This Thursday will mark the end of my first year on FLR, so I've been getting my documentation for the past year in order. I've also started compiling a list of how many days I've spent outside the UK, for my eventual naturalisation application, and made a worrying discovery - I've already spent 71 days outside the UK, and I'm pretty sure (though I can't find anything in the SET(M) guidance to confirm) that one is only allowed to spend 90 days outside the UK during the entire two-year FLR period!
(To be more specific, 47 of those 71 days were spent in the US, without DH - who was working - and 24 were spent on holidays to the US and Spain, which we took together.)
This wouldn't be all that problematic, except that we've already booked a holiday to the US for April/May (10 days), are planning to spend a week somewhere in Europe with friends this summer, and have promised my mother that we'll spend Christmas in the US this year (this being the first year in the past FIVE that DH won't be working over Christmas). Does anyone have first-hand experience in successfully obtaining ILR after having spent more than 90 days outside the UK (for leisure purposes, not work-related travel)? I know the BIA exercises discretion in the number of days allowed for naturalisation purposes, but I'm not so sure about ILR. We'll have no problems providing the twenty pieces of documentation required, or financial evidence, and we'll be traveling together on each of holidays that we've planned for this year.
