November 2013 - Naturalization Application Timeline

Good morning everyone , I need very urgent advice please. I intend to travel out of the country this week, but my naturalisation application was received by home office on the 19th of November, 2013- confirmed thru. Post office tracking .My question now is that the fees have not been deducted likewise I have not receive an acknowledgement letter from home office, does travel out of the country will affect my application or not because someone told me you need to be in country. You reply will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Good morning everyone, I intend to travel out of the country this week, but my Naturilisation application is still with home office and the money have not been taken from My account since 19th of November, 2013 when Home office received my application- this is confirmed thru. Post office. My question is that travel out of the country is going to affect my application because a friend mentioned that I need to be in the country during processing. Your honest advice will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Akkylom

Personally i feel there are no restrictions on going out of country after application is filled. Only issue is they might want to contact you for some details and for which its best of your interest to be reachable through all contactable ways. i.e by post , email, phone

Thanks for the quick response, I will have access to my email, post cos my wife will be around to check that for me ..it's only my phone that might not be reachable unless I leave it behind.
Thanks

With the application workload and current trend I don't think HO will even treat your application till the end of January.
I submitted my application on the 21/11 and have travelled out of the UK twice on short trips.

I have posted my timeline details in one of the other forums but think this one is more appropriate since I'm a 'November' application:

Eligibility criteria: 5 Years (HMSP + Tier 1) + 1 Year ILR
Language criteria met: Country of origin, New Zealand
Current nationality: New Zealand
Method of application: NCS
Council name if NCS used: Wandsworth
Date of application: 18/11/2013
Payment method: Debit from credit card
Date of receipt by UKBA: 19/11/2013 (via Post Office recorded delivery)
Date of acknowledgement: TBA
Date of debit or clearance of fees: 13/01/2014
Date approval received: TBA
Date of ceremony: TBA

I was advised by the NCS Wandsworth officer when I applied that my application would take longer due to the October backlog, but still wasn't expecting it to be 6 weeks later with still no fees debited, or acknowledgement letter received!

*Update - I have now confirmed my clearance of fees date, see above.

missnorush,

We are in the same boat... We have to be patient; the rush in October due to the rule change is what has caused the delay.

Once the October applications have been cleared I'm sure things will get back to normal.

missnorush wrote: I was advised by the NCS Wandsworth officer when I applied that my application would take longer due to the October backlog, but still wasn't expecting it to be 6 weeks later with still no fees debited, or acknowledgement letter received!

There are applicants on 24th/25th Oct who's fees neither yet deducted nor application acknowledged.. so at this moment we have delay of at least 8/9 weeks and every chance that many applications will see decision taking 6 months.

On the positive side, there won't be any bank/public holidays until second half of April after first week of Jan, meaning for next 3 months there will be lot of work (Hopefully) by Nationality team. I'd say roughly expect your application to be acknowledged towards the end of Jan/early Feb... If you get it earlier, consider yourself lucky in chaos!!

Eligibility criteria: 3 years spouse of BC
Language criteria met (UK degree, exempt countries, PBS used documents, NARIC, or B1 test): B1 test
Current nationality: South African
Method of application: NCS
Council name if NCS used: Brent
Date of application: 27/11/13
Payment method CC/DC, Personal cheque, Bankers cheque etc: credit card
Date of receipt by UKBA: 28/11/13
Date of aknowlegment:
Date of debit or clearance of fees: 15/01/14
Date approval received:
Date of ceremony:

This is making me worried and tense now as I intend to apply via NCS in a few days time.
Looking at october applicant timelines about half have had their approvals within 2 months. So fingers crossed!!
Also I have a question regarding the referees page. did u ppl glued your foto to that page or just attached it in a separate envelope.

I glued my picture to the referee section, this was fine with the NCS.

HTH

MattSule wrote:missnorush,

We are in the same boat... We have to be patient; the rush in October due to the rule change is what has caused the delay.

Once the October applications have been cleared I'm sure things will get back to normal.

Yes, quite right MattSule - patience is definitely required and the hope that the new year brings speedy processing for all of us!

p2kin wrote:

missnorush wrote: I was advised by the NCS Wandsworth officer when I applied that my application would take longer due to the October backlog, but still wasn't expecting it to be 6 weeks later with still no fees debited, or acknowledgement letter received!

There are applicants on 24th/25th Oct who's fees neither yet deducted nor application acknowledged.. so at this moment we have delay of at least 8/9 weeks and every chance that many applications will see decision taking 6 months.

On the positive side, there won't be any bank/public holidays until second half of April after first week of Jan, meaning for next 3 months there will be lot of work (Hopefully) by Nationality team. I'd say roughly expect your application to be acknowledged towards the end of Jan/early Feb... If you get it earlier, consider yoursef lucky in chaos!!

Thanks p2kin - good point about no more public holidays! With all the wonderfully helpful information on this forum I've now set my expectations for an end of Jan acknowledgement and (fingers crossed) end of Feb approval. Probably double the time I was expecting, but I've been luckily with all my previous visa applications being quick so it's my turn to wait this time.

i applied on 4th of November, no deductions have been made and no letter either.

innocentdevil wrote:i applied on 4th of November, no deductions have been made and no letter either.

