citizenship guidance for reply

[myinfo]

I have applied for naturalisation but I got replied below:

Dear Mr
I refer to your application for naturalisation as a British citizen under section 6(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981.
A person applying under this section is expected to have been in the United Kingdom on the actual date 5 years before making the application.

As your application was received in the Home Office on 30 December 2021, you must therefore have been in the United Kingdom on 31 December 2016.
According to your application form you left the United Kingdom on 10 December 2016 and returned on 15 January 2017.
As you were not in the United Kingdom on 31 December 2016 this requirement is not met.

However, if you reply to this email using the address below, we will be able to continue our consideration. Your new application date will be the date that your email is received by the Home Office.
To do this, simply reply to this email using the address nationalityfurtherinformationrequests@homeoffice.gov.uk confirming that you wish to re submit your application.
So that we are able to continue to consider your application please make sure you reply to this email no later than 06 April 2022.

Failure to reply by this date will result in your application being refused on the grounds that you do not meet the statutory residence requirements for naturalisation, as you were not in the UK on the first day of the residential qualifying period.

please guide what I do now?
Do I need to resubmit? means need to pay again? and fingerprints/biometric again?

[kamoe]

Read the email. Your answer is there.

Basically, you need to make sure your application date follows the following rule:

1. Take application date
2. Go back 5 years
3. Go forward one day

The day you end up in No. 3. has to be a day where you were physically present in the UK for the whole 24 hours of that day (not a day where you travelled to or from the UK).

As per the email, your application does not meet this requirement, because you applied on 30 December 2021. This means:

1. Take application date: 30 December 2021
2. Go back 5 years: 30 December 2016
3. Go forward one day: 31 December 2016

Where you physically present in the UK on 31 December 2016? No, because you were abroad from 10 December 2016 to 15 January 2017. 31 December is therefore NOT a suitable application date.

What the email is telling you is not that you need to resubmit your application, but simply that you need to pick a new date, since your original application date of 30 December 2021 does not conform to the rule above.

What you need to do, is pick a date in 2017 (e.g. 1 April 2017), where you know for sure you were physically present in the UK, and reverse engineer the rule:

1. Take new date: e.g. 1 April 2017
2. Go back one day: 31 March 2017
3. Go forward 5 years: 31 March 2022

Your new application date is whatever date you end up in step 3. above. This will make sure you have a date that passes the rule, and is suitable. Obviously you don't have to pick April 1 2017 (specially not if you were not in the UK on that day!), just pick a date after that date where you know for sure you were in the UK for the whole 24 hours of that day, and apply the process above.

The email is telling you:

However, if you reply to this email using the address below, we will be able to continue our consideration. Your new application date will be the date that your email is received by the Home Office. To do this, simply reply to this email using the address nationalityfurtherinformationrequests@homeoffice.gov.uk confirming that you wish to re submit your application. So that we are able to continue to consider your application please make sure you reply to this email no later than 06 April 2022.

Which means simply that the new application date will be the day you reply to the email, confirming you wish to proceed. Therefore, simply reply to the the email as tehy suggest, on the new application date you found after you apply the process above. In our example, if your chosen date is 1 April 2017, you should send the email today (hence why I suggest you pick a date after April 1 2017, otherwise you can't send the email, lol).