New citizenship form UKF

Hi everyone, i pray and hope we all come out successful as we v all put in our time and the long wait esp those in the US. i however want to ask a question.
armed with a citizenship certificate and a british passport, if i want to relocate say later in the year.
can someone point me in the right direction or forum topic to learn from.how do one relocate and settle down.what do i have to look out for or prepare myself for bfor leaving

thanks

keji wrote:Hi everyone, i pray and hope we all come out successful as we v all put in our time and the long wait esp those in the US. i however want to ask a question.
armed with a citizenship certificate and a british passport, if i want to relocate say later in the year.
can someone point me in the right direction or forum topic to learn from.how do one relocate and settle down.what do i have to look out for or prepare myself for bfor leaving

thanks

Keji I'm planning on moving as soon as I get mine so I understand your need for answers! I've found uk-yankee.com to be the best source for overseas movers, bank accounts, how to get an apartment etc. best of luck!

Keji,

Try Britishexpats.com too. If you go to the "Moving back to the UK" forum there is a lot of info on there that might be helpful.

Good luck with everything!

Well,

I feel almost guilty given how long a few others have had to wait, but I received the letter of 'successful application' today. It took (for timeline purposes) almost 20 weeks, or a little short of 5 calendar months. They returned a couple more of my docs with it, but still forgot one. So, I'm going to have to follow up about that. Anyway, my letter was the stock one which says I need to wait (up to) 6 weeks to be invited to a citizenship ceremony, and that I should not follow up with my consulate until that time has passed. And as I don't get the citizenship until I go through the ceremony, I'm not going to bust out the gin & tonics until then, but hopefully it works out, and sooner rather than later.

Fingers crossed for bfrenchfry, Njprof and Antsmall, et al. who did their biometrics right around the same time.

bfrenchfry wrote:

keji wrote:Hi everyone, i pray and hope we all come out successful as we v all put in our time and the long wait esp those in the US. i however want to ask a question.
armed with a citizenship certificate and a british passport, if i want to relocate say later in the year.
can someone point me in the right direction or forum topic to learn from.how do one relocate and settle down.what do i have to look out for or prepare myself for bfor leaving

thanks

Keji I'm planning on moving as soon as I get mine so I understand your need for answers! I've found uk-yankee.com to be the best source for overseas movers, bank accounts, how to get an apartment etc. best of luck!

Thks bfrenchfry,will try d forum.this board as bin more than helpful.and by the way,let's keep in touch esp if we relocate.such minds on this forum can do great tins together, after all our history and fights immigration wise r similar.
Thks so much

Lizzie64 wrote:Keji,

Try Britishexpats.com too. If you go to the "Moving back to the UK" forum there is a lot of info on there that might be helpful.

Good luck with everything!

Thks Lizzie64, I appreciate

Roka1404 wrote:Hi JJL

Thanks so much for the reply, could I ask a few more questions;

1. Did you have your father's expired British passport?

2. Did you use a vault copy of your birth certificate or unabridged? How long did vault if it was vault? We are awaiting the vault now.

3. Did you have a British passport holding referee?

4. With returning your documents - did the Home Office call and let you know that your documents were ready and you organised DHL to pick them up?

Thanks again!

Hi Roka 1404

1. No I only had his passport number and birth certificate which I obtained through the UK national records.
2. I Used our South African unabridged birth certificate, which I think is the same as the vault. I had mine already so didn't have to wait for it. I know home affairs are speeding things up so you should have it in a few weeks.
3. I used one British referee who was an attorney. It is not a train smash if you cannot find one but I know for a fact they process the application quicker with a British referee. This is stated under the advice for passports and other Home Office advice channels.
4. No, the Home Office did not immediately let me know my documents were ready to be sent, but I basically begged them in my cover letter to send it back via registered post and they did. I would go one step further and try arrange that they do contact you so you can arrange DHL to collect at your expense. Explain this as a way of avoiding the terrible South African postal system. All you can do is ask as politely as possible and my experience with the Home Office has been fantastic.

As an update, I had my ceremony and received my British Citizenship on Friday last week, and have submitted my passport application. The official at the South African consulate said that mine was the first citizenship given under section 4G (being the UKF form) in South AFRICA. So lets keep them coming

All the best!