I think Nov (or possibly new rule) applicants should expect movement from 2nd week of Jan (13th onwanrds).. still 25th Oct going on..

Does anyone know how long it is currently taking from the time of application of BC with a NCS? I applied 6 December 2013 but have not yet even got a receipt confirmation nor have has my bank account been debited!

M

kurly1000 wrote:Does anyone know how long it is currently taking from the time of application of BC with a NCS? I applied 6 December 2013 but have not yet even got a receipt confirmation nor have has my bank account been debited!

You've got a while to wait. The HO is still on October applications. See here. Realistically, for a December 6th application, check back in February.

jotter wrote:

kurly1000 wrote:Does anyone know how long it is currently taking from the time of application of BC with a NCS? I applied 6 December 2013 but have not yet even got a receipt confirmation nor have has my bank account been debited!

You've got a while to wait. The HO is still on October applications. See here. Realistically, for a December 6th application, check back in February.

Hey Jotter, First of all thank you very much for compiling such fine statistics... If it's not too much, can I ask for bit more in the stats? How about having an extra column for percentage of payment taken?

So, say e.g

WEEK = No of APPS (PAYMENT TAKEN) (APPROVED)
Oct 28-Nov 3 = 14 (7%) (7%)


Also, is there any chance on finding out :
1. average time taken for payment to be taken from date of application
2. average time taken for approval from payment taken date
3. average time taken for approval from application date

With all these, stats, may of such questions will be automatically answered.

I'd be happy to help you, let me know if I can do something to help you..

Hi p2kin,

Regarding payment taken, I have been charting this for October in a separate table in the October timelines topic. You can find it here. Once fee deductions start for November I'll create a November table here.

The thing to bear in mind with averages like that is that you can have a fairly small sample of approvals for a week, and then someone posts to say that they got approval for an application from 6-8 months ago and that can throw the average right out and give posters the wrong idea about how long its taking for 'most' applications. For this reason I've preferred just to give an indication about which day the HO seems to be 'up to' for payments and approvals and posters can draw their own conclusions from that. e.g. currently for approvals they seem to be mostly working on apps received between Oct 17-23, while for payments taken they are on apps received on Oct 25. This is of course a very unusual scenario caused by the huge number of applications packed into the final pre-KOLL-change week. Typically the time between payments and approvals is around 3-4 weeks.

If you would still like to post something with averages, I'm happy to send you the raw data I've collected if you ping me a PM.

jotter wrote: If you would still like to post something with averages, I'm happy to send you the raw data I've collected if you ping me a PM.

sent you PM..

looks like I can't upload a xls/csv/txt/html file with upload attachment below. you'll have to send me on my email address that I sent to you in PM.

Eligibility criteria: Work Permit 5 years + 1 year ILR
Method of application: NCS
Date of application: 25/11/13
Date of receipt by UKBA: 27/11/13
Date of acknowledgement : Not yet
Date of debit of fees: Not yet
Date of approval: Not yet
Date of Ceremony: Not yet

I have heard that there have being a lot of delays, but I have not read any case like mine. I submited the paperwork the 25th of Nov 2013 (6 weeks after this and my case has not being acknowledge yet)
Has anybody applied around the same time and received acknowledgement?

Juan_C wrote:Eligibility criteria: Work Permit 5 years + 1 year ILR
Method of application: NCS
Date of application: 25/11/13
Date of receipt by UKBA: 27/11/13
Date of acknowledgement : Not yet
Date of debit of fees: Not yet
Date of approval: Not yet
Date of Ceremony: Not yet

I have heard that there have being a lot of delays, but I have not read any case like mine. I submited the paperwork the 25th of Nov 2013 (6 weeks after this and my case has not being acknowledge yet)
Has anybody applied around the same time and received acknowledgement?

There are people still who applied on 25th Oct (yes Oct) & still waiting for payment to be taken/acknowledgement. For you, realistically speaking... don't expect anything before Feb.

Keep following Oct timeline..

Eligibility criteria: 5 Years Ancestry + 1 year ILR
Language criteria met: New Zealand Passport
Method of application: NCS Wandsworth
Date of application: 01/11/2013
Date of receipt by UKBA: 04/11/2013
Date of aknowlegment:
Date of debit or clearance of fees: Account dropped 09/01/2014. Confirmed with bank it was £874 for application
Date approval received:
Date of ceremony:

10.5 wrote:
Date of debit or clearance of fees: Account dropped 09/01/2014. Confirmed with bank it was £874 for application

Good to hear. This is the first news that November applications are now being looked at (though admittedly there are still a lot of late-Oct applications to get through).

jotter wrote:

10.5 wrote:
Date of debit or clearance of fees: Account dropped 09/01/2014. Confirmed with bank it was £874 for application

Good to hear. This is the first news that November applications are now being looked at (though admittedly there are still a lot of late-Oct applications to get through).

I'm just hoping that this is not sporadic case like Pqek and they are really pulling a bunch.... so I will wait for another 3-4 days to see consistency for Nov people...