TIMELINE AFTER NATURALISATION APPLICATION SUBMISSION

[rnr79]

My wife's timeline:

Applied via: Postal
Date of submission: 29/03/11
Date reached: 30/03/11
CRITERIA: Spouse of British citizen (enclosed husband's citizenship certificate)
No. of Applications: AN (only myself)
Date of debit of debit/credit card: 06/04/11
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: 11/04/11 (dated: 06/04/11)
Date of receipt of approval: 03/06/11 (dated: 01/06/11)

Hey mate Congrats....I hope at wait time if not less would be at least about the same as above for May applications as well

[ferrarilondon]

Congratulation to all who got their approvals, I got mine last week friday and its been whole week and still waiting for my invitation for ceremony. My local council hasn't received it yet. Called HO yesterday and they said that invitation was posted yesterday. My wait still not over yet

[allta]

Congratulation to all who got their approvals, I got mine last week friday and its been whole week and still waiting for my invitation for ceremony. My local council hasn't received it yet. Called HO yesterday and they said that invitation was posted yesterday. My wait still not over yet

C'mon matey....you should go on holiday right away with the family, that is what I'll do if I were you. I am still waiting for my brown envelope, decision was taken 26/05 and decision letter sent 31/05, still waiting for it and my fingers crossed...as I keep watching for the post man each day

[Nazia88]

Congratulation to all who got their approvals, I got mine last week friday and its been whole week and still waiting for my invitation for ceremony. My local council hasn't received it yet. Called HO yesterday and they said that invitation was posted yesterday. My wait still not over yet

C'mon matey....you should go on holiday right away with the family, that is what I'll do if I were you. I am still waiting for my brown envelope, decision was taken 26/05 and decision letter sent 31/05, still waiting for it and my fingers crossed...as I keep watching for the post man each day

allta you will be fine and an advanced congrates from me and you will get good news on tommoro or on monday enjoy ur weekend.
nazx

[srdanda]

My wife's timeline:

Applied via: Postal
Date of submission: 29/03/11
Date reached: 30/03/11
CRITERIA: Spouse of British citizen (enclosed husband's citizenship certificate)
No. of Applications: AN (only myself)
Date of debit of debit/credit card: 06/04/11
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: 11/04/11 (dated: 06/04/11)
Date of receipt of approval: 03/06/11 (dated: 01/06/11)

congrtas. probably i will get it soon. mine is a stright forward application except i'm self employed. hopefully it wont delay things much

[whitbrown2012]

I have been a lurker for quite awhile now. Here is my timeline so far:

Criteria - ILR - Asked H.O. to waiver the 12 mths. req. as I was granted ILR in Nov 2010
Type - NCS - Ealing
Date of submission - 25 March 2011
Date reached HO – 28 March 2011
Date of debit of credit card - 04 April 2011
Date of receipt of acknowledgement - 08 April 2011 (dated 04 April 2011)
Date of receipt of approval - 03 June 2011 (letter dated 27 May 2011)
Date of Ceremony - 8 June 2011
Date of appln. for passport -
Method used -
Date of Receipt of documents -
Date of interview -
Date passport received –

I think the H.O. are working on a 2 months deadline, I phoned the H.O. and the lady told me that a decision was made on tuesday, which was the 31st. However, after receiving the letter it stated the 27th May, which a day before the date of the initial application.

[nax_72]

Thanks to all who congratulated for my wife's approval.

Normally it will take 10 working days for the ceremony letter to be received after the approval letter. This is mostly true if the approval letter comes along with all other original documents in special delivery envelope. In case if the approval letter comes by second class post then most likely the ceremony letter follows that quickly.

More important point is that the council will have the certificate ready when we receive the invitation letter. Most likely they might not have received the certificate around the time we receive the approval letter. So wait time between reception of approval letter and ceremony letter is unavoidable as we need the certificate to reach out council.

[ferrarilondon]

I got a call from my local council office, they told me that they received my certificate today and it has been uploaded on their system. Also he told me to attend ceremony I have to have my invitation letter. so probably I will receive it in a day or so. I will go for private ceremony as my council is very bussy and its around 3-4 weeks wait for public ceremony.

