5+ Months in waiting for the British Citizenship Application / EU citizen

[Fernsby]

Hi all,

Just a bit of context on my situation.

Application submitted 30th June 2024

appointment and biometrics submitted on 6th July 2024 in Croydon. On 8th October I was asked to confirm my name change, which I had done immediately in the same day.

I have lived in the UK for 10 years as EU citizen, after Brexit with EU settled status. I work a white collar job and so thought this will be a straight forward case, I see people getting approved within 5 weeks mark. It has been 5 months waiting for me and I have emailed citizenship support many times to check on the progress of my application, all with a standard response (please see below). In few weeks I will reach 6 months mark so I will be able to submit my complaint, after which I will also request a review of the complaint process. I have emailed my MP on 3 separate occassions with no response (he's lib dem so does not care). I am about to submit SAR request today. I am getting really frustrated with this process.

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your email regarding the progress on your application for naturalisation as a British citizen.

Your application is currently under review and a number of enquiries need to be made before we can reach a decision on whether to grant citizenship.

The enquiries are still ongoing in regards to your application. As soon as the enquiries are completed, we will ensure that a decision is taken, and that you will be notified accordingly.

We thank you for your patience at this time

Kind regards

Passports, Citizenship & Civil Registration

[contorted_svy]

Your application is still within the standard processing times. There is no such thing as a "straightforward" application, it depends on how long the external checks take, each timeline is unique. If your application is still being processed by the end of the year you will be able to chase using the information in this thread https://www.immigrationboards.com/month ... 43483.html

[Fernsby]

Thank you. This is super helpful. I will wait until 6 months and will start the complaint process

[kievlenka]

Hey there
Mine took nearly a year to process and it was straight forward too , no convictions, 20 years ILR, no gaps , all documents etc
My delay was due to “IT error” where my biometrics didn’t integrate with HO systems
They acknowledged it around 6 months mark it was fixed but still took 5 months after that to get a decision
I chased and complained at no awhile , you’ve just got to let it run it’s course I’m afraid

[tanha_rixby]

Thank you. This is super helpful. I will wait until 6 months and will start the complaint process

I came across your post while searching about the response I got from the Home Office. The email they sent me is the same as the one you shared, and I haven’t seen any others mention getting this exact wording. So I guess it could be the same person or the same issue, and I’m curious if you managed to figure out what the issue was.

A couple of questions, if you don’t mind sharing:

1. Since you passed the six-month mark a while ago, have you been able to chase them for an update? Have you got a final response or approval yet?
2. I can see from your timeline that they asked you for confirmation of further information a few months ago. What kind of information did they ask for? Since I’ve recently received a similar response, I’m wondering if they’ll ask me for the same thing.

Would appreciate any insight!

[contorted_svy]

Thank you. This is super helpful. I will wait until 6 months and will start the complaint process

I came across your post while searching about the response I got from the Home Office. The email they sent me is the same as the one you shared, and I haven’t seen any others mention getting this exact wording. So I guess it could be the same person or the same issue, and I’m curious if you managed to figure out what the issue was.

A couple of questions, if you don’t mind sharing:

1. Since you passed the six-month mark a while ago, have you been able to chase them for an update? Have you got a final response or approval yet?
2. I can see from your timeline that they asked you for confirmation of further information a few months ago. What kind of information did they ask for? Since I’ve recently received a similar response, I’m wondering if they’ll ask me for the same thing.

Would appreciate any insight!

You can chase the answer yourself - these answers are boilerplate and your applications could be encountering entirely different situations.

[tanha_rixby]

You can chase the answer yourself - these answers are boilerplate and your applications could be encountering entirely different situations.

Got it, thanks! Since I’m still two months away from the six-month mark, is there any way to "chase the answer" now? Would it make sense to reply back to their email and ask about the nature of the remaining enquiries to see if I can provide anything to speed things up, or is it better to just wait? (Also, is there any downside/risk to sending such an email?)

[contorted_svy]

No donwside to chasing now, but you would not get anywhere if you chase before the 6 months mark. The enquiries they are making are with different government departments, so there is nothing you can do to speed up the process at this stage - if they need information from you they will request it specifically.

[tanha_rixby]

No donwside to chasing now, but you would not get anywhere if you chase before the 6 months mark. The enquiries they are making are with different government departments, so there is nothing you can do to speed up the process at this stage - if they need information from you they will request it specifically.

Thanks for clarifying. I won't send an email then.

I'm considering requesting a Subject Access Request (SAR) primarily to ease my anxiety about the process, but also figuring out what the enquiries are (so that maybe i could proactively help them out). Nonetheless, I have two concerns:

1. Could this annoy them and negatively affect the outcome? Is sending a SAR around 3.5 months after submission too early?

