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The Government has decided to make Statutory Provision requiring EEA National and their family members to have a document certifying Permanent Residence, as the only means by which they can evidence their exemption from Immigration Control Requirement.

The problem with this new law which comes into effect from 12-11, is the fact that it fails to take into account people who had already applied for Residence Document before it comes into effect.

In the absence of Transitional provision, this will be challenged in court, on the basis of Legitimate expectation.
Changes to Citizenship Application


This changes is likely to affect EEA Nationals and their Family Members who applied for Citizenship, without first applying for PR confirmation.

Obie, this passage from the new AN booklet can't be correct can it? Surely it should read 5 years continuous residence for PR, not 6.

"You will need to provide evidence of 6 years continuous residence when you apply for your permanent residence card"

This new change must coincident/interlink as well to the dismissal of asylum claims from EU nationals. UKBA new policy will dismiss the asylum claims from EU nationals.

can this document me the BRP card for ILR ?

Casa wrote:Obie, this passage from the new AN booklet can't be correct can it? Surely it should read 5 years continuous residence for PR, not 6.

"You will need to provide evidence of 6 years continuous residence when you apply for your permanent residence card"

You are right CASA , i believe the author intended to say 5 say five years of treaty rights and another 1 years of treaty rights after that.

innocentdevil wrote:can this document me the BRP card for ILR ?

EEA nationals aren't issued with ILR. This is refers to a PR card.

Obie wrote:

Casa wrote:Obie, this passage from the new AN booklet can't be correct can it? Surely it should read 5 years continuous residence for PR, not 6.

"You will need to provide evidence of 6 years continuous residence when you apply for your permanent residence card"

You are right CASA , i believe the author intended to say 5 say five years of treaty rights and another 1 years of treaty rights after that.

That's going to confuse people.

Hi Obie, Does the changes affect application for British nationality only or a must for all eea and family members who claim exemption from immigration control due to the fact that they have been exercising treaty right for 5years.please i really need to know.Thanks

Only for British citizenship

Hi, does this new rule of holding PR before applying for naturalisation also apply for those who applied already for naturalisation without holding a PR?

Hello,

I have my appointment on the 10/11. All my documents and papers are ready, but I don't hold a PR. Shall I already apply for it? Or they will let me know if I have it at a later point? Is there the risk they will reject my application because I don't hold one?

Ishjon wrote:Hi, does this new rule of holding PR before applying for naturalisation also apply for those who applied already for naturalisation without holding a PR?

As per first post by Obie this new rule will come in effect on 12/11, thus it does not affect those that have already applied for naturalisation.

Vera_ wrote:Hello,

I have my appointment on the 10/11. All my documents and papers are ready, but I don't hold a PR. Shall I already apply for it? Or they will let me know if I have it at a later point? Is there the risk they will reject my application because I don't hold one?

According to the updated Guide AN document (October 2015): "The date of application will be the date your form is received by the Home Office, Nationality Checking Service or the local British government representative as shown above. It is not the date on which you send it."

The new requirement for a PR document will come in effect on 12/11. Therefore, if your NCS appointment is on 10/11 you should be fine as the date of your citizenship application will be the 10th of November according to the updated Guide AN document. You can also contact your local NCS to make sure.

Thank you very much Demiane!

Hopefully to clear this up as there is a lot of confusion, I will lay it down simply. (Mods it might be useful to stick this )

If you receive a PR card or document based on a qualifying period ending at least 12 months before the application is submitted, you do not need to wait before submitting your naturalisation application.

Since 12th November 2015, anyone applying for naturalisation must submit a permanent residence card, or a document certifying permanent residence. One of these can be obtained with a separate application (the form is EEA(PR), processing times are around 7 weeks for EEA nationals and 6 months for non-EEA nationals).

Under the residency requirement for naturalisation, 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. This essentially means you need to have held permanent residence for at least 12 months prior to submitting your naturalisation application.

As the PR card and document only show the date the document was issued, not the date PR was acquired automatically (which is completely unrelated to when the document is issued), some people have assumed they need to wait 12 months before applying for naturalisation. Some members have also reported that NCS in their area have advised that submitting applications before having held the PR card or document (not PR itself) will automatically fail.

This advice is in fact wrong and has been confirmed as so by the Home Office.

