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Hello everyone

I have a son born in UK and 4 and half years of age. I was on HSMP (JR). When applied for me and my wife's ILR, I applied for his ILR as well as we had an early travel plan. We 3 got the ILR back in 2013. My question is that do I still need to apply for British Registration or Naturalisation for my son. And of so then what category that will be?


Kind Regards

Registration under Section 1(3) on Form MN1.

mschauhan wrote:My question is that do I still need to apply for British Registration or Naturalisation for my son.

So long as your son does not spend more than 90 days outside the UK in any of the first ten years of his life, he would be entitled to apply for British citzenship himself. However, unless you think there is a good reason for him not to become British, apply for his registration soon as you can. The process gets a bit more difficult and a bit more expensive as he gets older, not to mention BRP renewals.

As correctly suggested by secret.simon you can directly register as Britich Citizen under Section 1(3) on Form MN1.

I bit tend to disagree with Richard W here. Children born in UK and parents holding ILR does not have any residency requirement. 90 days restriction is not applicable in this case.

sanjaywakhare wrote:As correctly suggested by secret.simon you can directly register as Britich Citizen under Section 1(3) on Form MN1.

I bit tend to disagree with Richard W here. Children born in UK and parents holding ILR does not have any residency requirement. 90 days restriction is not applicable in this case.

Correct. The child will not be 'applying for British citizenship', they will be registering as a British citizen.

sanjaywakhare wrote:I bit tend to disagree with Richard W here. Children born in UK and parents holding ILR does not have any residency requirement. 90 days restriction is not applicable in this case.

My error was that I believed parental consent was needed for registration, as stated by the MN1 guide on p27:

For other types of application we require the consent of all those with parental responsibility for the child. If only one parent has consented, please explain why at section 6.3. If it is not convenient for one of the parents to sign the form, consent can be provided in a separate letter.

('6.3' is to be read as '7.3'.)

I didn't know that a child's application for his own registration under Section 1(3) (or 1(4)) couldn't be refused for lack of consent - Nationality Instructions Section 8.6. It seems that the use of form MN1 is not always mandatory, and that we're not just talking about passport applications and the like being construed as application for registration. (Such construals protect people who trusted that they were British because a passport application was successful.)

If the son were to apply as an adult, then he could only apply under 1(4), for which the residence requirement applies.

In this case, as the son is only 4 and a half years old, I doubt that he will wait that long.

sanjaywakhare wrote:I bit tend to disagree with Richard W here. Children born in UK and parents holding ILR does not have any residency requirement. 90 days restriction is not applicable in this case.

I believe that Richard W was making the OP aware of the Section 1(4)/Form T route in addition to the more conventional Section 1(3)/Form MN1 route. The 90 days residency requirement alluded to applied to the first route.

In both cases, the child has an entitlement to register as a British citizen, in the former case, a lifelong entitlement while in the latter, only while the applicant is a minor.

Casa wrote:In this case, as the son is only 4 and a half years old, I doubt that he will wait that long.

I agree. I think Richard W was just doing it to ensure the completeness of information.

secret.simon wrote:I think Richard W was just doing it to ensure the completeness of information.

Actually, I was answering the question of who has to make the application for registration as a British citizen, and I got it wrong.

We haven't explicitly looked at the alternative interpretation of the question, namely, does the son have to be registered to be British? The answer, of course, is 'yes', as I think is obvious from the answers. The recommendation has to be do it as soon as possible; an additional reason is that fees are rising as the view on the registration changes. I believe the reason that the acquisition of British nationality was not made automatic is that automatic acquisition could cause problems for some people. The view has now moved to the acquisition of British citizenship by children born in Britain being seen as a privilege which should be taxed for its economic benefit.

Not strictly related to this thread, but in chapter 6 of the nationality instructions it does seem rather apparent that applications for citizenship are not actually required to be made on provided forms, as long as the necessary information/payment/etc are provided.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... n-v6_0.pdf

6.4 Application forms
6.4.1 An application for British citizenship etc is normally made on a form which has been specifically designed to
suit the circumstances of the applicant. Their titles give an indication of the purpose of each form.
6.4.2 A list of the forms used for British citizenship is as follows:

Form AN Application for naturalisation as a British citizen - s.6
...
Form MN1 Application for the registration of a minor as a British citizen - ss.1(3), 3(1), 3(2), 3(5)

...

6.4.4 These forms have no statutory basis and their use is not compulsory.

I don't know if I'd want to risk it though. £1236 after all.

Also interesting is this part:

All cases should be considered with the aim of using the most convenient avenue to the citizenship or status
being sought. But care should be taken to ensure, wherever possible, that the applicant benefits from any
entitlement and/or a provision which would give British citizenship otherwise than by descent (see Chapter
20). If, as a result, a higher fee is payable a proposal to consider an application under a different provision
should be explained to the applicant who should be invited to agree and pay the balance of the fee.

Now I have read in other HO documents somewhere that in cases where an MN1 3(2) application is made on behalf of a minor, the caseworker will actually investigate whether they would be eligible for 3(5) instead as that grants British citizenship otherwise than by descent, and if so, suggest that to the applicant (the fee is the same for both applications).

Conversely if a 3(5) application is made and the applicant is not eligible, but IS eligible for 3(2), the caseworker will usually offer to proceed with that path instead.