ancestral visa

[PaulM]

Hi,

I have applied for my Ancestral visa and was would like to ask a question. I understand that the Ancestral visa is a type of working visa: is it legitimate within this type of visa to use it as a working holiday type visa whereby you work for x amount of time and then tour around the uk for instance, as long as you are able to fund yourself . Or do you have to have a permanent work history throughout the 5 years to by eligible for the ILTR?

[Siggi]

Hi Paul,
Ancestral visa gives you the most options in terms of working unrestricted in the UK, where as a working holiday type visa is restricted to two years and I dont believe that you are allowed too seek full time employment on WH visa.

Time spend in the UK on WH visa does count toward ILR.

If you are on a still on a Ancestral visa at the end of your 5 year stay it will help your ILR application to prove continued work, with no big breaks in employment.
The only area, where they will be sticky, is if you have extended the require limit of stay outside the UK.

Other than that Ancestral visa's are cool!

[Administrator]

.

You do not have to have the continuous work history, but it helps very much.

You are generally not restricted in the work you do, but you should keep exact records of who you work for and when and your pay records and tax contributions.

It will not hurt if you also keep all your residence and utilities records in order (rent payments, bank records, which utilities are in your name, etc. etc.).

Without saying, but I'll say it, no encounters with the legal system from the 'wrong' side of it is also quite important.

In five years, if you have all these in order, and you can show you are a contributing member of society, and have used few or nearly zero state benefits, it will be very big points in your favor.


You should stay in Britain as much as possible. I forget the exact number of days, but I think that you can invalidate the ILR five-year residency requirement if you are out of the country for more than 180 days total.

Also, and again I'm unclear by memory, but if you are out for more than (30? or 60?) days in one go, that can also fox up your application.

Two counter-considerations:

- these restrictions MAY not apply to ancestral visa's (BUT I think they do apply to ILR no matter the visa type, so I think they do apply to ancestral)

and,

- if you really need to be out of the country for an extended period of time, you can make arrangements with immigration to get permission to exceed the limits (if any apply to you)

So check into those points and make sure you don't violate any regulations.


Final note to look into:

If you are interested, I believe you can go straight to naturalization and skip the ILR.

Again, I THINK .. so check into it. I'm not a UK immigration expert, so I'm only putting out ideas for you to consider based upon my more general knowledge.

And, yes, the ancestral visa is like the HSMP .. it gives you extensive rights to work without being restricted to specialized skilled positions. You can work in pub for all anyone cares.

the Admin

[Siggi]

Administrator,

You are incorrect you can not go from Ancestral straight to Naturalisation.

The correct route is 5years Ancestral + 1year ILR after which you can apply for Naturalisation.

[JAJ]

Administrator,

You are incorrect you can not go from Ancestral straight to Naturalisation.

The correct route is 5years Ancestral + 1year ILR after which you can apply for Naturalisation.

Correct - except in the cases where an Ancestral visa holder marries a British citizen, when there are other options available to get naturalisation more quickly.

[PaulM]

Thank you for the prompt help. I just have one final question/scenario to pose: Is it possible to work part-time and study under this visa or not ?

Cheers
Paul

[Dawie]

Thank you for the prompt help. I just have one final question/scenario to pose: Is it possible to work part-time and study under this visa or not ?

Cheers
Paul

Yes it is, but bear in mind you will pay international fees.

[PaulM]

You guys are like gold! You've answered all my questions.

Take Care
Paul

[JAJ]

Yes it is, but bear in mind you will pay international fees.

This may not be the case if he studies with the Open University or University of London External.

[PaulM]

I've got my Honours degree in Philosophy and was accepted into doing a Masters in SA...So I was thinking of doing the Masters in London when I'm there on my Ancestral. And surely doing a Masters is fairly "cheap" because of it having less modules to register for than an undergrad and also by virtue of it being Post-grad (although I can only speak from an SA perspective) is something a university would want to encourage more people to register for and attian....

[avjones]

My LLM (Masters degree in law) cost £6,000 in 2000-2001

[Tats]

For the 5 years on Ancestry visa, you are not expected to spend more than 450 days in order to qualify for ILR.

[PaulM]

Tats, 'you're not allowed to spend more than 450 days' in relation to what?

[Tats]

Tats, 'you're not allowed to spend more than 450 days' in relation to what?

If you intend to apply for ILR at the end of the 5 years, the Home office will normally expect that you would not have spent a total of more than 450 days outside the UK within the 5-year period.

If the 450 days is exceeded, i reckon that you will have to explain the reason for that. My guess is that should this be the case, the absence reasons should be work related, and you ought to have been fully employed in the UK during those absences.