Apply or Not to Apply for ILR that is the question

[ratz]

Hi All,

I am in a bit of a pickle. I am currently in the UK on a Tier 2 General visa and by September 2014, I would have lived in The UK for 10 years and will qualify for ILR. I am also getting married to my fiance in August 2014 who is a British National. Therefore, I have two routes I can follow in order to obtain an ILR.

HERES THE FUN BIT, my fiance and I are planning on emigrating to Australia in January 2015. I already have obtained the necessary visa for this.
The confusion lies in whether I should apply for ILR anyway, which will get cancelled after 6 months of absence from the UK. It seems there is no point in going down this route as we are definitely planning on living in Australia for more than a year or two. It would be nice to however have the UK ILR to fall back to in case things dont work out in Australia or if I wanted to visit family in the UK from time to time.

The other thing is once I leave in January 2015 I loose the 10 years of continuous stay in the UK therefore will only have one route left if I wanted to return to the UK; the spouse visa.

Is there anything I am missing? Is there any other route I could go to keep my UK Residency as a back up or is there no such thing as having your cake and eating it.

I thank you all in advance for your help.

Best Regards,

V

[UKBALoveStory]

The confusion lies in whether I should apply for ILR anyway, which will get cancelled after 6 months of absence from the UK.

On ILR, you can be out of UK for 2 years.

The other thing is once I leave in January 2015 I loose the 10 years of continuous stay in the UK therefore will only have one route left if I wanted to return to the UK; the spouse visa.

Once you have 10 years of continuous stay, you can apply at anytime for ILR if you are physically present in UK.

[ratz]

The confusion lies in whether I should apply for ILR anyway, which will get cancelled after 6 months of absence from the UK.

On ILR, you can be out of UK for 2 years.

The other thing is once I leave in January 2015 I loose the 10 years of continuous stay in the UK therefore will only have one route left if I wanted to return to the UK; the spouse visa.

Once you have 10 years of continuous stay, you can apply at anytime for ILR if you are physically present in UK.

UKBALoveStory, Thanks for your reply. So, if I was to apply for ILR in September I can visit the UK anytime I want for a period of two years. Would making regular visits to the UK make the ILR valid beyond its 2 years?

In regards to the 10 years of continuous stay; do you mean that If I stayed in the UK for a period of 10 years from 2004 - 2014 and then emigrate to australia in 2015 and live there for a couple of years, if I wanted to then come back to the UK, lets say in 2018. I can use my continuous period of 2004-2014 to apply for ILR? (Given that I haven't applied for it before I left in 2015)

Also, do you think I could try applying for citizenship as I have lived with my partner for 3 years (similarly to being married) before I get married in Aug 2014?

Thanks again for your help.

[UKBALoveStory]

if I was to apply for ILR in September I can visit the UK anytime I want for a period of two years. Would making regular visits to the UK make the ILR valid beyond its 2 years?

Also, Read this

In regards to the 10 years of continuous stay; do you mean that If I stayed in the UK for a period of 10 years from 2004 - 2014 and then emigrate to australia in 2015 and live there for a couple of years, if I wanted to then come back to the UK, lets say in 2018. I can use my continuous period of 2004-2014 to apply for ILR? (Given that I haven't applied for it before I left in 2015)

I am not an expert in 10 years ILR, but this is my understanding.

Also, do you think I could try applying for citizenship as I have lived with my partner for 3 years (similarly to being married) before I get married in Aug 2014?

You need to have ILR before you can apply for citizenship. You can apply for ILR on 10 years route or as a spouse of your British partner which one is better for you.

[CR001]

You can apply for ILR on 10 years route or as a spouse of your British partner which one is better for you

This above statement is slightly incorrect. You cannot apply for ILR as a spouse of BC if you have not had the relevant spouse visa.

You can apply for ILR on the basis of 10 years residence (postal applications only) and immediately after you have received your ILR approval and BRP, you can apply for citizenship based on spouse of BC (as you will be married by then) and the relevant 3 years residence requirements etc.

This might delay your move to Australia, but would make sense as then you have British Citizenship etc.