two (perhaps silly) questions about Naturalisation form AN

will be applying in 4 months based on 5 yrs WP+HSMP & 1 yr ILR

1. If I got my ILR on 23/02/2009 - can I book the NCS appointment for the 22/02/2010 or must it be 1 year exactly for the NCS appointment (surly, it won't get to ukba on the same day?)

2. In the AN form, it is required to specify your addresses for the last 5 years. I suppose ukba checks that you paid council tax etc. During that period, I had 6 weeks with no a permanent address as I was travelling and living in various hotels.
Should I include the hotels and places I stayed in during that time or is it fine to have a small gap in the address details?

Thanks
Y

No your question is not a silly one, as any mistakes in the application process could leave you out of pocket, waiting a long time for a reply, or needing to reapply again in full as you may get a refusal which would cost you more.

Firstly there is no in person appointments for naturalisation, you can only do it by post or using your nearest nationality checking service

You can only apply for naturalisation once you have completed one full year with ILR , not a day before. This is different to the guide for ILR which allows you to apply 28days before

You do need to give you addresses(all of them) if you did not live at the same one for the five years continuously.

Good luck

taliska wrote:No your question is not a silly one, as any mistakes in the application process could leave you out of pocket, waiting a long time for a reply, or needing to reapply again in full as you may get a refusal which would cost you more.

Firstly there is no in person appointments for naturalisation, you can only do it by post or using your nearest nationality checking service

You can only apply for naturalisation once you have completed one full year with ILR , not a day before. This is different to the guide for ILR which allows you to apply 28days before

You do need to give you addresses(all of them) if you did not live at the same one for the five years continuously.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply. so just to make sure I understand correctly- the answers are:
1. NCS appointment only exactly 1 year after ILR i.e for me 23/02/2010 and not a day before.
2. I need to give hotels and friends addresses I stayed in during the 6 weeks period with no permanent address.

Correct?

yes you need the addresses and you would just need to explain this in the further information section of the form reasons you needed to live in hotels etc...You could possibly send any suppoorting documents which would make it easy for them to decifer the reasons. to avoid wasting time.

Yes your application should not reach the home office not a day before the year which you need to qualify as if a caseworker starts work on this they can refuse the application on grounds you have not met the criterion for naturalisation

taliska wrote:yes you need the addresses and you would just need to explain this in the further information section of the form reasons you needed to live in hotels etc...You could possibly send any suppoorting documents which would make it easy for them to decifer the reasons. to avoid wasting time.

Yes your application should not reach the home office not a day before the year which you need to qualify as if a caseworker starts work on this they can refuse the application on grounds you have not met the criterion for naturalisation

understood. Out of curiosity, if I was on holiday (let's say out of the UK) during the time I didn't have a permanent address - how would that reflect in the form?
This could be a perfectly valid situation when people move houses and spend the waiting time on holiday abroad (and they're between projects at work).

Well, one should ensure that he/she was IN the UK exactly 5years ago when the HO receives his/her application form for Naturalisation. That's one of the major pitfalls of other applicants- this is one of their requirement. As for mentioning other addresses- including that of friends', for the past 5 years, taliska is right, you just have to expound on the matter on the further information page.

Filipinas

Filipinas wrote:Well, one should ensure that he/she was IN the UK exactly 5years ago when the HO receives his/her application form for Naturalisation. That's one of the major pitfalls of other applicants- this is one of their requirement. As for mentioning other addresses- including that of friends', for the past 5 years, taliska is right, you just have to expound on the matter on the further information page.

Filipinas

Thanks Filipians. I perfectly understand that. My question was what if someone was out of the UX for a few weeks (none of these days is exactly 5 years before applying) and had no permanent address in the UX at the time?
Only on return did they find a new property and changed their permanent address.

With the scenario that you've given, the person would need to mention the weeks-months that he had no permanent address at the start of his stay (and just make a note that details/explanation is in the further info page); and if he/she is receiving posts/correspondences with a hotel address where he/she is staying, then that would serve as his/er address at that time.

