Naturalisation / Waiting times?

[enquirer]

I applied for naturalisation just before 1st Nov 05. The application and supporting documents were delivered and signed for on 28th Oct 05.

After 2 months of waiting for acknowledgement of receipt of the application I started to call the HO in Liverpool. The phone number there was constantly engaged, so I wrote to them trying to find out what the situation was. Amazingly in 4 days I received an acknowledgement letter and no indication of any progress. However, I found that the naturalisation fee was debited to by credit card on the date when this letter was sent to me.

There have gone 3 weeks and I have not been notified on any progress with the application.

Does anybody know how long I may need to wait till I get a confirmation of being granted naturalisation? (The negative decision seems to be unlikely).
Is there any need to write to the HO again?

Thanks in advance for your help.

E.

[John]

The average waiting time on the IND website is still nearly four month. And you have not been waiting that long.

Also you need to accept that IND got deluged with applications just prior to 01.11.05 and therefore it is totally reasonable to expect that you will need to wait a bit longer than that average time.

Did you apply by post? Or by NCS?

[enquirer]

Hi, John.

Yes, I fully appreciate the fact that I have not been waiting long (in the past as I waited for ILR for over 1,5 years). I was just hoping to obtain a confirmation that the fact I was debited the fee may mean the decision was made.

Many Thanks
Eugene

[Ness]

It's been my understanding in the past that when the fee has been debited it simply means they've moved your application from the "To be processed" tray into the "Being processed" tray, as clearing payment is usually the first thing they do when processing.