UK citizenship application - friend wants me to be a referee and say I've known her longer than I really have

[northernstar0412]

Hi,
A friend from overseas who is applying for British citizenship asked me to be a referee.

My job is included in the list of acceptable occupations but I have only known her for 2 years and 8 months. The government's website says we need to have known each other for at least 3 years.

My friend said - "You can just say you've known me longer - how can they prove it?"

I can be fined £5k or receive a prison term if I knowingly give false information, according to the official website. So I told my friend I was happy to be a referee but I would be stating on the form that I'd known her 2 years and 8 months.

She doesn't want to delay her application for four months and is now looking for another referee, but doesn't know many people here.

Am I BU?

Ilovecranberries For mine, I did a shout-out on FB to see who put their hand up. Turned out I'd known someone who owned a VAT-registered business for years, which wasn't even a category I'd thought of.

Well I couldn't give two shiny shites about East Kent.

The Irish and the British have freedom of movement for about 8 decades.

Yes we are EU, but we're also Irish. Same for Brits travelling to Ireland. Although they're non-EU they'll have the same rights they always had to travel to Ireland (an EU country while they're non EU).

It's a matter of a few months. If your uncomfortable tell her you'll do it in 4 months time.

Why do you think there was such a rush to get the old Irish passport all of a sudden? Not a sudden love for the land, the people or the culture or they'd have done it sooner. It's because an Irish passport will be easier to travel on within the EU.

Hoonoes
I find your complacency quite astounding
but hey, its your choice

Well there's nothing to be getting in a flap about! Ireland and the UK have a 'unique' relationship whether you like it or not. Brits can go to Ireland and sign on the dole straight away, same as we can do vice versa. What the fuck east Kent has to to with the price of turnips, I do not know. Have the Danes invaded again?

@PotholeParadise
Eh, that I can probably do. Thanks. The school and the surgery have policies of not signing applications anymore (which I can totally understand). I also own a VAT-registered business myself, but guess I can't countersign my own application!

But at least I passed my life in the UK test and can hold myself equally well in the conversation about haggis, British mountain peaks or Henry VIII's lifestyle.

€203 per week dole in Ireland if you're 25 and over.
What is it per week in the UK? £74.35 a week/€81.28 a week if you're 25 and over.

We've a generous benefit system which the British avail of if it suits them.

We travel freely and nothing will change.

I think @ListeningQuietly is a little jealous of the Irish.

Why don't you contact the organisation in charge and ask ?

Otherwise I would refuse.

Reporting her is an extreme over reaction! But don't put yourself on the line.

@Laks0007

Why don't you contact the organisation in charge and ask ?

Otherwise I would refuse.

Reporting her is an extreme over reaction! But don't put yourself on the line.

Do you mean asking Home Office and actually getting an actual answer? Good luck with that. 😂

Avocadooo - and others who seem to think I am considering reporting my friend to the authorities PLEASE READ:

I have NEVER said once in this thread that I would do this, or was considering doing this. It was suggested by ANOTHER poster early on in the thread - in the first few posts - why don't you go back and have a look for yourself?

So please get your facts right before making false accusations. Or perhaps you are just irretrievably stupid.

[quote Ilovecranberries]@PotholeParadise
Eh, that I can probably do. Thanks. The school and the surgery have policies of not signing applications anymore (which I can totally understand). I also own a VAT-registered business myself, but guess I can't countersign my own application!

But at least I passed my life in the UK test and can hold myself equally well in the conversation about haggis, British mountain peaks or Henry VIII's lifestyle.[/quote]
And where national horse racing museum is! Don't forget that! Super important.

I wonder if it would be possible to do a pastiche of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, called 50 Ways To Live in the UK, using past questions from tests.

@Ilovecranberries if you have a business maybe your accountant could sign for you?

Pothole
The Life in the UK test is full of errors.
When I took it I got a substitute question as none of the options was the correct answer.

I'm amazed you know how many months you have known her. I have no idea exactly how many years and months I know any of my friends. I would have rounded it to a year! I'm obviously not observant enough

Givingup - I know the exact date and approximate time I met her.

if you have a business maybe your accountant could sign for you?
I think the requirement is that is has to be a personal, not solely professional, connection. I have never actually met my accountant face to face either

That's impressive. I can't even remember when I met my husband

@ListeningQuietly

Pothole The Life in the UK test is full of errors. When I took it I got a substitute question as none of the options was the correct answer.

Everything to do with the Home Office is full of errors. They can lose your documents and deny having ever received them, but woe betide you if you have two months' gap in the 30 years' worth of documents you're submitting to prove you've been here since before the bloody Berlin Wall fell.

As mentioned, I get that it's not easy to find referees with all the "requirements", but after 20 years of staying here? Come off it

I've been here nearly 20 years and had great difficulty finding a professional referee. The rules have gotten tighter on over the years and the list of appropriate professions and requirements is very specific. It also has to be someone who can recognize you from a photo so if you work mainly via emails and similar, no luck using your professional contacts. I've ended up using someone I met at my spouse's work who has a Personal License. That's pretty much the only person I could find that fit the professional criteria and I've no idea what I'll do if she isn't seen as enough and I'm asked to find someone else. It's ridiculously out of date with the background checks and biometrics they already take, but it's one of many hoops they're tightening so they can act like they're hard on immigration.

Along with the many additionals hoops that been put in in the last two decades (there have been over 170 changes to immigration policy in that time to keep up with, not including fee changes), a lot of residents have been discouraged from going for citizenship by many and some the Home Office's regular mistakes and changes to "new private partners" (which somehow has resulted in library staff scanning documents and taking biometrics with minimal training on top of their actual job) are part of it. It's not surprising some have been putting off for a while when it seem so difficult for so little (and so many stories of citizenship being revoked in the news) or that people are pushing for it now either for ease or fear of what new hoop is next with all these new plans being mentioned.

Yeah, the request was dodgy and hopefully the OP has been given a reprieve from dealing with it, but the idea that if you've been here long enough then this should all be easy and anyone who can't must be up to something means those most vulnerable are going to keep being piled on with these changes. When BRPs came in and people had to prove 10, 20+ years of residency, month by month, women who arrived on spousal visas and who had been family carers were one of the worst groups affected, struggling to find enough paperwork in their name so they could keep the right to work and access services that was meant to already be protected by their ILR visas.

Based on her reasons why she wants it immediately- No. that’s a selfish reason to potentially get you in shit.

@contrmary. Well aren't you quite the delight?

Don't do it. X