thailandbill

Hi,

My daughter is 14 and was born and has spent her whole life in Thailand. She is attending an international school and will be studying for her iGCSE's from August this year.

Based on the responses to my previous post concerning my daughter moving back to study in the UK for university, it would seem the best option would be to send her to the UK to live with her Aunt after her iGCSE's. Then study at a local college for her A levels.

Hopefully with good grades, will probably try to apply for a UK university but may have to wait until her three year resident status is confirmed. She may also consider applying to a European University after her A levels.

So, I have a few questions regarding how and under what legal situation she could stay with her Aunt in order to obtain residency status after three years.

1. Does her Aunt have to legally become her Guardian in order for residency status to kick in? Or could my daughter just stay with her without official guardian status?
2. If she can stay without legal guardianship being established how do the UK authorities judge when her UK residency started?
3. Does anyone have any insight as to how easy/difficult it is to obtain guardianship status when all the concerned parties agree to this outcome?

Many thanks in anticipation for any useful comments or insights.

Editha

I think your daughter could just stay with her aunt, without the need for a court order, but Brit in Paris will be along in a minute to confirm whether I'm right.

scot47

What is her nationality ?

Editha

His previous post says that she is British.

He'll need to provide documentation for the aunt to show that the daughter's stay with the aunt is with her parent's consent, to deal with queries from the school etc. But, I think a letter would suffice.

Novocastrian

In the OP's other thread he states that the whole idea is for the daughter to avoid paying overseas resident fees at uni.

BiP in post #3 points out this won't work.

Editha

No, he doesn't. He says that her stay can't be solely for the purpose of education. If she is actually living permanently with the aunt, that is a different situation.

mikelincs

I suspect this is a grey area, she is moving to live with her aunt so that she can be educated in the UK including college and uni, and that might just be considered as moving purely to get lower uni fees.

Novocastrian

It's not my area of expertise but I tend towards mikelinc's view.

Editha

Nor mine, on the immigration aspect, but I do wonder who would challenge it, supposing she could prove that she'd been in the country for three years, not returning to Thailand during school holidays.

Novocastrian

Agreed, they might get away with it but that doesn't make it right.

Shirtback

It's been quite some years now, but back in the day quite a few HK-based expats I knew used to do this (send children to stay with family members in the UK to attend school & avoid overseas fees for uni). Some were unpleasantly surprised when LEAs caught up with them.

Editha

Are you sure anybody did catch up with them? It's just that I'm puzzled how you would prove that education was the main purpose, in the absence of any other evidence. It is very difficult to prove the state of someone's mind.

If, for example, a teenager was in the UK only because he was boarding at a public school, returning for a substantial part of the holidays to his parent's home abroad, then it is obvious that the main purpose of his residence in the UK is for education.

But if a teenager has actually been living here for three years, with a relative, and says that it is because she prefers the English way of life, or that she prefers her aunt to her parents, or she wanted to maximise her opportunities to attend as many Man United matches an Coldplay concerts as possible, or gives any other reason that isn't completely mad, then how does anybody prove her state of mind was different to what she says it was?

Shirtback

I'm quite sure of the bills received! How the powers that be caught up with them/calculated/analyzed the situation, I don't know. I do know that some chose to "bite the bullet" & pay up, others ignored it as they were already leaving the country, qualifications in hand.

petitefrancaise

Since the child will be 16 when she moves back to the UK, she may not need to have a guardian at all. And if she took a year off (many medical students do this as it is beneficial on the application form) then she would satisfy the 3 yr ordinary residence criteria.

Shirtback, I'd be very surprised at people getting bills after the university education had finished. Your use of "LEA" suggests this was quite some time ago and the system has changed considerably since the government started charging tuition fees. It is very easy for EU students for example to study in the UK and not pay the tuition fees back since they may not be working in the UK after graduation. The same goes for any British student who doesn't work in the UK afterwards. The tuition fee repayments are triggered by the graduate earning over the threshold and are collected directly from the employees as PAYE. So, no earnings in the UK and no automatic collection.

Shirtback

I did mention that my examples happened quite some time ago . The bills/notifications that the students were not eligible for resident status were received before the courses were completed.