HO would like to see where they could possibly trace a person (billing addresses, correspondences sent to a person, thru the address/es he has given) that is, IF they DO intend to do that or IF for some reason they do they decide to do any research.

yarons wrote:

taliska wrote:No your question is not a silly one, as any mistakes in the application process could leave you out of pocket, waiting a long time for a reply, or needing to reapply again in full as you may get a refusal which would cost you more.

Firstly there is no in person appointments for naturalisation, you can only do it by post or using your nearest nationality checking service

You can only apply for naturalisation once you have completed one full year with ILR , not a day before. This is different to the guide for ILR which allows you to apply 28days before

You do need to give you addresses(all of them) if you did not live at the same one for the five years continuously.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply. so just to make sure I understand correctly- the answers are:
1. NCS appointment only exactly 1 year after ILR i.e for me 23/02/2010 and not a day before.
2. I need to give hotels and friends addresses I stayed in during the 6 weeks period with no permanent address.

Correct?

You can book and attend the NCS appointment before the 1 year anniversary. I understand they will keep your application until such a time that it will reach the HO on the anniversary. i am not sure what is the maximum time they allow. Try calling your local NCS office for further clarification.

I wouldnt worry too much about 6weeks. Just be as honest and accurate as possible

I wouldnt worry too much about 6weeks. Just be as honest and accurate as possible

Totally agree with that. Honesty is important in this process [/quote]

taliska wrote:

I wouldnt worry too much about 6weeks. Just be as honest and accurate as possible

Totally agree with that. Honesty is important in this process

[/quote]

Honesty is the best policy indeed. it's just that now I have to remember where I stayed every single night during those 6 weeks without a permanent address. I was kind of hoping to lump the whole period together explaining that I just didn't have a permanent address due to the nature of my work at the time (actually, some of this period I was actually on Holiday).

How scientific does HO require us to be with this requirement? Am I really expected to remember the exact dates I moved and left every single property in the last 5 years or general time (give or take a week) is good enough?

I want to provide the most accurate information I can give but it'd be hard to make it 100% "to the day" accurate.

the most accurate info will be fine once there are no gaps and if you were on holiday this would be shown in your travel period record for time spent out of the UK during the qualifying period. You could maybe just call the HO to ask about this I'm sure if it's just a 6 week period then the place where you spent the longet time may be the best as this is only 1.5 months. and just explain in the further explanation notes. How long were you out of the country for as you seem concerned about that?

taliska wrote:the most accurate info will be fine once there are no gaps and if you were on holiday this would be shown in your travel period record for time spent out of the UK during the qualifying period. You could maybe just call the HO to ask about this I'm sure if it's just a 6 week period then the place where you spent the longet time may be the best as this is only 1.5 months. and just explain in the further explanation notes. How long were you out of the country for as you seem concerned about that?

I was out of the country for most of the period but some on Holiday. I don't think the absence is the issue as during the 5 years I have never broken the following guides:
1. absent from the UK for more than 90 days straight (business and/or pleasure)
2. In each year absent from the UK for more than 90 days (accumulative)
3. absent from the UK for more than 450 days for the whole 5 years (actually - it's more like 140 days).

I just want to have a quick and smooth processing without any glitches. These absences were already given in my ILR application and presented no problem, however, I was not required to fill out addresses 5 years back.

if you were out of the UK for most of that 6 week period then you don't have nothing to worry about, just put your main addresses (so the one which was permanent prior to this 6week period and the one after)that is and then explain the gap in permanent address referring to the period spent out of the country to put it into perspective. However the form does request your addresses from a specific date to a specific date. Seek clarification with the HO on the naturalisation helpline regarding this just to be safe and so that your application is not delayed for further enquiries when you apply

taliska wrote:if you were out of the UK for most of that 6 week period then you don't have nothing to worry about, just put your main addresses (so the one which was permanent prior to this 6week period and the one after)that is and then explain the gap in permanent address referring to the period spent out of the country to put it into perspective. However the form does request your addresses from a specific date to a specific date. Seek clarification with the HO on the naturalisation helpline regarding this just to be safe and so that your application is not delayed for further enquiries when you apply

Well, I have double checked with the naturalisation helpline which didn't really provide me with more information. "just give all the information you can in the form and the caseworker will contact you if more info is required" seemed to be the mantra the tired-sounding chap on the other end of the line kept on repeating no matter how specific my phrasing was.