Section 6 of AN Booklet (November 2015 revision) states:

If you are a national of a country which is a member state of the EEA or Switzerland, or the family member of such a person, you will automatically have permanent residence status after exercising EEA free movement rights in the UK for any continuous period of 5 years ending on or after 30 April 2006. You should apply for a permanent residence card to prove that you hold that status before applying for citizenship.

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. 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.

In the Home Office internal guidance for the Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2006 and the Free Movement of Persons Directive 2004/38/EC, under the section EEA free movement rights and the British Nationality Act (BNA) 1981, it states:

Any applications for British citizenship received on or after 12 November 2015 from persons who have acquired permanent residence in the UK in line with the Regulations, will need to show they hold a permanent residence card (PR) (if a non EEA national) or a document certifying permanent residence (DCPR) (if an EEA national) as evidence they have acquired permanent residence.

It is important to note that the date of issue on a PR or DCPR does not necessarily reflect the date that the PR was actually acquired. You must, therefore, check CID to see whether the date the PR was deemed to have been acquired has been recorded.

Once again this infers that the Home Office have systems in place to check the actual date a PR card or document holder actually acquired PR.

Finally, in this Freedom of Information request to the Home Office, the exact question is asked and clearly answered:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... .docx.html

I can confirm that a person acquires permanent residence following 5 years’ residence in

accordance with the EEA Regulations, not on the date they obtain a residence card.  The

date that they were deemed to have acquired permanent residence will be recorded on

UKVI’s database and so will be clear to the nationality caseworker.  This means that a

person who has been resident in the UK for some time can send evidence that they were

resident in the UK for a 5 year period ending at least 12 months before they want to apply

for citizenship, and can then immediately apply for citizenship.

In the example you provided the person appears to have qualified for permanent residence

in September 2014. Provided he or she supplied the relevant information, that date will be

recorded on UKVI’s system and so he or she would be able to apply for citizenship at any

time after September 2015.

So the long and short of it is that no you don't have to wait, if you have held PR for at least 12 months and you apply for the card/document based on that period ending at least 12 months ago.

Good luck everyone

Great summary of all relevant information, making this a sticky would be very useful

So a tl:dr for EEA nationals would be: An EEA national does not have to wait 5 years + obtain PR card + 1 year before applying for citizenship but can apply immediately after 5+1 years provided a PR card is obtained any time during the last 1 year based on exercising treaty rights for the first 5 years.

nordize wrote:So a tl:dr for EEA nationals would be: An EEA national does not have to wait 5 years + obtain PR card + 1 year before applying for citizenship but can apply immediately after 5+1 years provided a PR card is obtained any time during the last 1 year based on exercising treaty rights for the first 5 years.

It's not entirely true. I've same issue and I was at NCS who talked to HO. You can read my full story here, but the long story in short:
When someone apply to naturalization, the council check his/her PR status directly with HO in front of the person via phone, because we have to hold it for 12 months before the application (since the law has been changed last time). The issue date of the PR card doesn't matter, but the start date of your PR status is not public. Doesn't matter how long you are living in the UK as well as doesn't matter how many years you can prove with P60, P45, payslips, etc. Because the HO will declare your PR status start date based on something (nobody knows what's that) and from that date you have to hold your status form 12 months before apply. But you don't know what's your start date until the NCS doesn't ask the HO.

In my case I've applied for PR card in 10/2015 as an EEA national. As you can see in my signature my PR card arrived in November (issue date) but when I was at NCS last week the caseworker phoned the HO to confirm my PR status and he figured out that is dated back to 04/2015 only. So I have to wait till April 2016 with my application.

The only exception is if someone married to a British Citizen, then that person doesn't have to wait for 12 months. He/she can apply as soon as he/she get the PR card.