Hey JJL (and whomever has already been successful),

What was the passport process? I'm still waiting to hear about a ceremony, but I thought I'd look into the passport thing in case there's a lot of prep. After a bit of googling, it seemed like all avenues led to an online application through the Home Office website. Is that what you found? Apparently there are no more old-fashioned forms to fill out and mail in? The looks of the online route have me a bit nervous, as it says that you'll need both parents' passports, etc etc. and when I looked at the supporting guide, it didn't seem to be updated yet the for the UKF and mentioned ineligibility for children of unwed fathers prior to '83.

Is this what you found too? Any hiccups with the being a UKF passport applicant? DId you find it was all online too?

Thanks

canabrit wrote:Hey JJL (and whomever has already been successful),

What was the passport process? I'm still waiting to hear about a ceremony, but I thought I'd look into the passport thing in case there's a lot of prep. After a bit of googling, it seemed like all avenues led to an online application through the Home Office website. Is that what you found? Apparently there are no more old-fashioned forms to fill out and mail in? The looks of the online route have me a bit nervous, as it says that you'll need both parents' passports, etc etc. and when I looked at the supporting guide, it didn't seem to be updated yet the for the UKF and mentioned ineligibility for children of unwed fathers prior to '83.

Is this what you found too? Any hiccups with the being a UKF passport applicant? DId you find it was all online too?

Thanks

Hi Canabrit

The passport process is actually very straight forward and so quick. All you need is your parents passport number (if known), your registration of British Citizenship certificate, a full colour copy of your non-british passport, 2 photographs and a proof of residence of address. You fill out details online (under first adult passport outside the UK) and where ever you don't have details they give you a space to explain. Once you have applied online, you pay and then print out a declaration form. You sign the declaration form and have the counter signatory (preferably a British passport holder) counter sign the same page, and sign the back of your photograph. Once this is done, you DHL the declaration page and your supporting documents (as mentioned above) to the address given on the declaration documents you downloaded. The passport process for overseas applicants seem to be really quick, and I have a colleague who received his in under a week which is awesome.

The point is once the citizenship is confirmed, the passport process is so straight forward and you can track the status of the passport online.

All the best.

Hi JJL
My husband applied from Durban South africa. The application took 6 months to approve. He received his approval letter on 8th January. We have heard nothing from the British High Commission about the ceremony and we have passed the 6 week time frame. We emailed the necessary email contact in the UK and received no response. I phoned the high commission in pretoria this morning and the lady told me i just need to wait for them to contact my husband. I am very worried about the 3 month cut-off date to have the ceremony, as it has already been a month an a half since the approval letter. How long did you wait for the consulate to contact you about the ceremony? Thank you!

JJL wrote:Hi All,

The British High Commission in South Africa has contacted me and I have my ceremony next week. Meaning, this time next week I will be a British Citizen. Such an amazing feeling. I applied from South Africa and my total time line was 4 months and a half months. Good luck everyone and thank you so much for all of your assistance on this forum. If there are any South African applicants please feel free to reach out to me, I might be able to provide some useful tips and hints.

Hi JJL
My husband applied from Durban South africa. The application took 6 months to approve. He received his approval letter on 8th January. We have heard nothing from the British High Commission about the ceremony and we have passed the 6 week time frame. We emailed the necessary email contact in the UK and received no response. I phoned the high commission in pretoria this morning and the lady told me i just need to wait for them to contact my husband. I am very worried about the 3 month cut-off date to have the ceremony, as it has already been a month an a half since the approval letter. How long did you wait for the consulate to contact you about the ceremony? Thank you!

Julie8ball wrote:Hi JJL
My husband applied from Durban South africa. The application took 6 months to approve. He received his approval letter on 8th January. We have heard nothing from the British High Commission about the ceremony and we have passed the 6 week time frame. We emailed the necessary email contact in the UK and received no response. I phoned the high commission in pretoria this morning and the lady told me i just need to wait for them to contact my husband. I am very worried about the 3 month cut-off date to have the ceremony, as it has already been a month an a half since the approval letter. How long did you wait for the consulate to contact you about the ceremony? Thank you!

