Ceremony Issue - Extension Required

[CoryHerby]

Hi all,

I have been struggling for the past year or so with my citizenship process and I am therefore looking for some help on what I should do next.

- My citizenship application was approved back in July 2020 and I was told by email that I would receive an invitation to a citizenship ceremony by post in the following weeks.
- However, by the time that the invitation was sent in October 2020 (due to an important backlog in sending out invitations due to COVID-19), I had changed address in the UK - I had notified the Home Office of this but my invitation was wrongly sent to my old address, which means that I never received it.
- By February 2021, having never received the invitation letter, I called the Home Office explaining the situation - I was told that the invitation letter would be reissued and sent to the new address. I was also told that I would have an extended 6-month deadline from the date of issue of the new invitation letter to attend a ceremony, and that no adverse decisions would be made because of delays caused by COVID-19.
- In March 2021, I received a copy of the invitation letter by email, badly formatted and with missing attachments. I however never received a paper copy of the invitation letter by post. This means that I never received the 'official' letter or any guidance notes or other materials that are required for the ceremony. My new ceremony deadline should therefore now be in September 2021, 6 months later.
- After receiving the invitation by email in March 2021, I was temporarily in France for professional reasons - due to Covid travel restrictions & quarantine, I was unable to come back to the UK for a physical ceremony in the following months, apart from one moment during which I was told my local authority was not organising any ceremonies due to COVID.
- I sent multiple emails to the Home Office's email addresses in May, June and July 2021 to clarify the situation and confirm that my deadline for a ceremony would be in September 2021, without ever getting a response. When I called the Home Office by phone, I was told that they did not have access to individual files and therefore were not able to help, but that I should wait for a response to my email as there was a backlog - we are now at the end of August and I never received any kind of answer to my emails.
- I however did receive in August an email (likely automated) from the Home Office saying that I had not attended a ceremony in time, and that my deadline had passed since April 2021 (6 months after the original letter had been sent to the wrong address in October 2020!! ), which was not the updated deadline that was granted to me once the letter had been reissued back in March 2021!
- I am now back in the UK thanks to the ending of travel restrictions, and have contacted my local authority to arrange a ceremony - but they have told me they were unable to book a ceremony because my deadline was already passed, and that I should request a deadline extension before being able to book a ceremony. The ceremony date I am trying to book for is before the new deadline I was given, and I therefore feel like I am being blocked from attending a ceremony before the deadline.

This process has been drawn out for so long now and feel like I have no way of getting in touch with the Home Office - and that the longer they take to answer me, the further away I will be from my ceremony deadline. I am very angry with the whole process and quite desperate now, as I know that the Home Office will not respond to my extension request quickly!

Has anyone been in a similar situation or would have some next steps to recommend?

Many thanks in advance for your help!

[Mrsdoc]

What an awful experience . I would definitely contact my local MP since all avenues had already been exhausted.
Hopefully you resolve this issue very soon .

[clavelle]

I am currently in a very similar situation! I applied for citizenship at the end of September 2020, fully expecting it to take at least six months for any response. My mother-in-law went into hospice care in Brazil just before Christmas and later died, and together with concerns about my own elderly parents, lockdown and being on the NHS shielding list myself, I was out of the UK, working remotely for several months. In April 2021 my friend who was collecting my post (and well aware I was awaiting a response on my application) told me I'd received a letter from my local council telling me I was booked in to a group ceremony on 03 February 2021(!), which I obviously missed. I never received an invitation letter from the Home Office, or any HO correspondence communicating that my application had been approved.

After contacting the local council and the Home Office by email, the council told me I would still need the HO invitation letter and I'd also need to apply for an extension as my initial certificate has now expired (although it wouldn't have expired if anyone had replied to my emails earlier). I emailed the Home Office several times, telling them I'd never received the invitation letter and also requesting an extension, and finally got a response with a new invitation letter, dated 26 August 2021. Since this was in reply to the same email asking about an extension, and had a new date, I assumed I was back on track, but the local council is saying I still need to request an extension. I've emailed the HO again, and fingers crossed I get a response.

[clavelle]

The only advice I've been given by the council (who are very friendly and reply quickly, but also can't seem to tell me what applying for an extension entails) is to keep sending emails to citizenship.support@homeoffice.gov.uk, which according to them is the only way to contact the Home Office. It took exactly one month for me to get my first reply, with the reissued HO invitation letter.