Sas Sam wrote:Because the HO will declare your PR status start date based on something (nobody knows what's that)

Theoretically you should be able to find out the date that the HO believe you acquired PR by doing a subject access request to UKVI. As soon as my PR doc arrives, I plan to do this, so I know whether it's safe to apply for naturalisation immediately. I did provide them with 6 years evidence of exercising treaty rights in the EEA(PR) application, but also mentioned that I had been here since 1991 and been through the education system etc, although I didn't provide proof of this other than a letter from my secondary school confirming that I was a student there until 2006,

I'm sure UKVI can do checks on this sort of thing; it must be in a database somewhere. The fact that my application is taking slightly longer than some others gives me hope that they are doing some digging to ensure they get the correct date. In reality I have no idea when I actually did gain PR; I have had multiple qualifying periods. One reliable source online states that being in compulsory full time education counts towards PR clock - my home country joined the EU in 1995 and I was in primary school until 2000, so at a guess I could have acquired PR 16 years ago. The whole situation is so frustrating

ohara wrote:

Sas Sam wrote:Because the HO will declare your PR status start date based on something (nobody knows what's that)

Theoretically you should be able to find out the date that the HO believe you acquired PR by doing a subject access request to UKVI. As soon as my PR doc arrives, I plan to do this, so I know whether it's safe to apply for naturalisation immediately. I did provide them with 6 years evidence of exercising treaty rights in the EEA(PR) application, but also mentioned that I had been here since 1991 and been through the education system etc, although I didn't provide proof of this other than a letter from my secondary school confirming that I was a student there until 2006,

I'm sure UKVI can do checks on this sort of thing; it must be in a database somewhere. The fact that my application is taking slightly longer than some others gives me hope that they are doing some digging to ensure they get the correct date. In reality I have no idea when I actually did gain PR; I have had multiple qualifying periods. One reliable source online states that being in compulsory full time education counts towards PR clock - my home country joined the EU in 1995 and I was in primary school until 2000, so at a guess I could have acquired PR 16 years ago. The whole situation is so frustrating

Yes, probably you're right, you can ask UKVI about the start date, but it's a bit funny for me... why the card doesn't show that date?! Why it contain a sort of irrelevant date (issue date)?! Why do we have to subject access request to find out the necessary date which is slowing down our process and generate additional work for HO?!

I did provide evidences for my last 7 (almost years when I applied for PR, but -as it shows- doesn't really matter...

Sas Sam wrote: Yes, probably you're right, you can ask UKVI about the start date, but it's a bit funny for me... why the card doesn't show that date?! Why it contain a sort of irrelevant date (issue date)?! Why do we have to subject access request to find out the necessary date which is slowing down our process and generate additional work for HO?!

Because they rushed it in, and didn't think it through. It makes absolutely no sense that the PR certificate would not show the date on which you actually acquired PR. It's good that NCS check with UKVI for the date before sending the form off though. However, I can see a lot of people applying without using NCS and just assuming that UKVI have recorded a date that is more than 12 months ago (like in your case) when they actually haven't and then getting refused and losing £1200

ohara wrote:Because they rushed it in, and didn't think it through. It makes absolutely no sense that the PR certificate would not show the date on which you actually acquired PR. It's good that NCS check with UKVI for the date before sending the form off though. However, I can see a lot of people applying without using NCS and just assuming that UKVI have recorded a date that is more than 12 months ago (like in your case) when they actually haven't and then getting refused and losing £1200

Exactly... I bet they will get huge number of complaints after many rejections because of this date issue.

The question of whether a person has PR on the basis of EU law, is a matter of law and not a matter for the Home Office. Provided a person can provide relevant documents for the period they entered and started exercising treaty, the Home Office cannot choose a random date. This will amount to an error.

PR is automatically acquired. It is not dependent on Home office giving it.

Obie wrote:Provided a person can provide relevant documents for the period they entered

Immigration Officers not date stamping EEA passports on entries and exits may make things more difficult. Can keep boarding cards, but they may also fade over time.

Many people I have dealt with ignore the fact that residence under regulation 13 does count anyway. Most think that period of residence towards PR commences from the time right of residence is acquires under regulation 14, which is wrong and inconsistent with Regulation 15.

The legal difficulty with the Home office at present, which still does not resolved the problem I had complaint of, is that they use the period the EEA national made an application for PR as the starting point.

In some cases that may be correct, but not in all cases, as not every EEA national will apply for PR on the same they they acquire this right.

It will even run contrary to schedule 2 (2) of the regulations.

A person can keep tickets or boarding pass, but this will not solve the current problem at the Home office.

They need to realise that the 2015 Regulations is flawed in its entirety, and make necessary amendment that does not offend schedule 2 (2) of the EEA Regulation.