Half-spanish: getting Spanish nationality for me and family

[WupWup]

I'm thinking about the possibility of obtaining spanish nationality.

I have found out that, as someone born in the UK to a spanish parent (with the other parent british), I only need to live in spain for 1 year to apply for citizenship rather than the usual 10 years. (I didn't take up the option at 18. I'm in my 40s now. UK based)

I also read that the 1 year residence period also applies if you are "married to a spanish citizen." - thinking about my British DP (we married 20 years ago)

So my questions are..

1. Can my DP and I live in Spain for a year and then both apply together at the same time? Or does DP's residence only count from once I've obtained citizenship? (and therefore the whole thing would take at least 2 years)

1. What kind of proof of residency will the authorities need? (Aside from having proof of income/finances, proof of renting a property in Spain, learning Spanish to the required level and registering with local Spanish police and town hall I mean.)

e.g. Would they know, or care, if we'd gone to UK/France/Portugal for every other weekend?/week?/month? i.e. would they need proof that we hadn't done that? (Not sure how)
I'm not trying to game it, but I also wouldn't want to be scuppered by something avoidable.

1. Getting to the Spanish consulate in London is easy; is there any part of this process that can be done in advance, from London?

1. We've got 2 DCs, under 16. Does the whole 'you're automatically Spanish if a parent is spanish' count for cases where a parent, like me, has obtained citizenship after their birth?

Thanks.

Good luck with that. I live in another EU country and work with people from all over the EU. My British colleagues have all been scrambling to get other nationalities so they can stay here. By far the worst are the Italians and Spanish!!

A colleague of mine is married to a Spaniard, has a house there and lived there permanently for 10 years until he moved here 4 years ago. His kids already have dual Spanish/British nationality. He applied for Spanish nationality over 18 months ago and has had absolutely no news... From what he's said, I don't think a) your application would be quick (many EU countries at the moment are dragging their heels, particularly for Brits) and b) your husband/kids would have to apply once you had your citizenship granted...

So, residence requirements aside, you may find that the procedure is not at all straightforward and definitely not quick.

Thanks @amyboo. Yeah I suspected as much.

Your husband would need to give up his UK citizenship in order to obtain the Spanish one if the connection is by marriage rather than by birth. You can't have both for some reason (unless you are born with entitlements to both). Not sure what the rules would be for you.

I looked into this but haven't had a strong enough reason to give up my UK passport completely. I live in Spain, so maybe after Brexit I will look into it again depending on what happens.

Hi @walkintheparc. True, that's possible. We can think about that.
But right now I'm just trying to get a feel for whether I've even understood the rules+process properly.

Generally if a parent is that nationality (just the father until the 80's) then you can apply but the rest of your family do not get nationality without residency, in addition many countries require the parent to hold the citizenship prior to the birth of the children for nationality to pass on automatically (in some countries grandparents are sufficient) I would speak to a lawyer with experience of Spanish nationality applications before you make any decisions. I know quite a few people who have acquired additional passports recently, but call me the optimist, they will sort it I'm sure (my friends have spent thousands getting U.K. citizenship but I cannot imagine that our country is stupid enough to kick out people contributing so much tax to our economy!)

I kept telling myself things like that too @stucknoue but I've learnt not to make assumptions based on the 'logical thing to do' anymore! Sad times

@stucknoue yes make sense to get pro advice eventually. Just wondering if anyone has Spain-specific experience to fill in some of my gaps first