Applications for nationality based on historical residency are lacking substantiation

 There are several ways to apply for settlement and/or British citizenship under UK immigration and nationality legislation, all of which need proving that the applicant or their parents lived in the country for many years. These include petitions for Settled Status (under the EU Settlement Scheme), as well as several paths leading to British citizenship and passports, all predicated on an individual's previous residency in the United Kingdom. This blog post focuses on the latter and examines a recent (ish) legal development that could be helpful to those who are having trouble locating proof that they or their parents were in the UK many years ago.

According to section 1(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981, a person can register as a British citizen regardless of their age if they can demonstrate that they were born in the country, spent the first ten years of their life here, and did not spend more than ninety days away from the country in any 12-month period during that time. 

The top-rated legal firms in London has confirmed that this can include proof of the child's residency in the UK as well as proof of the child's parents' domicile, including proof of their jobs and national insurance contributions, as well as proof of the "wider family unit."

What may be problematic with these applications is that, like me, you were born in the early 1990s (!) and there doesn't seem to be any proof that you were ever here. This has happened to a couple of my customers.

Lack of proof

It is not always desirable or feasible for a person in their 30s to cling onto documents from their early years of childhood and elementary school, and it is much less common for them to retain their parents' job, tax, or property ownership records from that era. 

If personal records are missing, some agencies you could consider contacting to obtain information about a child's (or their parent's) existence include:

• Education: colleges, universities, local governments, schools, and education authority; 
• Dental/health: neighbourhood GP offices and NHS dental clinics, neighbourhood NHS trusts, Primary Care Support England;
• Records pertaining to immigration: Home Office(!)

It might feel like a wild goose hunt to find third-party records of an individual's existence in these situations, based on personal experience. Organisations have given the following reasons for the lack of records: (1) switching from paper to electronic record keeping systems and losing records in the process; (2) not having records from that far back in time (the Home Office, for example, has told us that they only keep immigration entry/exit records for five years); and (3) multiple ownership changes of an institution (such as in the case of some schools or colleges), which resulted in records being lost in the process. 

Regarding these applications, one thing to keep in mind is that you should provide as much proof of residency as you can. Although the Home Office mistakenly claims that it would only accept "official" documentation (as specified in the Home Office Guidance for registration applications), it can also be beneficial to provide strong affidavit evidence from friends, relatives, and previous teachers attesting to your residency in the UK. The legal firms in London have successfully argued that the Home Office should take into account all information that satisfies the standard of proof in immigration applications, meaning that based on the documents provided, is it "more likely than not" that the person who was born here did, in fact, spend the first ten years of their life in the UK, in the absence of any evidence listed in the Guidance. Nonetheless, the new section 4L may be helpful in cases when the Home Office is adamant and requires official records and documentation.