He didn't seem particularly bothered about the whole thing which I take as a good sign. I think I would just put the address before and the address after and explain the gap in the more info section as people suggested here.

I also asked him about the current processing times and his (surprising?) response was "4-6 months". Now I know that people got their application processed much quicker than that (sometimes less than a month) so I'm wondering whether HO just quote these timelines so to not commit to anything else?

that's right the home office official waiting time is 6mths if you look at the site but it does not tend to be that long if they are not flooded with applications or your application is not complicated

f2k wrote:
You can book and attend the NCS appointment before the 1 year anniversary. I understand they will keep your application until such a time that it will reach the HO on the anniversary. i am not sure what is the maximum time they allow. Try calling your local NCS office for further clarification.

I wouldnt worry too much about 6weeks. Just be as honest and accurate as possible

I had booked an NCS Appointment a day before my 5 years in the UK completes. The lady in the NCS told me that the application anyways would reach the Ho only a day after (My 5th Anniversary day). I still have this bit of doubt, since NCS recieves application on behalf of HO, does the date we submit to NCS be taken as the date recieved by HO? I Hope not.

Kssantosh,

Trust what the NCS told you. HO counts the day they received the application - not counting the day NCS received it from you.

Good luck on your submission. Hope it's going to be smooth sailing.

Filipinas

Hi yarons , any update on your case ? as iam also in almost same boat as yours and will appreciate if you can update what happened with ur's and what you mentioned in the 5 years adds ?

navnas wrote:Hi yarons , any update on your case ? as iam also in almost same boat as yours and will appreciate if you can update what happened with ur's and what you mentioned in the 5 years adds ?

I still have about 8 weeks left before I can apply so no real update as yet.

Oops ! sorry i missed ur earlier post ! looks like i will be applying before you then ..( due to apply on 10/02/10 ) ....

still thinking if i should wait or otherwise !

navnas wrote:Oops ! sorry i missed ur earlier post ! looks like i will be applying before you then ..( due to apply on 10/02/10 ) ....

still thinking if i should wait or otherwise !

Why wait? I spoke to HO and they don't seem particularly bothered about this (you don't even have to specify an exact date if you can't remember exactly when you moved). The request in only there to demonstrate that you have lived in the UK for 5 years. I am also adding letters from all my employers in the past 5 years to support it.

yarons wrote:

navnas wrote:Oops ! sorry i missed ur earlier post ! looks like i will be applying before you then ..( due to apply on 10/02/10 ) ....

still thinking if i should wait or otherwise !

Why wait? I spoke to HO and they don't seem particularly bothered about this (you don't even have to specify an exact date if you can't remember exactly when you moved). The request in only there to demonstrate that you have lived in the UK for 5 years. I am also adding letters from all my employers in the past 5 years to support it.

Here are my details to add in ,
First entry to UK 17/02/05
left UK on 24/02/05 and came back on 16/03/05

with this time frame i think i am eligible to apply on 17/02/10 (infact on 16/02/10 i think) .....but still in doubt if i get an NCS appointment for 16/02/10 then when will probably HOME OFFICE recieve the application?? (as i was not in UK between 25th feb and 15th march05)

based on your comments i think for the accomodation adds for first two months i'll just add a small note in additional info that i wasn't having any fixed adds then .... adding the employers letters is definitely a big plus ...

Hi Yarons ,

Have you applied ?

navnas wrote:Hi Yarons ,

Have you applied ?

Yes