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I am seeking expert views. Briefly, by way of background, my wife and I retired several years ago and left Australia in 2012 to live in the UK where we expect to spend the rest of our lives. My wife has the Right of Abode and I have ILR. Our passion is travel and we have done a lot of that since our arrival here, both in the UK and elsewhere. The “elsewhere" is now becoming an issue for me as I apply for naturalisation.
I have studied Form AN and its associated papers and I have a reasonable understanding of what is required of me. If I was to apply for citizenship today my situation regarding absences would be as follows:
Number of days absent for the past 1 year = 78
Number of days absent for the past 5 years = 520
Number of days absent for the 2 year period prior to the beginning of the qualifying period = 180 (of which the only "substantial absence” was 90 days in Australia to sell our home in order to be able to buy our home in the UK)
By way of comparison, if I was to delay my application to 16 July 2026, the impact would be as follows:
Number of days absent for the past 1 year = 0
Number of days absent for the past 5 years = 520 (it won’t change. I would have to wait until 18 June 2027 to get it down to 450 days)
Number of days absent for the 2 year period prior to the beginning of the qualifying period = 26 (I’ve simply changed the application date to omit the period in Australia when I was selling my then home).
My preference, not surprisingly, is to apply as soon as possible but I recognise that in some ways there is a benefit to be had if I was to delay my application by 7 months.
I would very much appreciate any advice the forum experts might have. To loosely quote the Clash song “should I stay or should I go”?
