Citizenship application, no response in 15 months, what do I do next?

Hello,

I'm an EU citizen that has lived in the UK from 2006, I submitted an online British citizenship application on 3 March 2021, considering that I have gone to primary school in England and also had ILR I assumed that I would receive a response to my citizenship application within a year, as my application was straightforward.

However, it has now been 15 months and 17 days since I have submitted my online citizenship application and I have still not received any correspondance from UK Visas and Immigration, other than a generic email in September 2021 about covid related delays.

I have also sent two email enquiries to UK Visas and Immigration at the begining of 2022 without any response.
In addition, I have also asked my local MP to try and get some kind of information. But, unfortunately after 2 messages the MP has still not received any kind of response from UK Visas and Immigration and it now has been 2 months and 9 days since his first message and 1 month and 9 days since his chassing letter.

I'm wondering if anyone knows what I could do next, I've seen on this forum that many people who applied in 2022 have already been given a response. I'm not sure what else I could do when UK Visas and Immigration is ignoring correspondence from my local MP and me.

Hello

Were you born as an UE citizen? Or do you have any special immigration situation in the EU prior to your EU naturalisation?

I have seen cases slow like that but typically the applicant was an asylum seeker from a country that raised a flag somewhere. That was indeed prior to the EU naturalisation and may cause delays once the EU citizen applies for UK citizenship.

Hi,

I was born in Poland and hold a valid Polish passport. My application was very simple, I've lived in the UK since 2006, went into full time education including university and now I'm in full time employment. I thought that I would receive a reply at most within a year.

Your immigration history as described above appears clear and no reason for such encumbrance. However, there seems to be no logic/order to the way applications are attended to these days.
Try go the route of lodging complaints with HO about the delay.

I see, it does appear that way.
I have sent a complaint to the HO via their online portal, I will see if I get a response anytime soon.

They never reply to that unfortunately, but all the best

Davido9177 wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:12 am

They never reply to that unfortunately, but all the best

It could be a mix bag, however I Can personally attest to 4 applications that appears not to be going any where but got resolved after lodging complaint.

They have 2 weeks left until their 20 working days deadline, I think at this point if they don't reply my only option is to keep sending complaints or hire a lawyer, although I would like to avoid it, as I've already spent enough money on the application.

I will post an update if I hear back from them.

UPDATE:

As of today, I still haven't had any response to my complaint and it is now well past the 20 working day deadline. My MP is also not receiving any responses from UK Visas and Immigration, a month ago my MP raised this with UK Visas and Immigration's Director General but he has also had no response to his enquiry.

It feels like there's no hope in resolving this matter and it seems like UK and Visas Immigration's must have had a data breach and lost my application because there's absolutely no reason for it needing to be taking this long.

I have found another user who has been waiting for 20 months british-citizenship/citizenship-applica ... l#p2079230

I'm now considering making this public via news as I assume I'm not the only person in this situation and it needs to be addressed. If anyone else is in the same situation or has had any luck in having their application processed after such long delays, please reach out.

Saw this post and decided to create an account. You are not alone.

Month 0 - Submitted my application last year, 07.2021.
M1 - One month later I went for the biometrics appointment. I thought it went quite well, in and out in less than 30 minutes.
M3 - Two months later I receive an email from nationalitycovidukvcasreminders@homeoffice.gov.uk, it went straight into spam. Found the email a week later. The content was informing me that I would need to enrol for the biometrics appointment in 30 working days, otherwise the application will be rejected.
I've tried to get in touch with UKVI by phone, absolutely no chance, gave up after 5-6 hours on the phone. After 3 days I came across a forum that suggested to contact them by Twitter, and I did. Two days later I got a response, UKVI official account informed me that it was a technical error and I should ignore that email. I did.
M6 - Months have passed. From what I can see on the forums, people have generally received an email from HO informing that their application will take longer than 6 months. I didn't.
M7 - Once the 6 month since application has passed, I've tried to contact HO. I only got the automatic reply from them, no actual response.
M8 - Tried once again, same result.
M9 - Contacted my local MP. Issue was raised with the HO and the MP informed me the MP office will get back in touch with me once they receive a reply from HO.
- Couple of week after the MP raised the issue with HO I got contacted by email from the HO. First and only contact from them. This email informed me that I need to attend the Biometric appointment. No explanation provided.
- Days after I got a call from UKVI and they booked me for Biometrics, 4 weeks later. No explanation provided.
M10 - Attended the Biometrics appointment, again. Wow this didn't go as I was expecting, checked my passport, fingerprints and then the office worker gets a piece of paper from the printer and start writing on it. Explaining in handwriting that my application was purged and this is a new biometric entry. All existing hope vanished at that point. The system has failed when it was on autopilot, hoping that a handwritten piece of paper will be able to sort what automated forms failed, that's too much for me.
M12 - I've tried to contact HO and the MP office since month 10, but didn't get any reply from any of them.

At this point, all hope is lost. From my point of view this is a mess on HO's side. But they have an easy fix, blame of external information delayed from 3rd party entities and then reject my application. I will not be able to question it anyway, easy way out.

Home office - No transparency and no accountability. I need to apply for a job, sounds like a dream one.

Note: My application is fairly simple.

Yesterday I have sent an email to FurtherNationalityEnquiries@homeoffice.gov.uk as adviced by another member of this forum and I'm not sure whether it's pure coincidence but today I have received a ceremony invitation via email.

It took almost 17 months so hopefully you will get a decision in your case soon.

Congratulations!