Application may be refused, not 'good character'

[cal_gb]

Hi everyone,

I am looking to get some help for a relative on her application.

Backstory: She and her husband came to the UK around 1993 from China, they decided to stay in the UK therefore overstaying their visa. They had children born in the UK and had been living with relatives all that time until around 2011. In 2010 she and her husband were granted ILR.

She decided to apply for naturalisation in September this year. She had used the nationality checking service and they said it was all fine and they sent the application off and paid the fee. However, a few days ago HO sent a letter stating that she may not meet the requirements of good character. It states that she was in UK without leave to remain between 2006 and 2010. After some searching on this site, it seems that you need to wait 10 years with good character if you entered the the UK illegally in order to be accepted, she did not know about this. They said that they would further consider the application by completing a questionnaire with documentary evidence.

Some of the questions are:
What steps did you take to regularise your stay during the period in question?
Where did you live during this period?
When and where did you work during this period?
When and where did you study during this period?
What benefits did you receive?
Did you receive funds from any other source during this period?
Is there any other information that you wish to provide that my be relevant to your application and the assessment of your ability to meet good character requirement?

She obviously wasn't able to work during this period (2006 - 2010) and was entirely dependant on relatives. During this period her family was seeking a lot of help from various solicitors in order to get ILR. Since she was still illegally in the UK during this period, what would she say about regularising her stay in the UK. They also ask for evidence, how would she provide evidence for all of this? Has anyone else had to fill in this questionnaire and are there certain things that I should include. The deadline is the 22nd of this month and states that failure to send the document will result in the application being refused.

Is there any possibility that she still could be granted with British citizenship?

Thanks for your time.

[noajthan]

It appears relative was an overstayer well before 2006.

Relative has every chance of approval, with case judged on its merits, 10 years on from declaring herself to authorities or after a 10 year ban (depending on the type of immigration-related breaches).

Its hard to understand how an applicant can be unaware of the need to meet good character requirements;
even the simple guidance booklet covers the well-publicised good character test:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... r_2016.pdf

And NCS should have flagged this up too if the applicant's case history was made known to them.

You can dig further into such vital questions here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _D_v02.pdf