British citizenship // Please advise.

[overtime]

We recently received the unfortunate news from the British Home Office that our daughter has been denied registration as a British Citizen. My husband is British by descent as he was born to British parents and lived in the UK for 11 years so we used this to make the application for our daughter. Unfortunately we were not aware that her application had to be submitted within a year of her birth and ended up submitting it late (before she was two). We were simply unaware of the rules and then had difficulty gathering some of the required documentation as my husband’s parents were not very cooperative in providing their relevant marriage and birth certificates. The letter turning down our application stated that the Home Office did not feel this was a fair reason for our late application and stated that we had no right of appeal.

We have just had a second child (a son) and have successfully received his registration as a British citizen as we made the application soon after he was born. He is now three and a half months old. This shows that if we had made the application for our daughter within a year of her birth she too would have received approval for registration as a British Citizen as the exact paperwork was submitted for our son and he was approved.

We have written to the Home Office as shown below and they claim that we have no right of appeal. However I have spoken with one of the customer service representatives and he has advised that we can apply for our daughter's British Citizenship again now that the circumstances are slightly different (her brother has received citizenship) as one of the areas of "discretion" listed in the British Home Office paperwork is if there are siblings who have been successfully registered as British Citizens.

We are very disappointed in ourselves for not having made our first child’s application in time as we feel that this will have a major impact on her future opportunities and would like to do anything possible to try to have the Home Office’s decision to turn down her application reversed but we want to be sure that simply making a second application is the best way to proceed.

Can you please advise the best route to take,should we hire an immigration lawyer??

Thanking you in advance for your assistance in this matter.

From: NG Enquiries [mailto:NGEnquiries@ind.homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk]
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 1:21 PM
Subject: FW: Right of Appeal - Registration as a British Citizen

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Unfortunately, there is not a right of appeal in regards to the decision on your daughter's automatic claim for British Citizenship, as the application was made outside the deadline. We cannot comment in details regarding the two cases of your son and daughter, as their circumstances appear to differ in terms of the timescale in which you registered their births. there may also be other differences between their circumstances, which affected this claim.

If you are resident in the UK , you may be able to apply to Register your daughter as a British Citizen, if she meets the requirements, using the attached MN1 form. the fee is £400.00

http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/1 ... n1form.pdf
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/1 ... 1guide.pdf


Alternatively, if you are unable to access the internet, in order to obtain an application form and guidance notes for Registration of
Minors Nationality Support Literature Fulfilment Line on 0845 010 5200 and press option 1.
Please make sure that you read the forms and guidance notes to make sure that your son meets all of the requirements before submitting the application.
If you would like to discuss your daughter's eligibility, you may contact the Nationality Customer Contact Centre on 0845 010 5200

[Siggi]

I very sorry to read all about your daughter registration denieal and I dont think I can offer any advise.

My situation is very similar to your daughter in that both my sisters where registered as British Citizen via decent, but I was excluded because of my age (1959)

I notice you mentioned that there is a discretionary area, if you have siblings, who have been successfully registered as BC.

Please point me in the right direction here.

[SYH]

Just reapply. that is what they are suggesting. They like getting money.

[Dawie]

Worse case scenario is that she will be able to apply for naturalisation as a British citizen after 5 years, so she could be a British citizen by age 7.

[overtime]

Both my wife and I live in the Caribbean .
Currently we do not plan on moving back to the Uk for a few years.
My daughter having dual nationality like myself and my son would open up more options for her later on especially as we would like to send her to the Uk for her schooling,university etc.
We did not want to just re -apply and waste more money and think it would be prudent to find out our options first.


Thanks.

[Dawie]

In that case, no naturalisation option then.

[JAJ]

Both my wife and I live in the Caribbean .
Currently we do not plan on moving back to the Uk for a few years.
My daughter having dual nationality like myself and my son would open up more options for her later on especially as we would like to send her to the Uk for her schooling,university etc.
We did not want to just re -apply and waste more money and think it would be prudent to find out our options first.

You might be in luck. The following Home Office policy document explains the policy surrounding registration as a British citizen under section 3(2).
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/docume ... iew=Binary

10.5 Exercise of discretion to allow a 'late' application to be made
10.5.1 Section 3(4) gives discretion to allow an application to be made within 6 years of the minor's birth instead of the normal 12 months, in the special circumstances of any particular case. Each case must be considered on its merits and the parents should, if necessary, be asked to explain what the special circumstances are.

