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Hi,

My husband is an Italian national with a Permanent Residance Card. We are married for 4 years now and next year I will apply to Permanent Residence card as a non-era national family member.

My question is, if my husband gets BC in the meanwhile, can I apply directly to BC instead of waiting one more year after PR?

Thanks

I heard that the law had changed for British/EEAnationals.

See these two threads:
http://www.immigrationboards.com/britis ... 62962.html
http://www.immigrationboards.com/eea-ro ... 61604.html

This is my experience:
My EEA husband got British citizenship (while retaining his original EEA citizenship) shortly before I (non-EEA national) obtained PR status via EEA route. I applied for British citizenship in January 2014 after 5 years of residence (I skipped the EEA4 application and 1 year wait after obtaining PR status) and my application was approved in April 2014.

I consider myself very lucky as I was unaware of the law change in July 2012 by which an EEA national is defined to be an EEA national who is NOT also a British national. The most rigorous interpretation of this law would mean that the moment your EEA spouse becomes British citizen he/she cannot exercise EEA Treaty rights anymore. It seems that the HO is not applying this very rigorous interpretation to the EEA routes that have already been established (possibly also because of Surinder Singh cases), otherwise my BC application would not have been successful. But to be quite honest, had we known about the law change before, my husband would have postponed his BC application until I have secured my PR status, just to be on the safe side.

You can still accelerate the process if your husband obtains BC shortly after your 5 year residence/ 5th wedding anniversary (whatever qualifies you for PR). You can then apply for BC as soon as your husband gets his naturalisation certificate.

meir14 wrote:Hi,

My husband is an Italian national with a Permanent Residance Card. We are married for 4 years now and next year I will apply to Permanent Residence card as a non-era national family member.

My question is, if my husband gets BC in the meanwhile, can I apply directly to BC instead of waiting one more year after PR?

Thanks

Yes. If he becomes BC, you can apply the day you achieve PR status (5 years of residence).