Hi Julie8ball

I am so sorry to hear about your husbands wait. I received notice from the Home Office in early January saying that a decision had been made and that my documents were sent on the 18th of December 2015. They arrived in Cape Town in mid January. I contacted the consular office at SA.assistance@fco.gov.uk who put me in contact with a gentleman by the name of Paresh in the Pretoria consulate. I think do the same and explain your concerns, be as polite as possible, and ask for an email address for Paresh Mistry. In the email put your details such as your full name, home office reference number, South African passport number etc. Hopefully this helps. All the best

JJL wrote:
Hi Canabrit

The passport process is actually very straight forward and so quick. All you need is your parents passport number (if known), your registration of British Citizenship certificate, a full colour copy of your non-british passport, 2 photographs and a proof of residence of address. You fill out details online (under first adult passport outside the UK) and where ever you don't have details they give you a space to explain. Once you have applied online, you pay and then print out a declaration form. You sign the declaration form and have the counter signatory (preferably a British passport holder) counter sign the same page, and sign the back of your photograph. Once this is done, you DHL the declaration page and your supporting documents (as mentioned above) to the address given on the declaration documents you downloaded. The passport process for overseas applicants seem to be really quick, and I have a colleague who received his in under a week which is awesome.

The point is once the citizenship is confirmed, the passport process is so straight forward and you can track the status of the passport online.

All the best.

Hey JJL,

Thanks for the reply. That's a relief - especially that they give you room to explain, because I don't have my father's passport, and on the latest guide I see online (after going through a few questions that determined I'd be applying from Canada), they still haven't incorporated the UKF rule change for fathers. You can see on page 6, it still says your father needed to be married, blah blah. And yet this guide was apparently updated in September. Ohhh the Home Office...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... uk#history

canabrit wrote:Well,

I feel almost guilty given how long a few others have had to wait, but I received the letter of 'successful application' today. It took (for timeline purposes) almost 20 weeks, or a little short of 5 calendar months. They returned a couple more of my docs with it, but still forgot one. So, I'm going to have to follow up about that. Anyway, my letter was the stock one which says I need to wait (up to) 6 weeks to be invited to a citizenship ceremony, and that I should not follow up with my consulate until that time has passed. And as I don't get the citizenship until I go through the ceremony, I'm not going to bust out the gin & tonics until then, but hopefully it works out, and sooner rather than later.

Fingers crossed for bfrenchfry, Njprof and Antsmall, et al. who did their biometrics right around the same time.

Congratulations Canabrit! I do have hope it means they are finally moving on many of us who seemed to have been passed by! I assume you otherwise had heard nothing between the time you did the biometrics until the letter?

I've always found it's much better to speak to the Home Office over the phone rather than via email or post. My wife is of Indian origin and is currently applying for British citizenship and we emailed and they were useless, however when we phoned the home office http://www.customerserviceguru.co.uk/ho ... ct-number/ they were very useful and helped us loads!

canabrit wrote:Hey JJL (and whomever has already been successful),

What was the passport process? I'm still waiting to hear about a ceremony, but I thought I'd look into the passport thing in case there's a lot of prep. After a bit of googling, it seemed like all avenues led to an online application through the Home Office website. Is that what you found? Apparently there are no more old-fashioned forms to fill out and mail in? The looks of the online route have me a bit nervous, as it says that you'll need both parents' passports, etc etc. and when I looked at the supporting guide, it didn't seem to be updated yet the for the UKF and mentioned ineligibility for children of unwed fathers prior to '83.

Is this what you found too? Any hiccups with the being a UKF passport applicant? DId you find it was all online too?

Thanks

the passport stage is so straight forward and fast once you have your registration certificate. all those info about parents passport and the rest does not concern people like us. the guidelines/ supporting documents tables tells you wat you will need for a first passport if your v a reg/naturalization certificate already :- form,2 passport photographs, photocopies of ur other passport, reg cert and means of identification, simple. no long thing they only need to verify the certificate is genuine . they v nothing to prove, less work. my is about a week now, they took d fee d same day !

I hope it's as quick and painless as you say, keji! Thanks. I may have to wait a bit before I get on with that stage though. Today made three weeks since my acceptance letter was dated, so I have to wait another 3 before I can inquire about the citizenship ceremony. Hopefully I get a call before then.

