Bank Statement request

[eraylankester]

Hi,

My wife has just had her first response from INIS regarding her recent application for Irish citizenship (living in NI, married to Irish citizen). For context, a lawyer checked our application prior to sending and assured us that we had gathered all the required information and evidence.

However, we have just received a letter asking that my wife submit 6 months worth of bank statements for 2014 & 2016 (not between) showing day to day transactions. This wasn’t stipulated on the application form and I’m perplexed as to why it’s being asked for now.

My concerns are:

A) my wife only arrived in NI at the end of Sep 14. There is no way she can provide 6 months worth of UK bank statements for this year. Her previous overseas account is now closed and obtaining bank statements is impossible.

2) Although transactions are present on my wife’s acccount (held jointly with me) most of the main household transactions are conducted from my account (held in my name only). This is especially true in the early months of her time in NI, when she had no employment and I was responsible for most outgoings.

My wife is going to submitted statements for every month of her stay and a cover letter explaining her situation. I will submit some of my statements for the matching period to show outgoings etc.

Do you think this will suffice?

[Alixlboy]

That's extremely weird. Another member was also required the same thing.
I think that all you could do in this situation is to tell them about your situation. It makes no sense asking for 6 months statements.
But, having said the above, the only reason why they may have asked this is that they have clearly mentioned on their website that they need a statement with day to day transaction, so that they can probably make sure that a person has been continuously living in Ireland and has not been absent from the State.
But still cases like yours may still arise.
So:
1) Send them a proof that her previous account has now been closed (In my case, my joint account with my ex wife was closed and It says clearly on the last statement that I received that the account is now closed).
2) Explain them that you have been responsible for most of the day to day transactions.
I think that you should be fine.

[eraylankester]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Unfortunately, my wife’s bank account was closed after her departure from Germany (closed by the bank in her absence - German banks are strange) so she hasn’t received proof of its closure, nor can she obtain it). She has another, US account, but it won’t show day to day transactions, and she hasn’t lived there for years. Prior to coming to the UK she stayed with relatives so didn’t need an acccount for transactions

I do find this strange, as we supplied a wealth of official correspondence (P60s, employment letters, payslips, gov letters, GP etc) to prove she was resident, including copie of both Home Office visas, which requires her to prove residence from 2014.