Before you can become a UK citizen, you must fulfil good character requirements. To assess this, the Home Office will assess your background to understand whether you have taken any actions that could be deemed as 'anti-UK' or dangerous to other people who live in the country.

Aspects of your background that will be investigated include your immigration history, financial stability and criminal record.

For applications made before 31 July 2023 if you were found to have had a criminal conviction that resulted in a prison sentence of four years or more, you were not eligible to apply for British citizenship at any time. There was a sliding scale of waiting times for those who received lesser sentences. Since that date, Home Office guidance states that applicants will normally be refused if they have received a custodial sentence of at least 12 months, are a persistent offender, or their offence caused serious harm. For lesser sentences, citizenship will be refused to someone who has any length of custodial sentence or out of court disposal and, on balance, they are not of “good character”, as assessed under current guidance. These cases are not clear-cut, and legal advice is recommended. For further detail see our insight piece here.

Your finances will be checked against HMRC and court records; if you have been declared bankrupt, this may prevent you from naturalising. Seek specialist advice from out legal team if this affects you.

As part of your application, you must disclose this information - failure to do so will normally lead to your application being refused.

Criminality and Citizenship Explainer

Since 31 July 2023, different guidance has applied to individuals with criminal convictions who seek to naturalise as British citizens. Previously there was a sliding scale of criminality, which meant that any sentence of imprisonment of 4 years or more would prevent someone from naturalising indefinitely. The new approach is more nuanced, requiring Home Office officials to conduct a holistic assessment of someone’s character.

A person will normally be refused if they:

• have received a custodial sentence of at least 12 months in the UK or overseas
• have consecutive sentences totalling at least 12 months in the UK or overseas
• are a persistent offender who shows a particular disregard for the law
• have committed an offence which has caused serious harm
• have committed a sexual offence or their details are recorded by the police on a register

However, the guidance states that a person must be refused if they have received a custodial sentence of less than 12 months, or a non-custodial outcome, and the official is “not satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that they are of good character.”

The key, therefore, is consideration on a balance of probabilities. Guidance continues:

Where a person has criminality that would not normally result in the refusal of their application, you must decide whether they are of good character, on the balance of probabilities.

An assessment of whether or not a person is of good character on the balance of probabilities, must take account of all available information concerning the applicant’s character, weighing any negative factors around criminality against mitigating factors such as contributions a person has made to society or any significant proportions of a person’s life spent not offending.

You must consider the individual circumstances of the case; what may be appropriate for one case will not be appropriate for another. Each application must be carefully considered on an individual basis on its own merits, giving consideration to the (non-exhaustive) list of factors below:

• Length of time since offences
• Number of offences
• Period over which offences were committed
• Seriousness of the offence(s)
• Any escalation in offending
• Nature of offending
• Age at date of conviction
• Exceptional and mitigating circumstances

It is therefore vital, for an applicant with any kind of criminal record, whether the offences are spent or not under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, to address these bullet points in detail, and to argue that – on balance – you are a person of good character.

If you are refused citizenship, you have the option to seek reconsideration of that decision – an internal review conducted by another Home Office official. If you have not provided any evidence to address these factors, you are unlikely to succeed with reconsideration; a new application is the best course of action.

For expert legal advice, don't hesitate to get in touch with Latitude Law.