[lionking007]

I got a call from my local council office, they told me that they received my certificate today and it has been uploaded on their system. Also he told me to attend ceremony I have to have my invitation letter. so probably I will receive it in a day or so. I will go for private ceremony as my council is very bussy and its around 3-4 weeks wait for public ceremony.

Spoke to my council yesterday, they have not had anything from the HO yet. I was told that he certificate was printed last Friday by HO and descision was made on last Thursday. I explained that I need to go to US on the Phone on the Wednesday to the HO call centre staff, she was going to send an email to the caseworker to speed up the things, looks like they will take their own time.

Most of the posts here say they received letter in 3 to 5 days I havent received any letter from HO nor the council has received my certificate on their system, getting a bit worried.

[forwardever]

I got a call from my local council office, they told me that they received my certificate today and it has been uploaded on their system. Also he told me to attend ceremony I have to have my invitation letter. so probably I will receive it in a day or so. I will go for private ceremony as my council is very bussy and its around 3-4 weeks wait for public ceremony.

Congrat mate you are one step to the end of your journey...

[dsk]

still waiting since 25th feb payment deducted on 2nd march!
called thrice standard answer given!
how often can we call homeoffice?
last call was made on 27th may

[lionking007]

I got a call from my local council office, they told me that they received my certificate today and it has been uploaded on their system. Also he told me to attend ceremony I have to have my invitation letter. so probably I will receive it in a day or so. I will go for private ceremony as my council is very bussy and its around 3-4 weeks wait for public ceremony.

Congrat mate you are one step to the end of your journey...

Congratulation ferrarilondon

Is anyone who applied from 17 to 24th March on this forum still waiting for their approval letter after verbally getting confirmation as to their application has been completed / approved???

[ferrarilondon]

@dsk you can call HO as much as you want, but obviously they will get annoyed as they keep the call records. @lionking mate you are almost there just wait may be couple of days. did you ask them if the letter was posted?

[Ness]

Is anyone who applied from 17 to 24th March on this forum still waiting for their approval letter after verbally getting confirmation as to their application has been completed / approved???

I applied on 25 March, and I am still waiting.

I have never phoned the Home Office for a status update (what is the point - they have already told me in the letter acknowledging receipt of application that it could take up to 6 months).

[oxfordblues]

Hi,

We've been lurking on this thread for a while, and it has been very helpful to reassure ourselves that we are in the same (slow-moving) boat as everyone else. We were delighted to receive early this morning, the letter of invitation from our council (Oxfordshire). Interestingly we haven't yet received the letter from the H.O, although I expect it will be here shortly.

Here's the timeline for our application.

NCS or Postal : NCS (High Wycombe)
Date of submission or posting : 25.03.2011
CRITERIA : 5 yr stay (4yr HSMP JR + 1 yr ILR)
Date of debit of debit/credit card : Don't remember
Date of acknowledgement letter : 06.05.2011
Date of receipt of approval : Not yet received
Date of invitation letter from council : 03.06.2011
Date of receipt of invitation letter from council: 04.06.2011
Date of Ceremony : 21st June 2011 (offered by Council in their invitation letter)

We used the NCS service in High Wycombe because Oxford and nearby where all fully booked for several weeks. We had dallied with the possibility of sending it ourselves by post, and finally settled on NCS because we were concerned we would need to travel in the meanwhile. The NCS service was efficient and polite (albeit not overly friendly!).

We tried to hold off calling the H.O. successfully for about 8 weeks, and then cracked last week. We got the standard boiler-plate response of 'there is a large volume of applications, and yours will be considered in due time'. Pressing for information didn't really help either. We then resigned to wait and let it come in due course.

We were thus very pleasantly surprised to see the white envelope (yes, a white envelope from the council) in the mail this morning containing the invitation letter and guest passes etc to the ceremony on the 21st June. We may call them check if there are any earlier dates available, but for now this is what we have got. Interestingly the letter mentions that if you have not received the H.O. letter by the ceremony date, any form acceptable id (drivers license, etc) will be sufficient.

Good luck to all of those who are waiting. Thanks again to immigrationboards for this fantastic resource. We have used it from when we were applying for HSMP, all the way till now. We'll update the passport timelines when we get that far.

Have a great weekend!

[lionking007]

@dsk you can call HO as much as you want, but obviously they will get annoyed as they keep the call records. @lionking mate you are almost there just wait may be couple of days. did you ask them if the letter was posted?

