British wife diagnosed with Cancer

BTW my residence card reads spouse visa ... ??

Sorry for the delayed reply.

I don't know what it would say when you are on a 10 year route based on a British child, or what that means for you. There is a very busy site that might know www.immigrationboards.com

Macmillan (link above) will be able to help your wife with any benefits she can have and how they can be fast tracked under the benefit rules, but I doubt that they know about immigration.

I'm not sure if that applies to those on the ten your route? These apply for that visa every 30 months and it their situation is the same, then the next 30 month visa is granted. Plus Vantrappen said he is in the UK on a visa based on having a British child. Once they reach age 18, they are no longer a child and the child is already age 16: that's why I asked if he had taken advice on using that route instead of going back onto the spouse visa. Some of those granted the 10 year route, seem to prefer to go back onto the spouse visa route instead.

No, the OP is on a spousal visa - he says that in one of the posts above... it's just that he's on the 10-year route instead of the 5-year route, which was granted under Article 8, due to having a British child in the UK.

Thanks again all ... I've written to my MP to see if they can expedite my citizenship, but not holding my breath. I am not allowed "public funds" although I've been paying taxes etc. for 7 years. So a carers allowance is not going to happen. Thankfully, my employer is still allowing me grace time as my wife has just gone through a week from hell... screaming agony from what appears to be a pinched nerve. did I tell you she's had hip replacement surgery because the cancer has eaten her right hip up so bad the Dr.s were worried it might fracture. So, it could be muscle spasms from that. We did call an ambulance on New Years Day and waited 4+ hours - a bad day to be ill apparently. She is better today thanks to Phyliss Tuckwell nurses, our GP, a massuse and a friend who's a chiropractor.  Her meds have been adjusted and back on steroids = unfortunately this may delay the next therapy treatment, immunotherapy. Did I tell you the 1st treatment did not work? chemotherapy,,, it's been a busy holiday season. crazy, sad, angry and thankful

Big hugs. Cancer is a bastard.

Thanks again all ... I've written to my MP to see if they can expedite my citizenship, but not holding my breath. I am not allowed "public funds" although I've been paying taxes etc. for 7 years. So a carers allowance is not going to happen. Thankfully, my employer is still allowing me grace time as my wife has just gone through a week from hell... screaming agony from what appears to be a pinched nerve. did I tell you she's had hip replacement surgery because the cancer has eaten her right hip up so bad the Dr.s were worried it might fracture. So, it could be muscle spasms from that. We did call an ambulance on New Years Day and waited 4+ hours - a bad day to be ill apparently. She is better today thanks to Phyliss Tuckwell nurses, our GP, a massuse and a friend who's a chiropractor.  Her meds have been adjusted and back on steroids = unfortunately this may delay the next therapy treatment, immunotherapy. Did I tell you the 1st treatment did not work? chemotherapy,,, it's been a busy holiday season. crazy, sad, angry and thankful

Oh, gosh. The pain from the muscle spasms, that can be hideous. That's, fortunately for me, the only pain I can imagine related to what your wife is going through. I'm glad she has you for support. I wish I could do more for you, but will add your wife to my prayers.

 

Thanks again all ... I've written to my MP to see if they can expedite my citizenship, but not holding my breath.

I doubt you will get your British citizenship expedited, because ILR is settlement in the UK.

ksand has said that you have a spouse visa. Sorry to be blunt, but under the link I put above, you can apply for ILR if you are on a spouse visa and a British citizen spouse dies. 
https://www.gov.uk/visas-partner-dies

However, nationality laws are different to the Immigration laws (and EU laws). Being free from immigration control (holding a valid ILR) is one of the requirements for British citizenship. Another is the Good Character requirement and your overstaying will likely affect any citizenship application for a few years. Have a read-
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/good-character-nationality-policy-guidance


 

I am not allowed "public funds" although I've been paying taxes etc. for 7 years.

No, because under UK immigration rules, you need to hold a valid ILR to have benefits.

When you overstayed, you were granted a 30 month visa outside the immigration rules, because your British citizen child is in the UK and was under age 18 (a child). As you know, you have to apply every 30 months and meet the conditions for that visa,  which is why I was concerned because your child is 16 now and I didn't know what would happen when your daughter is age 18. I don't know how that works.

It takes 10 years (4 visas granted) to be able to apply for ILR on the route you are on. What some partners seem to do when they have overstayed or when they have been put on that route, is to return home and apply for a spouse visa/again, which is only 5 years to ILR.

 

So a carers allowance is not going to happen.

No, because you don't hold a valid ILR and Carer's Allowance is a Public Fund, but CA is not a lot of money and has limits to how much you can earn each week.

Your wife could be fast tracked for benefits for herself now because a few years ago the govenment changed the 2008 rules for some people, that 2008 rule saying that claimants must now have medicals for sick and disabled benefits. Macmillan staff know how this fast tracking of benefits works for cancer sufferers and will be able to help your wife with this.

