Rearrange ceremony and borough can't allocate date yet
Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2023 7:10 pm
On the 13th of November I received an email from Home Office Atlas with the confirmation of my British citizenship approval, mentioning I had to get in touch with my Council after at least 24 hours, to book my ceremony.
Checking borough website, it mentions you don't have to do anything as they'll automatically book an appointment at the first available date and sent a letter at home, so I didn't worried to much and after couple of days (15th of November) I found a letter in my box with the invitation, but unfortunately the first date they assigned is 21st of December 2023. Due to an already planned travel outside UK between mid of December and beginning of January, I wrote to the council asking if it's possible to postpone after the 5th of January, I received the next day a reply mentioning I have been removed from the group ceremony of 21st December 2023, and she diarised my request and I will be added to a ceremony on 11th January 2024 when they become available. In the email she also mentioned "our records show that your ceremony deadline is 30th January 2024. Therefore we cannot place you on a ceremony after this date. I will send you an invitation via email as soon as your new ceremony has been allocated."
I'm aware I should get the ceremony as soon as possibile and there's a max timeline of 3 months, but it looks like in my case I lost 1 month just because the borough doesn't have a date sooner and this think that they can't send me the new invitation cause the new dates are not yet available" is making me a little bit worry. I also don't understand why they mentioned as deadline the end of January as I was expecting it around 13th of February (Do they count the 3 months from the first day of the month when Home Office sent the approval?).
Is it the standard way a council manage allocation of the ceremony, doesn't they know yet which date will be available in January 2024?
Checking borough website, it mentions you don't have to do anything as they'll automatically book an appointment at the first available date and sent a letter at home, so I didn't worried to much and after couple of days (15th of November) I found a letter in my box with the invitation, but unfortunately the first date they assigned is 21st of December 2023. Due to an already planned travel outside UK between mid of December and beginning of January, I wrote to the council asking if it's possible to postpone after the 5th of January, I received the next day a reply mentioning I have been removed from the group ceremony of 21st December 2023, and she diarised my request and I will be added to a ceremony on 11th January 2024 when they become available. In the email she also mentioned "our records show that your ceremony deadline is 30th January 2024. Therefore we cannot place you on a ceremony after this date. I will send you an invitation via email as soon as your new ceremony has been allocated."
I'm aware I should get the ceremony as soon as possibile and there's a max timeline of 3 months, but it looks like in my case I lost 1 month just because the borough doesn't have a date sooner and this think that they can't send me the new invitation cause the new dates are not yet available" is making me a little bit worry. I also don't understand why they mentioned as deadline the end of January as I was expecting it around 13th of February (Do they count the 3 months from the first day of the month when Home Office sent the approval?).
Is it the standard way a council manage allocation of the ceremony, doesn't they know yet which date will be available in January 2024?