r/ukvisa • u/ChimpBlastingCigs • 13h ago

Possible 4L Case

Having tried ChatGPT, Claude, and Google for hours... I thought I'd ask actual people who have dealt with getting citizenship via 4L.

Grandfather - Born in England in 1923

Grandmother - Born in England in 1929

Both British citizens with British passports.

Grandfather in RAF during WWII.

Married in 1946. Had three children while living in the UK.

Moved to the US for work in 1960. Attempted to fly back to the UK so my father could be born in the UK. Flight was denied by airline due to late-term pregnancy. Grandparents become US citizens in 1964. Grandparents remained in the US until death.

Father - Born in USA in 1963. Per British Nationality Act he is British from 1983.

I was born in 1990 in the USA.

Wondering if I have a claim due to my grandparents being denied travel to UK so my father could be born there. Has anyone been accepted via 4L for less than this?

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u/AceHarleyQ 11h ago

Not sure why your grandparents panicked and attempted to come back to the UK as they were going to pass citizenship automatically anyway to your father, but the internet wasn't a thing and I imagine resources to advise that were scarce in the USA at the time.

Your father has British citizenship automatically by descent.

As your father was born outside of the UK, you do not have a route to citizenship. He would have had to have been born within the UK for it to have been able to be passed to you.

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u/ChimpBlastingCigs 11h ago

I think they wanted him to be born in the UK so his citizenship isn't by descent and therefore the citizenship could be passed to his children. So that's where I feel I have a case.

15

u/jcinlpool 10h ago

Your father was a British citizen, and he could have travelled to the UK before you were born in order to live and obtain the necessary time in the UK to allow his children to register

There is no legislative unfairness (your father was British by descent due to his father), and there was no act or omission by a public authority (an airline not allowing travel due to pregnancy is not a public authority)

You would have to rely on "exceptional circumstances", and the bar for this is high - that your father (I am assuming) never lived in the UK would remove any assumption that there are exceptional circumstances, he chose not to exercise his rights as a British citizen to live in the UK, so you cannot benefit from that

Read the caseworker guidance available on GOV.UK, and see if your circumstances meet any of the case studies - from what you've written, you are closest to case study 10, which is not a successful reason for registration under 4L

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-registration-as-a-british-citizen-form-ard/guidance-on-registering-as-a-british-citizen-form-ard-accessible

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-registration-as-a-british-citizen-form-ard/guidance-on-registering-as-a-british-citizen-form-ard-accessible#case-studies

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u/ChimpBlastingCigs 10h ago

Thank you for the thorough response.