EU student with PR applying for Naturalisation

[vadzia112]

Hi Everyone,

I'm an EU national who has lived in the United Kingdom for 7 years. I have just recently (a month ago) received a Permanent Residence Document as a Family Member (my step-dad was the sponsor). For all of those 7 years I have been in the Full-time education (school and now I'm in University). I have a few questions regarding the success of my application.

1) Do I need to submit my step-father's Permanent Residence card along with mine to show that he was my sponsor?

2) As mentioned above, I was and still am a full-time student. I'm concerned with the details of employment part, because I'm not sure if that's where I fill out the information regarding my education, as I have never been in the full-time employment. (I have had a few part-time jobs, but I don't think they will do me any good)

3) My first reference is sorted (I'm going to be using my Secondary School teacher), however I'm not sure if the second one will suffice. I was considering of using my friend's mother who I've known for at least 3 years and is over 25 years of age and has British citizenship.

4) When the application is sent I will receive an invitation for the Biometric Enrolment or do I have to arrange it before it's sent off?

Do you think as long as I provide the proof of my education for those 7 years I should be fine? (I'm quite sure that I have met other requirements i.e. Good Character Requirement, Absences, Life in the UK, English Knowledge)

Thanks in Advance for your support!

Feel free to comment any other advise which could help with my application.

[Tea_Rocket]

1) Do I need to submit my step-father's Permanent Residence card along with mine to show that he was my sponsor?

I doubt it. Your stepfather's permanent residence status has no bearing on whether or not you qualify to a be a citizen, especially since you have indefinite leave to remain as well. However, usually, you need to have a year of permanent residence before you can apply, unless you're married to a UK citizen.

2) As mentioned above, I was and still am a full-time student. I'm concerned with the details of employment part, because I'm not sure if that's where I fill out the information regarding my education, as I have never been in the full-time employment. (I have had a few part-time jobs, but I don't think they will do me any good)

What I did with my application was not tick any of the boxes about employment, but filled my university's address details. I applied through a Nationality Checking Service, and they sent copies of a letter from my university confirming enrolment and my university card. I filled in the bit about my employment history, detailing all previous the jobs I have had in the UK.

3) My first reference is sorted (I'm going to be using my Secondary School teacher), however I'm not sure if the second one will suffice. I was considering of using my friend's mother who I've known for at least 3 years and is over 25 years of age and has British citizenship.

This sounds fine to me. If she fulfils the criteria on the form (and the guidances and notes), then she's fine. Hopefully she has a passport, since they do ask for passport numbers.

4) When the application is sent I will receive an invitation for the Biometric Enrolment or do I have to arrange it before it's sent off?

You will receive a letter telling you to enrol your biometric data at a post office. You can use the Branch Finder to find the nearest office that does biometric enrolment. You'll bring the letter with you (it'll have a barcode for them to scan so they can link the photo and fingerprints they take to your application with the Home Office).

Do you think as long as I provide the proof of my education for those 7 years I should be fine? (I'm quite sure that I have met other requirements i.e. Good Character Requirement, Absences, Life in the UK, English Knowledge)

I'm not sure. It seems like you might need to arrange a language test anyway. Although if you've passed the Life in the UK test, I think that might be good enough? I'm not sure. I'm from an exempt country, so hopefully someone with more experience in this chimes in.

I hope this helps and good luck!

[alterhase58]

Unless you have completed your UK degree by the time you apply for BC, you will have to take a B1 language test, irrespective of your schooling here in the UK.

[vadzia112]

Tea_Rocket thanks for suggestions.

"However, usually, you need to have a year of permanent residence before you can apply, unless you're married to a UK citizen."

I'm pretty sure I can apply British Citizenship straight away as I have lived in UK for 7 years.

Home Office updated this quite recently.

This is from gov.uk:

Using your document to apply for citizenship
You can only use your permanent residence document to apply for British citizenship after you’ve lived in the UK for 6 years.
That means you must wait another 12 months if you’ve only lived in the UK for 5 years when you get your document.
But you can apply immediately if:
you’ve already lived in the UK for 6 years when you get your document
your husband, wife or civil partner is a British citizen

So I'm assuming I can apply straight away, correct me if I'm wrong

[Tea_Rocket]

Interesting. That is indeed what it says (link for people who aren't sure where vadzia112 got the quote from). Additionally, Booklet B (Naturalisation Booklet, page 9) has this to say:

But remember that, unless you are married to or the civil partner of a British citizen, you should normally have held permanent resident status for 12 months before applying for naturalisation. This means that you may need to wait until you have been in the United Kingdom for 6 years before you can apply. When you apply for a permanent residence document the evidence that you supply for your EEA(PR) application must be for a 5 year period that ended at least a year before you want to apply for citizenship.

For example:
If you apply for Permanent Residence on 1 March 2017 and want to apply for citizenship once that application is decided, you should send evidence that shows you were exercising Treaty rights as a qualified person or family member from 1 March 20 11 to 1 March 2016.

So according to that, as long as your permanent residence application was on the basis of exercising EEA treaty rights from April 2011 to April 2016 (or for a five year period prior to that), you're fine. That does seem to conflict slightly with the quote you found on the UK residence for EU citizens page that says you can apply for naturalisation straight away as long as you've been in the UK for at least six years when you get the permanent residence document. That page makes no mention of the requirement about the qualifying period of your permanence residence application.

I'm non-EEA, so I have no experience with any of this. Are there any EEA citizens out there who have been in a similar situation to the OP?

[vadzia112]

I would like to apply for British Citizenship straight-away and as you have correctly mentioned both the booklet and the PR EU gov.uk page don't correlate with other. Can I phone the Home Office directly to confirm this at all, because I do not want to fail on my application as it is very expensive.

[AnotherUUID]

@vadzia112,

Did you submit your application? Could you please post an update on your progress?

I am about to apply for naturalisation over the next few weeks and find myself in a similar situation to yours. I have been a PR for a number of years but a couple of years ago I quit my job to pursue a PhD. So even though I can provide details on previous employment, my current employment circumstances don't exactly fit form AN which does not seem to allow for people in full time education. Did you manage to find a way around this?

Any advice from others would be greatly appreciated.

[alterhase58]

OP hasn't been on here for over a year.

Naturalisation isn't a re-run of the PR application. List the period you were studying as such. You will need to provide alternative evidence of residence for that period, ideally government communications (HMRC, Council Tax, and perhaps a letter from the university). For AN purposes emplyment is not a pre-requisite.

[AnotherUUID]

@alterhase58,
Thanks for your quick reply!

I am aware that naturalisation is much more straightforward (having already gone through the DCPR nightmare a few years back) and that employment is not a prerequisite.

The only reason for asking is that form AN is rather ambiguous (section 1.45-1.49 as of September 2008) where current employment details are being asked for as was the case with the OP. The Guide AN and Booklet AN are rather devoid of clarification on whether or not this should be filled in at all.

In particular, Guide AN states the following:

1.45 - 1.50 In some cases, if you have ever been in breach of immigration law, you may be asked to provide details of all your National Insurance contributions made for your current and previous employment during the past 10 years. If you are required to provide these details, the evidence can be in the form of payslips, P60s covering the relevant period, or a letter(s) from the employer(s) confirming you have worked for them, from the start and finish date.

So based on this my current assumption is that I can leave all of these blank.

[alterhase58]

Just enter "unemployed / student".