Home Office Reference Number

[Shaolin]

Hi all

Today I received my approval letter for citizenship from HO. The letter says contact council to book ceremony. However when I rang council they asked for home office reference number. The letter from HO says 'Our Ref' which council says is not the home office reference they require to book ceremony. Can someone please provide some guidance who has gone thru this process........thanks

[alterhase58]

Not really sure what the issue is. HO ref starts with the first letter of your surname + 7 numeric digits, i.e. X1234567. It's above "Our Ref" on the letter (at least on mine!).

[Shaolin]

My letter hasn't got any home office reference on it. Is there any additional documents you receive from HO apart from aporoval letter ?

[alterhase58]

Have you still got your biometrics letter, that will / should have your ref number on it.
Don't think you'll get anything else apart from the approval letter.

[mulderpf]

It is part of the approval letter template. At the top right hand side are all the references. There is a Home Office one and a Poll/Cover Note No.

[Shaolin]

Hi

The format says Our Ref and then followed by Poll/Cover Note no. However 'Our Ref' is a 9 digit numbers whereas council wants Home Officec Ref which is total 8 digit characters. First character must be a alphabet and rest 7 must be numeric.
The Home Office Ref is not mention on my letter however I managed to find it on my biometric letter as advised by alterhase58. Hopefully I'll try n book my ceremony with this ref.

[lilit]

I am in the situation.
@Shaolin, were you able to figure out what reference number to use in the end?

[Shaolin]

Yes, please refer to the letter you have received for your biometric confirmation. It should state home office reference on it.
Surprisingly, when I called council second time they just asked for my name and did not ask the reference number at all. I even mention to them that if they need reference number at all but they said no name is sufficient

[lorenzo_g]

Hi everyone,

I am having the same problem. I can only see 'Our Ref' on my letter (which does not begin with a letter) and the 'Poll/Cover Note No'. The 'Your Ref' field is left blank in both my approval and ceremony invitation letters.

And I can't find any reference number on my Biometrics invitation letter. Any suggestions on what I could do to sort this out?

Thanks in advance.

Lorenzo