No news for you, NJProfessor (or bfrenchfry)? And your guess is right- I didn't hear anything in between the biometrics and the letter.

I'm now a British Citizen!

Thanks to everyone who has posted helpful information on this thread.

I do have a question though, we were told we will need to send our certificate with our passport application, can I get a certified copy and use that instead of the original?

canabrit wrote:

JJL wrote:
Hi Canabrit

The passport process is actually very straight forward and so quick. All you need is your parents passport number (if known), your registration of British Citizenship certificate, a full colour copy of your non-british passport, 2 photographs and a proof of residence of address. You fill out details online (under first adult passport outside the UK) and where ever you don't have details they give you a space to explain. Once you have applied online, you pay and then print out a declaration form. You sign the declaration form and have the counter signatory (preferably a British passport holder) counter sign the same page, and sign the back of your photograph. Once this is done, you DHL the declaration page and your supporting documents (as mentioned above) to the address given on the declaration documents you downloaded. The passport process for overseas applicants seem to be really quick, and I have a colleague who received his in under a week which is awesome.

The point is once the citizenship is confirmed, the passport process is so straight forward and you can track the status of the passport online.

All the best.

Hey JJL,

Thanks for the reply. That's a relief - especially that they give you room to explain, because I don't have my father's passport, and on the latest guide I see online (after going through a few questions that determined I'd be applying from Canada), they still haven't incorporated the UKF rule change for fathers. You can see on page 6, it still says your father needed to be married, blah blah. And yet this guide was apparently updated in September. Ohhh the Home Office...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... uk#history

Hi Canabrit

So some fantastic news to back up how straight forward the passport process will be for us UKF applicants. I posted my documents and declaration via DHL last week Friday. It arrived on Monday at the HM Passport Office in Durham on Tuesday. I today received an email saying my application has been approved and that I will receive my passport within the next 7 days. That means the process took less than a week. In the email they explained the effects of Section 4g and what it would mean in relation to passing on citizenship. This shows that the passport office is fully up to date with the UKF citizenship route and their service has been nothing short of outstanding.

Best of luck everyone.

Ben170292 wrote:I'm now a British Citizen!

Thanks to everyone who has posted helpful information on this thread.

I do have a question though, we were told we will need to send our certificate with our passport application, can I get a certified copy and use that instead of the original?

congrats!
But No sir!
No certified true copy.the instructions r clear. Original everything except your international passport even that it was recently changed Before its original too.so don't let them Reject ur application.follow the instructions

keji wrote:congrats!
But No sir!
No certified true copy.the instructions r clear. Original everything except your international passport even that it was recently changed Before its original too.so don't let them Reject ur application.follow the instructions

Thanks keji, that's what I thought but I thought it was worth asking just in case.

You don't have to send an original foreign passport any more to apply for a first adult British passport? If that is the case, would you mind sending us the link to the page where it says that? It would be very useful. I haven't had the time to keep up with this lately.

(As for my citizenship application, I'm still waiting, nine months after applying. Not so stellar or fantastic).

Antsmall wrote:You don't have to send an original foreign passport any more to apply for a first adult British passport? If that is the case, would you mind sending us the link to the page where it says that? It would be very useful. I haven't had the time to keep up with this lately.

(As for my citizenship application, I'm still waiting, nine months after applying. Not so stellar or fantastic).

Refer to:
** https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... s-guidance**

You however need at least a photo ID issue by d govt of ur country of residence.

Oh great! I've just checked the table Keji sent showing the supporting documents to passport application. it seems they changed the rules making possible to send copies of our passports which is great!

ps. as UKF applicants, in passport application, we don't need a countersignatory?

Antsmall, i feel deeply sorry for you... hoping you can still have a positive answer this week!

bright_star wrote:Oh great! I've just checked the table Keji sent showing the supporting documents to passport application. it seems they changed the rules making possible to send copies of our passports which is great!

ps. as UKF applicants, in passport application, we don't need a counter signatory?

Antsmall, i feel deeply sorry for you... hoping you can still have a positive answer this week!

even me too but am definitely positive, Antsmall and co will hear +ve news soonest too. none of us will be denied.
and
of cause, you do need one counter-signatory.even as UKF applicant