How To Apply for the Right of Abode in Hong Kong – Without Any Professional Help – “Continuous Ordinary Residence”?
Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Musing / 14 responses
10 Must Have Resources for A Successful Hong Kong Right of Abode Application
By definition, continuous ordinary residence is exactly that.
For the purposes of the right of abode in Hong Kong, continuity of residence, at the very least, anticipates back to back residence visas of any such kind that qualify.
This excludes certain types of temporary residents of Hong Kong such as foreign domestic helpers, workers admitted under the Supplementary Labour Scheme, torture convention claimants and asylum seekers.
But for most other types of visa holders, including anyone who has spent a few years here as a student, you’re going to qualify as a resident without too much of an ado.
The common law, however, has long set out the precedent that “Ordinary Resident is not a term of art in Hong Kong law “
In their natural and ordinary meaning, the words ‘ordinarily resident’ mean ‘that the person must be habitually and normally resident here, apart from temporary or occasional absences of long or short duration’.
The significance of the adverb ‘habitually’ is that it involves two necessary features, namely residence adopted voluntarily for a settled purpose with each case determined on its own merits entirely.