Hi all,

I’ve been in Australia for 21 years now. I am a dual citizen and have maintained both sets of passports. I have two children, one born to me and who is also a British citizen by descent. She has a current British passport as well as an Australian one, no trouble at all with this.

Now the other child... I adopted with my ex husband through the Hague convention from a Hague compliant country.This child is an Australian citizen only. I would like to apply for British citizenship for him as well as his adoptive parent. I would like him to have the same choice as his sister when they are adults. I might one day move back, not really sure yet but definitely not until both kids are at least 18. My ex husband is okay with this and would give consent for such an application. The adopted child is nearly 13 and has been in our family for 10 years.

The difficulty is that I’m permanently resident in Australia and we adopted while in Australia. I read the citizenship website and the application form and it said that cases like ours were discretionarily considered “case by case”.

Would you recommend I get professional assistance with this application or is it fairly straightforward despite the cautious language used?

Thanks for any responses.

Thank you BritinParis, sounds like it will be a bit more straightforward than I thought.