Hi folks

I wonder if anyone with good knowledge of Spaniards way of thinking would help me out here.

My story in brief:

I’m non-EU (doctor) married to a Spaniard and moved to Spain in Mar 2008. Since my Tarjeta de Residencia (communitario) was issued in May 2008 I had worked (not as doctor) and paid taxes and “seguridad social” till Aug 2008. Thereafter and while my medical degree was in the process of “Homologacion” at Ministerio de Educacion, I had been offered a good job in the UK. I took the post and been flying between Spain and the UK till June 2009 when I applied and was granted UK residence card. As a family we moved to live in England in Aug 2009. My wife was issued a Registration Certificate here as EU national living in the UK. We fly to Spain very frequently and I am still registered as resident in Madrid with an active “empadronamiento”. I applied for my Spanish citizenship in Nov 2009 but never heard a word yet. I consulted an immigrant lawyer who drew up an appeal for me stating that my decision to look for job in another EU country was justified. Otherwise how I would have earned money for living.

I am bit disorientated. Shall I wait to see what their reply would be, or shall we move back to Spain and complete the full year residency. (which I think I might have legally done form Mar 2008 till Aug 2008 and then intermittently till Aug 2009)

Any advice would be much appreciated.

I thought it was against the rules to claim to be Spanish resident and on the padron if you are now not living full time and working in Spain - but assume your solicitor knows best. I don’t think Spain is short of medical staff as they also employ many EU staff in our region to help deal with all the foreign residents - but I would have thought having a Spanish wife would have given you an advantage.

You cannot be a Spanish National if your living in a country other than Spain before you apply, you need to be resident in Spain for one yr and married for one yr to a Spanish National at the time of application and during the process.

Under Royal Decree the govt does reserve the right to refuse Nationality to anybody they want, simply being married to a National sometimes does not always bring Nationality, each application is assessed as to the validity of the applicant and there reasons.

Your wife has shown residency in the UK, so they will know you are not a resident and being a Non EU person you will be investigated and they will check your current residency status and then will make a decision based on that.

Solicitors are experts at making the law seem challenging, otherwise they would be poor and unemployed, a bit like you having a Cancer patient, you cannot predict with a certainty what course the Cancer will take, you can only predict based on previous cases and make a judgment. So how good or bad the advice is extremely difficult to prove, but one point is always true, it will cost money and will not be returned if you loose and near impossible to prove the advice was bad.

jundoc - 04 October 2010 03:00 PM

Hi folks

My story in brief:

I’m non-EU (doctor) married to a Spaniard and moved to Spain in Mar 2008. Since my Tarjeta de Residencia (communitario) was issued in May 2008 I had worked (not as doctor) and paid taxes and “seguridad social” till Aug 2008. Thereafter and while my medical degree was in the process of “Homologacion” at Ministerio de Educacion, I had been offered a good job in the UK. I took the post and been flying between Spain and the UK till June 2009 when I applied and was granted UK residence card. As a family we moved to live in England in Aug 2009. My wife was issued a Registration Certificate here as EU national living in the UK. We fly to Spain very frequently and I am still registered as resident in Madrid with an active “empadronamiento”. I applied for my Spanish citizenship in Nov 2009 but never heard a word yet.

after a 6 months to a year from application the police will send a letter to your registered residence asking you to submit the same documents when you applied, so how do you prove you are working and residing in spain? sometimes the police checks if you really live in your registered domicile. if you are not found, the application is denied.

total period of time from application to getting your spanish birth certificate and passport and dni is around 2 years and a half maximum, if everything is in order.

you are applying for citizenship thru residency and your required residency period is lowered to 1 year before application as a privilege for being married to spaniard so long as you go on residing and working in spain.

jundoc - 04 October 2010 03:00 PM

I consulted an immigrant lawyer who drew up an appeal for me stating that my decision to look for job in another EU country was justified. Otherwise how I would have earned money for living.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

if you think this justifies your spanish citizenship application while living abroad, then all foreigners married to spaniards living abroad should/would be given spanish citizenship.

many have tried this, i just don’t know how many succeeded.

Thanks all for your inputs.

ROB1305 - I can’t work as medical professional yet in Spain as my degree’s “Homologacion” still processing. For that reason I looked for and secured a medical job in another EU country while awaiting my degree to be recognised in Spain.

Santi - Currently I live and work in the UK. True, this is my current residency. However I lived and paid taxes and sequirdad social in Spain for about six months (first arrived on reunion visa in Mar 08 and granted residencia in May 08), thereafter been in and out of Spain for another six months before I became officially resident in another EU country (UK) in June 2009 (when my UK residence card was issued) . In other words I completed the 1 year residency in Spain while married to a Spaniard before moving to live in the UK officially. We will head back to live in Spain once I’ll be able to work with my degree being sorted out and secure acceptable monthly wage. We already got a flat near Madrid and do not know if this might help in my application.

As far as I know the Law doesn’t require applicant to be resident in Spain while applying for citizenship given that he/she meets the criteria of .. say being married to spaniard and completed 1 year of residency in Spanish territories.

aritz - Do you have to be working for the whole year to be eligible for citizenship? I don’t think this is the case. What if someone has some savings and looking for a job. What if someone has worked in “black market .. ie not paying taxes and social security”. To prove the full one year of residency would be still tricky and widely arguable. You could claim you have been jobless/looking for a job (although not registered like this with social security).

I don’t know .. Probably if somebody who has gone thru this before could shed some light.

jundoc - 05 October 2010 05:55 PM

As far as I know the Law doesn’t require applicant to be resident in Spain while applying for citizenship given that he/she meets the criteria of .. say being married to spaniard and completed 1 year of residency in Spanish territories.

 

i know many people who said this, and applied and got denied. the police checks all the pages of your passport. if you were in the schengen area, there would be no entry or exit stamps, but you live in the uk.
i think you are the only one who is saying the above.  i ll read the civil code and the registro civl law again to be sure.

aritz - Do you have to be working for the whole year to be eligible for citizenship? I don’t think this is the case. What if someone has some savings and looking for a job. What if someone has worked in “black market .. ie not paying taxes and social security”. To prove the full one year of residency would be still tricky and widely arguable. You could claim you have been jobless/looking for a job (although not registered like this with social security).

when someone applies for citizenship, he is required to submit documents showing his means of livelihood, such as, contract, vida laboral, the last three n?minas (payslips), tax declaration.  if someone is looking for a job, he is required to submit the document from the inem showing is a demandante de empleo, certificate from hacienda that he was not requiered to make the annual tax declaration. if someone has worked in the black market, well,  he cannot document that, can he?

applicants do not argue with civil servants and the police, they just inform the applicants of the documents to be submitted and their decision depends on how they percieve what is submitted.

good luck, though