2. Will I be able to submit another SAR later? I anticipate needing another SAR in 2.5 months to have an up-to-date understanding of my case once the 6-month point passes. I'm worried the second SAR could be refused since it would be only 2 months after the first.

What do you think?

[contorted_svy]

No donwside to chasing now, but you would not get anywhere if you chase before the 6 months mark. The enquiries they are making are with different government departments, so there is nothing you can do to speed up the process at this stage - if they need information from you they will request it specifically.

Thanks for clarifying. I won't send an email then.

I'm considering requesting a Subject Access Request (SAR) primarily to ease my anxiety about the process, but also figuring out what the enquiries are (so that maybe i could proactively help them out). Nonetheless, I have two concerns: they wouldn't disclose what the enquiries are and you wouldn't be able to help them from what you may found out. If they need anything from you they would expplicitly ask you, as I said above.

1. Could this annoy them and negatively affect the outcome? Is sending a SAR around 3.5 months after submission too early?
No.

2. Will I be able to submit another SAR later? I anticipate needing another SAR in 2.5 months to have an up-to-date understanding of my case once the 6-month point passes. I'm worried the second SAR could be refused since it would be only 2 months after the first. Yes.

What do you think?

Keep in mind that over 90% of these applications are accepted. It is difficult to put your mind at ease and be patient but for now it is the best course of action. The guide I linked above has proved to be successful in some very stretched cases - most applications are processed in the standard 6 months though.

[tanha_rixby]

Hey there
Mine took nearly a year to process and it was straight forward too , no convictions, 20 years ILR, no gaps , all documents etc
My delay was due to “IT error” where my biometrics didn’t integrate with HO systems
They acknowledged it around 6 months mark it was fixed but still took 5 months after that to get a decision
I chased and complained at no awhile , you’ve just got to let it run it’s course I’m afraid

Thanks for sharing this earlier. I just got a reply confirming that my case was delayed because of an IT issue too. Reading your post, it really sounds like our cases followed the same path. The wording in your reply from the Home Office is exactly the same as what I just got.

Eligibility criteria: Fiancée visa+ 1 year LR + 19 year ILR
B1 + Life in the UK Test
Nationality: Non EU (Ukraine)
Method of application: Online
Date of receipt by UKVI: 03/10/2023
Date of debit of fees: 03/10/2023
Date of biometrics 15/10/2023- (Leeds, paid)
Date of confirmation sent to UKVI: 15/10/2023
Date of receipt of approval: pending
Date of Ceremony: 20/09/2024 - email from the council

Sent 2 email to FNE , 6th January and 7th February
Reply from MMST Workflow on 14th March

Thank you for your email of 07 February 2024, please accept our apologies for the delay in replying.

We are sorry for the delay in dealing with these applications which have been caused by an IT issue. We have reported the issue, will ensure it is resolved as soon as possible and will expedite completion of your application when it is resolved. Unfortunately, I cannot provide a specific time scale for completion at this time.

Hit the dreading “IT issue” , in for a long long wait

Update - email from national biometrics received today 11/04/2024 to say IT issue loss of biometrics has been resolved and now wait another 6 months as per guidelines
I also sent screenshots of confirmations from soteria when my docs had been submitted on 15th March

Another update from me ! Out of the blue almost 11 months of waiting received an invitation to the citizenship ceremony from my council ! No email from Home Atlas yes but I am sure it will come shortly
It has been a long and frustrating wait but what I was impressed with that the HO actually told me about IT issue and also updated me on when it got resolved . Took 4.5 months from that email to receive approval. However it took them 6 months prior to that to actually get it sorted !
Good luck everyone

Just to give a bit of context:
- I did a SAR earlier around the 6-month point (which was about a month ago)
- I contacted the home office and told them that my SAR doesn't show any record of manual activity for the past 6 month, so I suspect the case is stalled or not assigned. I asked if the the case is even assigned to a caseworker.
- After almost a month, I received a response: From the email thread, I can see that the correspondence team noticed that the case is not assigned to any caseworker, so they escalated it to the caseworking teams. And the caseworking team wrote me a reply with the exact wording as you had got (there was an IT issues, the issue has to be resolved first, and then we try to expedite your case)...

I suspect the issue might have been the same things as your, especially because I did it at the time of the switch from Sopra Steria to TLS so anything could have gone wrong IT-wise. Do you mind sharing what happened next? Was there any further communication? Any re-doing of the biometrics?

Also happy to hear any advice from others here. I suspect that the IT issue could be just another boilerplate, not sure if it makes sense to send further emails or not. The fact that their response time is over a month now is scary, so maybe send a follow-up to be read next month? Or shall I wait? Or ask if I could be of any help, etc?