Legislation
How Continuous Residence Will Be Counted When Applying For Indefinite Leave to Remain (‘ILR’)
Time to put your thinking caps on….
Another subtle but big change introduced has been how continuous residence will be counted over the 5 years period when applying for Indefinite leave to remain (‘ILR’).
Before the changes, the 180-day absences were calculated in fixed blocks. However, absences are now to be counted on a rolling basis thus an application for ILR could be refused if at any point over the five years the 180-day limit is exceeded in any 12-month period.
Paragraph 245AAA(a) now states:
“(a) References to a “continuous period” “lawfully in the UK” means, subject to paragraph (e), residence in the UK for an unbroken period with valid leave, and for these purposes a period shall be considered unbroken where:
(i) the applicant has not been absent from the UK for more than 180 days during any 12-month period in the continuous period, except that any absence from the UK for the purpose of assisting with a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis overseas shall not count towards the 180 days, if the applicant provides evidence that this was the purpose of the absence(s) and that their Sponsor, if there was one, agreed to the absence(s) for that purpose;”.
One is going to need more than just a simple table on Excel to tackle this change!