....

Provided the other requirements are met we may normally grant applications made after 12 months but within 6 years of the minor's birth if:

...

the minor has a brother or sister for whom a successful "in time" application has been made either under s.3(2) or s.9 of the 1981 Act or under s.5(1)(b) of the 1948 Act which gave British citizenship on 1 January 1983;"


The other option is to move back to the U.K. and your daughter can be registered as a British citizen under section 3(5) of the Act after 3 years residence (before age 18). This gives British citizenship otherwise than by descent, while British citizenship under section 3(2) is British citizenship by descent.


Where in the Caribbean are you currently living and what is your daughter's nationality?

[overtime]

We live in Barbados....
Our daughters grandparents are British,My whole family is British,Aunts ,uncles ... and they ALL live and work in the UK.
My parents moved to and lived in Barbados (1967) where I was born .
We emigrated back to the UK in 1987 ,I lived and worked in the UK for 11 years before being offerd a job and moving back to Barbados.I hold dual nationality British /Bajan.
I have now been here for 9 years.
My daughter holds a Barbadian passport.

We were considering just re-applying and stating that our son has be granted citezenship,however any helpful opinions would be extremely grateful.

Thanks.

[JAJ]

We were considering just re-applying and stating that our son has be granted citezenship,however any helpful opinions would be extremely grateful.

Haven't you already obtained the information you need, in the previous post?

[overtime]

If we re- apply is this considered an appeal?
Do you think we have a strong case based on our sons recent citizenship?
Sorry for the questions ,my wife and I just want our best chance of sucess.
We have the document which states the information you have posted ,it just surprised me that our daughter was denied citizenship even when we replyed to the home office questioning the delay in our daughters application we informed them of our reasons and also that we had submitted our sons application form for citizenship, his came back positive and hers a week later denied.
At least if they were both denied there might have been some reasoning?

Thanks.

[JAJ]

If we re- apply is this considered an appeal?
Do you think we have a strong case based on our sons recent citizenship?

A reapplication is not an appeal.

Did you take a look at that Home Office policy document you've been referred to? Recommended to browse through it, if you've not already done so.

[overtime]

I will be travelling to the UK in one weeks time .
Is there any advantage to applying using the MN1 Form in the UK or should I just go back to the Uk embassy in Barbados.

Thanks

[JAJ]

I will be travelling to the UK in one weeks time .
Is there any advantage to applying using the MN1 Form in the UK or should I just go back to the Uk embassy in Barbados.

Thanks

All applications are decided in the Home Office anyway.

[overtime]

Thanks.

We will re- apply based on this information and just hope for the best.

I will post the results.

Regards Andrew.

[JAJ]

Worse case scenario is that she will be able to apply for naturalisation as a British citizen after 5 years, so she could be a British citizen by age 7.

Persons under age 18 cannot be naturalised as British citizens.

However under section 3(5) of the British Nationality Act 1981 an overseas born child of a British citizen by descent may be registered as British after 3 years residence in the U.K.

Registration under section 3(5) gives British citizenship otherwise than by descent, similar to naturalisation.

[overtime]

We have paid the fees again and just re applied again based on ;

10.5 Exercise of discretion to allow a 'late' application to be made
10.5.1 Section 3(4) gives discretion to allow an application to be made within 6 years of the minor's birth instead of the normal 12 months, in the special circumstances of any particular case. Each case must be considered on its merits and the parents should, if necessary, be asked to explain what the special circumstances are.

....

Provided the other requirements are met we may normally grant applications made after 12 months but within 6 years of the minor's birth if:

...

the minor has a brother or sister for whom a successful "in time" application has been made either under s.3(2) or s.9 of the 1981 Act or under s.5(1)(b) of the 1948 Act which gave British citizenship on 1 January 1983;"

Thanks for all the advise ,I will post the outcome.

Andrew.

[overtime]

We just heard back from our local Uk embassy......

We were sucessful with our daughters UK citizenship.

Thank you for all the advise.


Regards Andrew

[Siggi]

Well done Andrew,
I'm glad to see that some times the HO sees sense.
Thanks for the feed back.
Regards
Siggi