Immigration law: Ten year rule – gaps in legal residence

The UKBA have made important changes to their criteria for assessing legal residence in the UK. The changes will be beneficial not simply to long residence applicants (to whom it is ostensibly directed) but to all immigration applicants.

The "ten year rule", whereby those individuals who have had at least 10 years continuous lawful residence in the United Kingdom can apply for indefinite leave (permanent stay or settlement) or an extension of stay if an applicant has not passed the Life in the UK test or its equivalent, survived the July 2012 changes to the Immigration Rules and in one respect the government has slightly relaxed its definition of "continuous residence".

The rule is made up of four parts. The need for an applicant to show continuity of legal residence. The requirement to meet the rather clumsily worded test that "having regard to the public interest there are no reasons why it would be undesirable for him to be given indefinite leave [...] taking into account his age, strength of connections in the UK, personal history, including character, conduct, associations and employment record, domestic circumstances, compassionate circumstances and any representations received on a person's behalf." The application must not fall for refusal under the general grounds for refusal (see Part 9 of the Immigration Rules and the 151 page guidance "General Grounds for Refusal" found in the Home Office Modernised Guidance),  and evidence must be produced of a pass in the Life in the UK Test or its equivalent. The application is made on the newly introduced SET(LR) form at a cost of £1051.

The slight relaxation of the rule is this: where previously the Home Office had allowed an applicant a grace period of 10 days overstaying in calculating the continuity of 10 years residence, this has now changed to 28 days. Let's take an example: you came here as a student in 2003, and have extended your immigration leave 4 times during that period, but on one occasion, perhaps because of a family illness you were 15 days late submitting your application to the Home Office. On another occasion your application was late because the card payment that accompanied the application was not accepted by the Home Office because your bank gave wrong information to the Home Office and as a result you overstayed by 28 days. Your continuity of residence is not broken and you are still eligible to apply for settlement on the basis of your long residence.

These applications require care and attention to detail,  skills which the Immigration Team at Drummond Miller will demonstrate in its handling of your Immigration case.