OMG, this exact thing happened to me (pls. read below the quote)...
stef01 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 19, 2018 3:16 pm
... . What matter is to TICK THE BOXES. nothing more nothing less. nothing to do with being 'british'. So. I have been refused because this box wasn't ticked : i have a Registration Certification of Permanent Residency, but NOT a Permanent Residency Card. You may know that to apply for citizenship, you HAVE to have the PErmanent Residence Card. Which is what I applied for but when I did, in return I received the Registration of Certificate... NOT the Permanent Card... I did not notice because the cards are IDENTICAL. what changed is under the title : Type of Document (google it). I had no idea this difference existed and of course the Home Office did NOT tell me precisely what I had receved after my application. The Local Town Hall told me that I followed the wrong link. ...
I have been living in the UK for over 21 years, was continuously employed and paid tax and NI contributions. When I started the naturalisation process in December 2016, I realised on the gov.uk website, that I needed a residency card and be in possession of it for a min. 12 months ahead of applying for citizenship. I followed the (what I thought to be) the correct links to get the required residency card and applied. I received the card 5 weeks later and waited for a year.
When I finally applied for citizenship this June and made the non-refundable up-front payment of £1,300, my time calculation was that I'd be fine to be accepted for dual citizenship ahead of Brexit, since Germany (my home country) only allows dual citizenship between two EU countries. I used the
Nationality Document Return Service of Haringey Council, who pointed out that they only(!!!) photocopy my originals so I could keep them. They would NOT check the documents. I was basically served by a professional photocopier.
Oh boy, am I kicking myself. Because I ended up applying with an EEA(QP) instead of an EEA(PR) and was refused. £1,300 withheld. The easiest money the HO have ever made. It must have taken them all of 2mins until their system spat out the default rejection letter.
I am convinced it was - same as in your case, Stef - a chicken-up on the gov.uk website, that linked to the wrong document application from within the naturalisation process. This has since been rectified on the site (together with a few other glitches). So how can we ever prove that we were misled and should get a refund?
I am an experienced internet user and UX expert (by profession). This is not a mistake I would usually make.