British Passport- Issue with referee

I sent my application for my first British passport and as a referee I put a person that has a UK passport, know me more than 2 years, lives in the UK and is over 18 years old.

They rejected that person, but they didn't tell me why on their email. I call them and they said do they meet the criteria and I said yes. They asked me what job they do and I said they work in customer service for a company. They said it's not one of the recognised professions.

So, does the referee has to have a role in one of the profession they describe on their website?

I'm struggling to find a manager etc who I would feel confident to ask to be the referee for my application because I'm new to my current job and the previous jobs I had I didn't develop a good relationship with managers. Plus I don't know if they have a UK passport. I feel awkward asking them out of the blue and after so many years of not talking to them.

Has anyone used a referee that had just a simple office based job in a company?

As it happens, I supported a passport application as a referee myself today. And the application specifically asks the referee to state which category they fall under, from the list on the Gov.UK website.

It is a fairly long list, so you must know somebody (such as a neighbour) who meets the requirements on the list.

So, I did find a suitable referee and she submitted the details on Monday 04/07. Does anyone know how long it will take for them to check my application again?

I sent my documents on 24/05 and it was delivered on 26/05. But the tracking only shows that the documents were received on 01/06. It took them until 27/06 to check my referee and tell me that I need to provide a new one because apparently they didn't like the one I chose.

So, if the details from my new referee were submitted on 04/07, will it take for them another 4 weeks to check my application again?

I'm so disappointed....

Nicky_ wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 10, 2022 8:38 pm

So, I did find a suitable referee and she submitted the details on Monday 04/07. Does anyone know how long it will take for them to check my application again?

I sent my documents on 24/05 and it was delivered on 26/05. But the tracking only shows that the documents were received on 01/06. It took them until 27/06 to check my referee and tell me that I need to provide a new one because apparently they didn't like the one I chose.

So, if the details from my new referee were submitted on 04/07, will it take for them another 4 weeks to check my application again?

I'm so disappointed....

An exact response can not be given to your question. There are delays experienced and best chance to make it minimal is submitting an application that goes through once.
You can only guesstimate based on the previous timeline of your initial submission.
Note that the acknowledgement of receipt is so probably because the collection is not done with which delivered document but rather collected from a central bulk reception or facility.

It's OK. Eventually, my application was approved a week after the new referee submitted the details and received the passports a few days later.

Congratulations