No ferrari, I have not asked them about the letter. What I asked was about the update and they advised that the certificate was printed last week. I will call them on Monday to check the progress as I am thinking to travel on a british passport to US, will save me £110 for a US visa.

[jonway12]

Hello People, it gives me a great pleasure to announce to you all that I have received my approval letter from HO and invitation letter from the council. I will like to express my Gratitude to every user of this forum. Your advice, Tips, Idea, Help etc . were invaluable and I appreciate it a great deal. For those waiting I wish you the very best and that you receive your approval very soon.
My TimeLine Again

Date of submission NCS 23/03/2011
Card debited: 01/04/2011
Acknowledgement received 06/04/2011
Approval Received (dated25/05/11) 04/06/2011
ceremony 26/06/2011

It took 73Days OR 10 WEEKS & 4days OR 2 Months 13 Days

Bless you all

[blueskyes]

Invitation letter received today, will call on Monday to book
Ferrari I think you should receive yours today as well, good luck

[ferrarilondon]

I haven't received the invitation yet, but my council has got my certificate. Does any one know if I book private ceremony they will let me in without HO invitation letter with other forms of IDs?

[jonway12]

For those who wish to find out if their Council have recived their certificate but have not yet recieved HO approval. The ref number the council will request is your ref number you gave HO when you apply for naturalisation. it can be found in your letter issued to you for your ILR.

hope this help

[khankhattak]

I haven't received the invitation yet, but my council has got my certificate. Does any one know if I book private ceremony they will let me in without HO invitation letter with other forms of IDs?

no u have to take ur invitation letter otherwise they will Not let u to attend the cermoney (Birmingham) I don't know what the other councils doing .

[ferrarilondon]

I am sure I have read some where here were the person was accepted without the letter.

[allta]

Finally, after 7yrs in Queensland, I get on the BC waiting list.

Criteria - 2yrs Working Holiday Maker + 4yrs HSMP JR + 1yr ILR (Director of Ltd Company in last 1yr)
Submitted at NCS Southwark - 23rd March, 2011
Received at HO - 24th March, 2011
Debit Card debited - 28th March, 2011
Acknowledgement Letter Received -
Approval Letter Posted - 
Approval Letter Received - 

The NCS personnel said it's a busy time because many people want to send in their application before the new fees take effect, and that there are many applications HO is dealing with and that generally application takes no more than 8weeks during this period.

Well, I better hope mine won't take more than 4weeks, else the waiting will drive me nuts.

Well, it sure took more than 4weeks
Criteria - 2yrs Working Holiday Maker + 4yrs HSMP JR + 1yr ILR (Director of Ltd Company in last 1yr)
Submitted at NCS Southwark - 23rd March, 2011
Received at HO - 24th March, 2011
Debit Card debited - 28th March, 2011
Acknowledgement Letter Received - Didn't get Ack Letter
Decision Made - 26 May
Approval Letter Posted - Dated 27th May, Posted 31st May
Approval Letter Received - 04 June

Special thanks to Bhumi, VSAndroid, FerrariLondon, oluwa112...the list goes on....you guys were fantastic and helped me to keep the faith at the very last minute......i Love you guys and before sharing with my family, I thought to drop a note here.......now, on to the citizenship ceremony, but I'll sure take my time now as I've not had more than 4hrs sleep at night for the last one week, thinking of what could possibly go wrong with my application. Thank God, it's all over now after serious 7years commitments to this wonderful island.

[nax_72]

For those who wish to find out if their Council have recived their certificate but have not yet recieved HO approval. The ref number the council will request is your ref number you gave HO when you apply for naturalisation. it can be found in your letter issued to you for your ILR.

hope this help

This is not always true. I applied for myself and our two kids (3 in total). I got a single acknowledgement letter with a reference number (XXXXXX) which was the same all through the ceremony and with the certificate as well. After this my wife applied for her naturalization which come with a new reference number in acknowledgement letter. Now in the final approval letter she got the same number as us with a '/4' at the end. I mean XXXXXX/4. '4' might be the fourth person in the family. Her own acknowledgement letter reference number is no where seen in her approval letter.

[ferrarilondon]

alta well done matey, So happy for you. I am sure you are so happy now. go on have party tonight.