We can assist with your Nationality Application and/or Ancestry Application. Some of the legal issues are very complicated because nationality law regularly changes at periodic intervals.
If the issues with your Nationality Application are very complicated, we will use a specialist immigration counsel. If necessary, we will engage in correspondence with the Home Office to endeavour to persuade them to accept that the client is a British National. This normally has to be supported by documentation. Generally, the Home Office will require original documents and not photocopies.
Some Clients ask us to prepare on their behalf or to check through Nationality applications which they have prepared themselves. We are pleased to undertake this, for a fixed reasonable fee.
We are also instructed to assist in the making of nationality applications on behalf of children or in the registration of children as British Nationals.
Our main role with both children and adults is where there are serious issues which have or may be raised by the Home Office, and it is necessary to provide detailed representations to support an application.
A requirement of the Home Office which we are coming across is to require persons who have had indefinite leave to remain for lengthy periods of time to prove their continuous residence in the UK. The reason for this is that if a person were to leave the UK for more than two years, their indefinite leave would be extinguished. Generally, only persons with indefinite leave to remain can apply to be naturalised as a British Nationality.
We have clients who have secured indefinite leave as long ago as the 1980s, and we have had to put together a large volume of documents and other evidence to prove their continuous presence in the UK since the first grant of their indefinite leave to remain. This is no easy task to fulfil. However, we have successfully undertaken this work for our relevant clients.
Nationality applications can be quite complicated in particular as the relevant requirements to acquire British Nationality have been changed on a fairly regular basis.
We have also assisted clients in applying for British passports, who are British but where this status is either difficult to establish or not recognised by the Home Office
We can also assist with ancestry applications. This consists of an application for a visa to work in the UK by a Commonwealth citizen who has a UK born grandparent. An initial visa is granted for five years. After that time an application can be made for indefinite leave to remain to settle in the UK permanently if you have lived in the UK for five years upon this visa.
Retaining our firm
We act for clients both within the UK and overseas.
We can undertake our work via email, video conference, and telephone conferences.
Advice is generally secured from immigration counsel via three-way telephone conferences which reduces both time and costs in comparison to a formal meeting with counsel.
We also have available to meet with our clients our central London office located at 32 Bloomsbury Street WC1 (very close to Tottenham Court Road Underground Station) as well as our north London office located in Finchley N3 and our Hertfordshire office located at Hatfield AL9.
Please contact Lawrence Rodkin (partner), on telephone number 0208 446 6223 or via email to lawrence.rodkin@sr-law.co.uk
If you have any queries, please contact us for an initial discussion.