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I was under the impression that I would be able to submit my naturalisation application through an NCS run by a different council to the one I attend my citizenship ceremony at - by requesting this at the time of my NCS appointment.

However I have now been informed that if you submit your application through a particular NCS then you would also need to attend your citizenship ceremony at the same council. This information was provided by the Croydon council.

Does anyone know whether this holds true for all councils that run a NCS service? I recall when I booked my appointment, asking whether I would be able to attend my ceremony at a different council and was told this would be possible; my reason for this is because it would be more convenient for me to submit my application through the NCS close to where I work, but was hoping to attend the ceremony at my local home council.

I would like to hear from anyone else who may have done this.

A separate question that I am adding here is around the newly proposed indicative fees effective from April 2015. I just wanted verify whether the proposed fee increase for naturalisation was just £ 925 (new fee) - £ 906 (current fee)? Or have I misunderstood or misread the what's been published?

However I have now been informed that if you submit your application through a particular NCS then you would also need to attend your citizenship ceremony at the same council. This information was provided by the Croydon council.

This does not appear to be correct advice. NCS is a service for submission of applications. Ceremony is always at the council in the area you reside unless you specifically request it to be held elsewhere.

The fee is £925 but that does not include the Ceremony fee which is an additional £80, so £1005 in total.

Its fine as CR001 said, because I applied through NCS in neighbouring county and attended ceremony in my own county.

Thanks CR001, for your comments & input on both points.

I have also rechecked the AN form guidance and and it does say, "ceremonies are arranged locally & reflect the particular community to which you now belong". So I'm going to go ahead with my application submission at the Croydon NCS irrespective of their comments.

Regarding the fee, I now see what they have done is split the AN application fee from the ceremony fee; Previously (April 2014) these were combined & listed as one amount.

fwd079 wrote:Its fine as CR001 said, because I applied through NCS in neighbouring county and attended ceremony in my own county.

Many thanks fwd079. Good to hear from someone else who did the same as I'm hoping to do.

No problem.
Just keep in mind please that County unless specified as CR001 said, will always be your county where you currently reside. NCS service county can be different.

Yes thanks. That was my understanding too ( Any council NCS can be used to submit application, but ceremony will always be at local council unless explicitly requested to be elsewhere. ) until Croydon council informed me otherwise with incorrect information.

However I have now been informed that if you submit your application through a particular NCS then you would also need to attend your citizenship ceremony at the same council. This information was provided by the Croydon council.

Surprising because I applied using Croydon NCS last year and the lovely lady told me the correct thing that my ceremony will probably be somewhere other than Croydon because I live in another council.

zeusmagnanimous wrote:

However I have now been informed that if you submit your application through a particular NCS then you would also need to attend your citizenship ceremony at the same council. This information was provided by the Croydon council.

Surprising because I applied using Croydon NCS last year and the lovely lady told me the correct thing that my ceremony will probably be somewhere other than Croydon because I live in another council.

Yes, I know, I was surprised as well, because at the time I called to make my initial appointment I was given the correct information. It's only when I called to reschedule (as I needed to change the date) & double check a few requirements that I was given this apparently incorrect information. I did explain that I was told differently, when I made my initial appointment, but she was quite adamant that the ceremony would be at Croydon if I used their NCS - explaining I could however use any NCS I liked. I can only assume, not everyone at the NCS is aware of what's correct, similar to when you get through to a HO helpline - you sometimes get conflicting information from different people depending on how well informed the person you speak to is.