British Citizenship after ILR Questions/Documents

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to say thank you to the members of the forum who've contributed to our visas/FLR/ILR etc. providing expert advice etc. My wife has recently been granted ILR so we're now in a position to apply for citizenship (so we understand). What we don't have is a list of documents we need to submit etc. Is there anywhere on this forum where a list exists for this?

From reading online, the main questions we have are around the following:

1) Proof you are in the UK exactly 3 years (to the day) before the Home Office receive the application. How is this proved? This could end up being a random normal working day where I can't think we have anything (let alone anything official) to prove my wife was in the UK on that exact day.

2) Regarding employment, my wife is self-employed and I've heard this can be tricky? Is there any information on this anywhere that may help?

3) Referees are required. 1 x from a "professional" job and 1 x British citizen that aren't related to the applicant but have known them for a while?

We're coming at this from visa documents so I'm hoping the list for citizenship is a lot less. Any information anyone has or any links to posts/guides/lists of documents would be gratefully received!

I apologise in advance if we are being dumb with this but thank you in advance!

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to say thank you to the members of the forum who've contributed to our visas/FLR/ILR etc. providing expert advice etc. My wife has recently been granted ILR so we're now in a position to apply for citizenship (so we understand). What we don't have is a list of documents we need to submit etc. Is there anywhere on this forum where a list exists for this?

From reading online, the main questions we have are around the following:

1) Proof you are in the UK exactly 3 years (to the day) before the Home Office receive the application. How is this proved? This could end up being a random normal working day where I can't think we have anything (let alone anything official) to prove my wife was in the UK on that exact day.

2) Regarding employment, my wife is self-employed and I've heard this can be tricky? Is there any information on this anywhere that may help?

3) Referees are required. 1 x from a "professional" job and 1 x British citizen that aren't related to the applicant but have known them for a while?

We're coming at this from visa documents so I'm hoping the list for citizenship is a lot less. Any information anyone has or any links to posts/guides/lists of documents would be gratefully received!

I apologise in advance if we are being dumb with this but thank you in advance!

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum. 

We have a great reference thread made by our wonderful member Matt, here.

https://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=100371.msg1321003#msg1321003

Thanks! I've had a read and this is one where it mentions about the self-employed status. Do you know how this affects things? Other than this, the documents look good.

Thanks! I've had a read and this is one where it mentions about the self-employed status. Do you know how this affects things? Other than this, the documents look good.

One of the biggest things about obtaining citizenship is the need to be of good character. When it comes to self employment, that translates into whether or not you've paid your taxes and everything is legal and above board.
Some people suggest that when self employed it's a good idea to take the extra step of submitting tax returns as evidence that you are in good standing with HMRC.

That makes sense, we have the tax returns so no issues with submitting those. Thanks! Is that pretty much all the documents we need that are on Matt's thread? Thanks!

3) Referees are required. 1 x from a "professional" job and 1 x British citizen that aren't related to the applicant but have known them for a while?

They must have known the applicant for at least 3 years.
The professional referee need not be a UKC.

That makes sense, we have the tax returns so no issues with submitting those. Thanks! Is that pretty much all the documents we need that are on Matt's thread? Thanks!

Yes. It seems strange after all the documentation required for the visas but there is a lot less needed for citizenship.

It's worth mentioning that when it comes to declaring any fixed penalty notices, parking tickets etc, it is better to over declare than under declare. So if in doubt, declare it.

Thank you for this! No fixed penalty notices so far but thank you for the heads up! This all sounds much less complex than our FLR ones going the Category F route! Thanks.

Thank you for this! No fixed penalty notices so far but thank you for the heads up! This all sounds much less complex than our FLR ones going the Category F route! Thanks.

Cat F?  Respect! 

Yeah, long story short but because I work for the family business it's classes as Category F so have to do full business accounts, business statements, CT600, etc. A complete nightmare but worth it of course! So you can imagine that compared to looking at these citizenship documents I keep thinking we've missed a load of them! Thankfully for ILR we could do cash savings but again we kept worrying we'd missed loads of documents off! Thank you for your valuable advice!