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My wife currently has ILR (dated Oct 2009). I am a British citizen. We were married in October 2007 and my wife first came into the UK on a Fiancee Visa in June 2007. She has passed the ESOL exams and has been resident in the UK since June 2007. Can she apply for naturalisation from June 2010 (3 years after entering the UK as my Fiancee) or October 2010 (3 years after getting married in the UK)?

Enquirer77 wrote:My wife currently has ILR (dated Oct 2009). I am a British citizen. We were married in October 2007 and my wife first came into the UK on a Fiancee Visa in June 2007. She has passed the ESOL exams and has been resident in the UK since June 2007. Can she apply for naturalisation from June 2010 (3 years after entering the UK as my Fiancee) or October 2010 (3 years after getting married in the UK)?

The only requirement (regarding the timing of the marriage itself) for naturalising on the basis of being the spouse of a British citizen is that you must be married on the day of the application. So, assuming that she has been legally in the UK over the past three years and fulfils all the other requirements, yes, she can apply now. (In other words, she doesn't have to have been married for three years.)

Thank you very much for clarifying that Christophe.

She still has to have been in the UK for 3 years, so it's June 2010.

I am pretty sure it has to be Oct 2010. I am married to a British citizen and was told in an official document that I could apply for the citizenship a year after getting the ILR. If she tries before, she won't be able to send the documents to the Home Office since that's the first thing they check. I went though all this process in Dec-09.

Good luck anyway!

goldsworthy wrote:I am married to a British citizen and was told in an official document that I could apply for the citizenship a year after getting the ILR. If she tries before, she won't be able to send the documents to the Home Office since that's the first thing they check.

The rules dictate otherwise. Read Nationality Instructions > Chapter 18 > para 18.2.2.1 and para 18.2.2.2, in particular 18.2.2.2 (d).

regards

goldsworthy wrote:I am pretty sure it has to be Oct 2010. I am married to a British citizen and was told in an official document that I could apply for the citizenship a year after getting the ILR. If she tries before, she won't be able to send the documents to the Home Office since that's the first thing they check. I went though all this process in Dec-09.

Good luck anyway!

Were you in UK before your marriage? Or came uk after your marriage on spouse visa?