Well, I am gobsmacked (as they say here) - my MP has come through with flying colors. They are in contact with the Home Office are hopeful that I can get some public funds, even though it might not amount to much (lifting of the restriction).

Some of you might be aware that we contacted our MP 2 years ago when my visa was held up for almost 4 months. We were celebrating our 30th anniversary and were hoping to go to Greece where we had our honeymoon. That never happened because the home office had our passports. So ... our MPs office were quite helpful (but were unable to speed things up), but the person they contacted (long story short) had acquiesced to allow me to apply for citizenship, (even though he still could not believe that I had misread the date stamp  (I can't believe I'm the only one) ). Soooo, at the time we didn't have the money to do that ugh ... anyway ...

I'm investigating citizenship further ... all this legalese makes my head spin!

Thanks again everyone ... I'm in the middle of chaos but there's still hope

Well, I am gobsmacked (as they say here) - my MP has come through with flying colors. They are in contact with the Home Office are hopeful that I can get some public funds, even though it might not amount to much (lifting of the restriction).

Some of you might be aware that we contacted our MP 2 years ago when my visa was held up for almost 4 months. We were celebrating our 30th anniversary and were hoping to go to Greece where we had our honeymoon. That never happened because the home office had our passports. So ... our MPs office were quite helpful (but were unable to speed things up), but the person they contacted (long story short) had acquiesced to allow me to apply for citizenship, (even though he still could not believe that I had misread the date stamp  (I can't believe I'm the only one) ). Soooo, at the time we didn't have the money to do that ugh ... anyway ...

I'm investigating citizenship further ... all this legalese makes my head spin!

Thanks again everyone ... I'm in the middle of chaos but there's still hope

I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused here, because I don't see how you can legally do what you are proposing... It is completely against the law for you to claim public funds without holding ILR, and I can't imagine they will break the law for you, especially given the current political climate regarding immigration and public funds.

- You CANNOT qualify for public funds until you have ILR.

- You CANNOT qualify for UK citizenship until you have ILR (so I don't understand how they could have offered to let you apply for it back in 2014, because you did not qualify for it).

- You CANNOT qualify for ILR until you have spent 10 years on your current visa type (four 2-5-year visas)

You've only been here for 7 years, which means you have another 3 years to go before you can do any of the things you are talking about.

Well, I am gobsmacked (as they say here) - my MP has come through with flying colors. They are in contact with the Home Office are hopeful that I can get some public funds, even though it might not amount to much (lifting of the restriction).

Sometimes public funds can be given for a limited time if the foreign national parents can prove they are  destitute and can't borrow the money from family members or friends in any country. But usually there are young children involved and often the public funds are refused anyway if they can return to their own country (not a war zone) or move to another country, or if the HO thinks they can find the money to support themselves. 
Even those who use a European Court of Justice ruling to move to the UK as one of their children is a Brtiish citizen, are refused public funds even if they are broke as these parents are allowed to work: the courts have upheld this rule, with many now having to pay back thousands to the UK's welfare state..

Your 30 month visa gives you permission to work in the UK, your wife has full access to all UK benefits anyway for herself and your daughter as your wife is a British citizen and I assume you have a US pension/s each that you can live on.

If you don't want to draw on your US pensions and want to give up work to care for your wife, can your wife give you the £64.60 a week (Carer's Allowance amount) from her benefits? CA is such a low amount that many work too.

- You CANNOT qualify for ILR until you have spent 10 years on your current visa type (four 2-5-year visas)

You've only been here for 7 years, which means you have another 3 years to go before you can do any of the things you are talking about.

Vantrappen is only on the second of those four visas, so I assume it will be longer than another 3 years for ILR? If he meets the conditions to keep getting those 30 month visas when his child is age 18 (age 16 now).

Vantrappen is only on the second of those four visas, so I assume it will be longer than another 3 years for ILR? If he meets the conditions to keep getting those 30 month visas when his child is age 18 (age 16 now).

Yeah, actually, it could be.

I was assuming the 10 years started from the initial spousal visa (which I think is the case if you are put onto the 10-year path due to not meeting the financial requirement when you reapply), but actually, if there was an overstay of several months, and then the new visa was granted outside the rules after that, the 10 years may well start from the beginning of the first FLR(FP) visa.

