Out of country time for ILR visa

[jokigenki]

Hi,

My wife and I have been married for 12 years, of which we lived in the UK for 10, and we jointly own a property there. My wife is a Japanese national, and has held her ILR for 9 years. The year before last we decided to try living abroad for a bit, so we moved to Mexico for a year. We then returned to the UK in August of last year for just under a month, before moving to Japan, where my wife is from. Currently we plan to stay here for another year, just short of the 2 years she is allowed to be out of the country before losing the ILR. However, I have just started a new job here, which may mean we stay longer. As I understand, there is no specific amount of time that she is required to be present in the UK in order to maintain her ILR, it's more based upon showing a commitment to settling in the UK, so if we stayed longer than 2 years and returned to the UK periodically, as long as we were able to show that commitment it would be sufficient. I was hoping someone could confirm whether my understanding of this was correct, and whether owning property would be a good indication of our commitment to ultimately living there. I also hold a directorship of a UK company if that makes any difference.

Many thanks,

Owen

[Casa]

Short visits back to the UK (including your recent 4 week stay) won't enable your wife to retain her ILR if you are residing outside of the UK for 2 years or more.

It would have been wise for your wife to have applied for BC before you left for Mexico.

Have a read through the information in this link to the Immigration Rules:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... nts-set-09

Edit: Also here's a link regarding the Returning Resident visa:
https://www.gov.uk/returning-resident-visa