date and place of birth, nationality, gender, expiry date of card, place of issue, type of residence card (category of residence) and a unique number

See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... nts_v5.pdf

noajthan wrote:

The new Residence Cards (biometric format) closely resemble Biometric Residence Permits. They are of a standard credit card size and contain:
holder’s digital image, name and signature, date and place of birth, nationality, gender, expiry date of card, place of issue, type of residence card (category of residence) and a unique number

See https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... nts_v5.pdf

Thanks - this is very useful! I'll be sending in my national ID so I probably will receive a standalone document rather than one in my passport. So I guess it doesn't backdate to when I was given PR...

I'm more and more thinking about this article you posted above, the legality really seems weak with this change...

The doc certifying PR only contains the issue date, not the date PR was actually acquired hence all the problems since holding such a doc has been made mandatory when applying for the privilige of citizenship. It is a standalone document as they are not allowed to endorse EEA nationals' passports as far as I have heard.

LilyLalilu wrote:The doc certifying PR only contains the issue date, not the date PR was actually acquired hence all the problems since holding such a doc has been made mandatory when applying for the privilige of citizenship. It is a standalone document as they are not allowed to endorse EEA nationals' passports as far as I have heard.

Thus comes the problem with the requirement of holding PR status for 12 months before applying for naturalisation. If the PR document does not confirm the date of acquiring PR, and you send no supporting evidence of your PR status (eg the documentation that you would send with the EEA(PR) application form) other than the PR document itself, how do the naturalisation application team know whether you have held PR for at least 12 months?

I imagine this is going to be an issue for a lot of people, as it stands I might have actually held PR for at least 17 years, but I've only just applied for the PR document. Will I really have to wait ANOTHER year after receiving it before I apply for naturalisation? Before the change in November where they started requiring this document, I could have applied immediately.

Well... I was calm until now... There is post about new PR card which is in small plastic format including all that biometric information... I have an old PR card (that long blue foldable paper card) and I want ask if it is still valid or I will have to apply for this new one and wait another year even though i could apply this march?

thx for your explaining.

Thus comes the problem with the requirement of holding PR status for 12 months before applying for naturalisation. If the PR document does not confirm the date of acquiring PR, and you send no supporting evidence of your PR status (eg the documentation that you would send with the EEA(PR) application form) other than the PR document itself, how do the naturalisation application team know whether you have held PR for at least 12 months?

That's exactly what worries me; I suppose they could potentially check with the EEA team as they must have notes of when PR was acquired, however, knowing the Home Office/UKVI, I do not expect them to do this.. They may just refuse the application if one has held the doc certifying PR for less than 12 months and it would then be up to the individual to seek reconsideration which I hear is quite a lenghty process..

Saladin0011 wrote:Well... I was calm until now... There is post about new PR card which is in small plastic format including all that biometric information... I have an old PR card (that long blue foldable paper card) and I want ask if it is still valid or I will have to apply for this new one and wait another year even though i could apply this march?

thx for your explaining.

The plastic PR card with biometrics is for non-EEA nationals only; EEA nationals still get the other paper PR doc I think.

The glimmer of hope I have at the moment is that none of the Home Office guidance currently says you must have held the PR document for 12 months. I did see one text somewhere saying that the date of issue of the PR document is not necessarily indicative of when PR status was acquired, and checks should be done.

As stated in the legislation, the PR document itself is not required for the acquisition of PR, which is of course automatic, and the requirements for naturalisation only state that you must have held PR status for 12 months. I can easily prove that I have held it for more than 2 years, but possibly more than 17, so as far as the guidance is concerned I do meet the requirements. Should an application be rejected on the basis of PR document not being held for 12 months I think this would be a strong case against the HO for essentially making up rules as they go along.

I competely agree with you; according to the guidance (and the law I believe) one should be fine to apply as long as one has a doc certifying PR and as long as one has held the actual PR (but not the document) for at least 12 months. Just hope the HO apply their own regs properly, especially with that much money at stake and with no way to appeal (only reconsideration). Maybe send them a cover letter clearly pointing out the regs and ask them to check with the EEA team to establish what date you acquired PR if they have any doubts. Good luck and let me know how it goes once you have applied for naturalisation, I'm only just due for PR so will get this out of the way first

LilyLalilu wrote:Maybe send them a cover letter clearly pointing out the regs and ask them to check with the EEA team to establish what date you acquired PR if they have any doubts.

This is exactly what I intend to do. Applied for PR doc on 10th December

I completely agree with all of you. However, when I put this case to a person at the National checking service, she claims it's clear that I need to have held the doc for 12 months. I completely disagree with this but I worry how much that would be the case...

Could we track here the new applications, e.g. someone with the doc certifying PR that was acquired over 12 months ago, who then applied for BC - and what the outcome was / will be?

natienka wrote:I completely agree with all of you. However, when I put this case to a person at the National checking service, she claims it's clear that I need to have held the doc for 12 months. I completely disagree with this but I worry how much that would be the case...

Could we track here the new applications, e.g. someone with the doc certifying PR that was acquired over 12 months ago, who then applied for BC - and what the outcome was / will be?

The problem is that as this is a new regulation, you may not see the results of successful or failed applications for a few months.

"(...) unless you are married to or the civil partner of a British citizen, you should normally have held permanent resident status for 12 months before applying for naturalisation. This means that you may need to wait until you have been in the United Kingdom for 6 years before you can apply. When you apply for a permanent residence document the evidence that you supply for your EEA(PR) application must be for a 5 year period that ended at least a year before you want to apply for citizenship.

For example: If you apply for Permanent Residence on 1st December 2015 and want to apply for Citizenship once that application is decided, you should send evidence that shows you were exercising Treaty rights as a qualified person or family member from 1 December 2009 to 1 December 2014. "

That's from booklet AN; in my opinion this means that they do not expect you to hold the PR document for a year, only the PR status. What do you guys think?