Hello and thanks again... yes I'm extremely stupid when it comes to this stuff. It all makes little sense to me so I tend to get confused after the 10th paragraph of "if's and when's". There's a skit in Monty Python's "meaning of life" movie where John Cleese is getting very irate with a student who can't follow his instructions. :{

::: I do wish you'd listen, Wymer. It's perfectly simple. If you're not getting your hair cut, you don't have to move your brother's clothes down to the lower peg. You simply collect his note before lunch, after you've done your scripture prep, when you've written your letter home, before rest, move your own clothes onto the lower peg, greet the visitors, and report to Mr. Viney that you've had your chit signed. Now, sex. Sex, sex, sex. :::

Point being, I've been confusing citizenship with ILR. Yes, ILR is my next step and the home office has indicated that I may be able to apply due to my MP getting involved defending my stupid mistake in misreading the Date Stamp. To me, coming from American, 12/01/2014 means December 12. And why (for Heavens' sake) 30 months? These seem to be intentional devices to confuse idiots like me lol = 3 years okay = 2.5 years ?? why why why?? This method of putting the day before the month seems completely illogical, especially if your trying to sort dates out, e.g. folders of data. You'd end up with 31 bloody folders in some months!

And .. why military time while I'm at it ?? why do the English insist on 15:00 o'clock when anyone would be able to see it's 3:00 PM in the afternoon. lol

Anyway, it's helpful to note that your local MP might go to bat for you when needed.

Point being, I've been confusing citizenship with ILR. Yes, ILR is my next step and the home office has indicated that I may be able to apply due to my MP getting involved defending my stupid mistake in misreading the Date Stamp. To me, coming from American, 12/01/2014 means December 12. And why (for Heavens' sake) 30 months? These seem to be intentional devices to confuse idiots like me lol = 3 years okay = 2.5 years ?? why why why??

It's 30 months because that is half of 5 years... which is the time it takes to qualify for ILR on a regular spousal visa under the new rules. And to get more money out of visa holders, instead of issuing one 5-year visa, UKVI decided to split it into 2 visas of equal length, hence the 2.5 years each. Of course, if you are put on the 10-year path, then you have to do the 5 years twice... so it's 4 visas of 2.5 years each.

Having said that, since you applied for your first visa before July 8th 2012, it should have been made valid for 27 months... which covered the old 2-year ILR qualification period, plus gave you 3 months leeway to tie up loose ends and move to the UK and still be able to live here for 2 years before your visa expired.

Which means you actually qualified to apply for ILR in late 2013 and for UK citizenship in late 2014.

The thing is that even without reading the dates wrong, you should have made sure you were aware that you only needed to live in the UK for 2 years before you could apply for ILR... in which case, there would have been no date mix-up at all, because you would have applied for ILR well before 12th January 2014. However, unfortunately, you didn't apply back when you first qualified for ILR, and then your visa expired due to the date mix-up, so you ended up on the 10-year path under the new visa rules.

This method of putting the day before the month seems completely illogical, especially if your trying to sort dates out, e.g. folders of data. You'd end up with 31 bloody folders in some months!

The US is one of only 4 countries in the world to solely write the dates this way (the others are the Philippines, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands)... while only 5 countries use a mixture of the UK and US date format of writing the dates (Canada, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Somalia). All other countries use either DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY/MM/DD.

The standard ISO date format is actually YYYY/MM/DD, which means that the standard folder system for sorting data is:
1 folder for the year
12 folders for the months
28-31 files in each monthly folder

And .. why military time while I'm at it ?? why do the English insist on 15:00 o'clock when anyone would be able to see it's 3:00 PM in the afternoon. lol

It's not just the UK... the 24-hour clock is the standard time format used in the majority of countries (though the UK and a few other  Commonwealth countries use a mixture of both).

And it's not always obvious that someone means either AM or PM... if someone suggests meeting at 9 o'clock, that could be morning or evening, which you would then have to clarify... whereas 21:00 has no ambiguity - it's ALWAYS 9 PM.

The US is one of only 4 countries in the world to solely write the dates this way (the others are the Philippines, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands)... while only 5 countries use a mixture of the UK and US date format of writing the dates (Canada, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Somalia). All other countries use either DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY/MM/DD.

It's just one of the very first things we learn in kindergarten, and is reinforced every day for the rest of our lives.

I think it probably engrains itself because moving from month to day refines the information.  Christmas, for example,   is first thought of as being in December, and then refined to the twenty-fifth.

Which means you actually qualified to apply for ILR in late 2013 and for UK citizenship in late 2014.

The thing is that even without reading the dates wrong, you should have made sure you were aware that you only needed to live in the UK for 2 years before you could apply for ILR... in which case, there would have been no date mix-up at all, because you would have applied for ILR well before 12th January 2014. However, unfortunately, you didn't apply back when you first qualified for ILR, and then your visa expired due to the date mix-up, so you ended up on the 10-year path under the new visa rules.

Maybe you deal with this everyday...?  As a newcomer with no other correspondence, after paying $1500 and getting nothing more than a date stamp on my passport, I naturally thought it was December 1st, 2014. Honestly, life goes on and when you're busy trying to make a buck (er.. quid) I did not think about it until mid-summer 2014 ... well ahead of what I thought was my renewal date. By then, as you have pointed out ... well past the actual English date. But obviously no one else has had this problem so I take it on myself as being dumb.