20 years continuous residence

Hi all.

I posted similar topics months before. Then the applicant got different responses here and there, so I'm bringing up this again.

The situation of the applicant is that he had lived in the UK around 4-5 years legally, which including the status of student and work visa and as 6 months visa-free visitor. Then he left here before the 6 months deadline, travelled abroad around 10-14 days, and re-entered the UK from Ireland via the CAT path, and remained here to this day,

What he worries is this rule from HO says:

The applicant left the UK with no reasonable expectation at the time of leaving
that they would lawfully be able to return

He was not removed or anything, so basically he thinks he didn't break the continuous residence. He also counted the days. He didn't stay the whole 6 months as a visitor. He then entered the UK from Ireland, where he only stayed a couple of days and went to Belfast and flied back to mainland UK.

He's visa-free(as visitor) to both UK and Ireland, so the second time he entered the UK was still lawful, even though it looks like he used Ireland as the backdoor to come back, which is the problem he worries about. In that case, will he be considered that he chose to sneak into the UK again because he had no expectation to return lawfully? But the fact is that Ireland gave him the permission to travel to the UK under CTA rules.

Hope someone could ask this. Thank you so much.

I don't understand. What is the timeline? Has he been over staying for 20 years?

If he's in the UK for longer than 20 years he may be able to start private life 10 years to settlement route, otherwise, there is no route available for over stayers.

The 10 years long residence ILR which is a route for legal residents cannot include time as a visitor.