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Hello,

I need advice from senior members here. I had applied for ILR on 4th April 2013 using the postal service and received the Acknowledged letter on 9th April. My application was decided on 7th November 2013 ( Almost after 7 months). Could you please suggest when I could apply for Naturalization.

I believe there is a rule or discretion called section 7.5 (g) which allow to apply for Naturalization after the 15 months of IRL application if the application took more then 6 month to decide and the delay was not due to applicants fault.

Please advise should I apply in July 2014 or I have to wait till November.


thanks

This is not mentioned anywhere..

You must usually have:

lived in the UK for at least the 5 years before the date of your application
spent no more than 450 days outside the UK during those 5 years
spent no more than 90 days outside the UK in the last 12 months
been granted indefinite leave to stay in the UK, ie there’s no specific date that you have to leave
had indefinite leave to stay in the UK for the last 12 months
not broken any immigration laws while in the UK

https://www.gov.uk/becoming-a-british-c ... -can-apply

May be I havent heard abt this 6 months thingy..

thanks mate,

Here i am referring "The residence requirements - Annex B TO Chapter 18 - Section 7.5 (g)"

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... dments.pdf

Any advice from senior members, please

Assuming the delay was due to HO fault and not yours (late response to letters for example), then you can make use of the 15 months rule. Make sure to state on the form (Page 15) that you apply based on that.

See also, Chapter 18 Annex B paragraph 7.5(g) of the BNA 1981 (click).

Thanks Amber,

mean while i sent email to Nationality Policy Team - Liverpool and got the below response.

-----------------
Dear Sir,

You asked about our policy on disregarding periods when a person was subject to immigration time restrictions in the 12 month period before making a naturalisation application.

As you point out, Chapter 18 Annex B paragraph 7.5(g) of the Nationality Staff Instructions states:

7.5 Discretion to disregard immigration time restrictions in the final 12 months may normally be exercised if:

(g) consideration of an application for indefinite leave to remain, made more than 15 months before the citizenship application, had been protracted through no fault of the applicant, providing ILR was eventually granted. This can include applications for asylum which have resulted in the grant of ILR (you should note that any asylum cases granted on or after the 30 August 2005 will not result in ILR, applicants will instead be given limited leave).

Nationality policy does not contain a definition of the word ‘protracted’ as referred to in paragraph 7.5(g) of the nationality guidance. Nationality caseworkers consider each application on its own merits referring to the case history of the ILR application. If the caseworker determines that a delay occurred during the ILR application, which was no fault of the applicant’s, and the other requirements of paragraph 7.5(g) are met, then discretion may be exercised in the applicant’s favour. Our service standards state that 95% of postal settlement applications will be decided within six months. As such, applicants can reasonably expect that most applications will take 6 months to decide. Applications that take longer than this, where the delay was outside of the person’s control, will be considered under Chapter 18 Annex B paragraph 7.5 (g), when an application for British citizenship is made.

In general terms, we would expect to exercise this discretion where the delay was due to failings on the part of the Home Office. Examples of this might be where there had been delays in dealing with the case due to an increased volume of applications, or the file being with another part of the Agency. If, however, the delays were due to the applicant not responding to correspondence or sending incorrect documentation which resulted in further enquiries, we would not exercise discretion on this basis.

Any decision would be made on all the information available to the caseworker at the time the case is considered. However, you may wish to take the above information into account in deciding when to apply.

I hope this helps.

Yours sincerely,


Ann Woodall | Nationality Operational Policy| Operational Policy & Rules Unit|Immigration and Border Policy Directorate | Home Office

Good to see a success case under this discretion

Thanks guys I got the approval earlier this month under this discreation and had ceremony on 22nd of this week.

Thanks again for your help.