Hi I’m Tom Bradford how can you stay in the UK after you’ve been divorced I’ll dissipate your immigration status well I’m going to explain what the position is with reference to the legislation which we go through in a minute but essentially if you’re married to an EU national or British national exercising of treaty rights in the UK then it’s possible for you to stay on in the UK and secure settled status permanent resident later on you need to show that you have retained rights of residents and their specific rules about your marriage and how long you need to have been here so let’s go through it say you what you would fall under or look to fall under is this definition of a family member who has retained rights of residence under appendix EU of the immigration rules now I’d assume in here and before going to the detail what this for this provides I’m just going to give you an overview so the important thing here is your decree absolute rather than the degree nisi which is represents the beginning of the divorce proceedings as a matter of law mmm as a matter of law you’re deemed to be married right up until the degree decree absolute and the important thing and the first point is that your dick when your decree absolute is issued you need to be resident in the UK so it’s very important you do that even if you’re even if you’ve already broken up with your partner and living elsewhere you should be resident remain resident in the UK and then you’ve got to show you either were married for three years or more and you were continuously resident in the UK for a year so you’ve got to be married for three years or more and I’ve got to have been continuously resident in UK for a year and your partner would need to have been working studying or financially self-sufficient during this year it’s actually not a requirement under the new EU settlement scheme to show that they were exercising treaty rights but I think it’s gorgeous I think the cautious approach would be to show that they were exercising treaty rights I’m at the moment particularly break set now I’m the next way of showing that you have a retained rights of residents this is if you can’t satisfy that three-year rule or the one-year rule is that you show you have custody of the child of your partner and the third way that you can show you have retained rights of residents is if you have a right of access to the child with a court order and the court order has actually got a state that that access to the child must take place in the UK now as fuel immigration status that would be that of a family member who has a retained right of residence now if you already have a biometric residence permit which states pre settled status on it then you may not even need to be issued a new card the home office will link that card to your new status as a matter of procedure but you will need to make the make the application either online or through the AA as for the legislation I’m just going to show you the legal basis for all of that so this is to be the law and this point is to be found in Appendix II you of the immigration rules and their other that are in fact other ways which are greyed out Hicks they’re not relevant for this video but other ways of showing you have retained rights of residence if for example your partner passes away then they’re separate provisions in relation to that but when we look at the actual conclusion of a relationship or termination of a marriage then at least the provisions let’s just zoom in on them see you the applicant both frontiers a would be an e EA or non EA Citizen Service applies to both with your European or not who ceased to be a family member of a relevant EA citizen or of a qualifying British citizen as I say Brit assists and exercising treaty rights on the termination of the marriage or civil partnership number two and so I’ve skipped a bit over that bit here just says that you’re deemed to have been in the relationship up to the point that up to the point of actual termination it’s a degree absolute number two that you are resident in the UK at the date of the termination of the marriage or civil partnership so that’s something you have to managed carefully especially if perhaps you might be staying with your parents after a relationship has fallen apart you know out of the country you’ve got to remain and be resident in the UK at the point of the termination on the date of the decree absolute and then one of the following needs to apply so option one here is it’s lasted for three years and you’ve been resident for a continuous qualifying period in the UK of at least one year so to just go over that again prior to the initiation of the proceedings for the termination of the marriage or civil partnership the marriage or civil partnership had lasted for at least three years and the parties to the marriage or civil partnership had been resident for a continuous qualifying period in the UK of at least one year during its duration a big law here has become sly worded but you see the point there so three years and resident for a continuous qualifying period in the UK of at least one year that was a while the relationship subsisted and again it’s deemed to subsist up to the point of the decree absolute secondly you have custody of a child of the relevant EI citizen and remember this is either-or so anyone satisfying any one of these options will be sufficient to show the of retained rights have evidence so you have custody of a child relevant EA citizen or qualifying British citizen or you have a right of access to the child and the court order specifies that the access must take place in the UK and that child is under the age of 18 or the continued right of residence in the UK of a some you in this case is warranted by particularly difficult circumstances I’m touched on this because this doesn’t come up often but in cases where you or another family member had been the victim of domestic violence or abuse while the marriage or civil partnership was subsisting said that wouldn’t often come up but if you don’t satisfy any of these criteria then there may still be a basis view to apply to remain in the UK particular if there’s children involved so I hope that’s helpful in highlighting what the legislation provides this legislation is actually new at the point I’m making this video still relatively new and so caseworkers in the home office are particular confident in applying it so I hope that is helpful and my contact details are below if you want to subscribe for more content on this and related topics feel free to hit the subscribe button and click the notification bell and I will see you in the next video thank you buy for now