Naturalisation approved but certificate missing from local council

[purp]

Hi All,

My mum has a bit of a strange issue, her naturalisation application was approved back in March but due to covid her certificate was delayed from getting to her local council. Its been months now and her certificate is still missing. She contacts her local council every 2 weeks and still no joy. The council has written to immigration and no response from them.

Has anyone been through something like this? Can anyone advise?

[CULLINAN]

Hi All,

My mum has a bit of a strange issue, her naturalisation application was approved back in March but due to covid her certificate was delayed from getting to her local council. Its been months now and her certificate is still missing. She contacts her local council every 2 weeks and still no joy. The council has written to immigration and no response from them.

Has anyone been through something like this? Can anyone advise?

Has your mum received the ceremony invitation letter as yet?

I am assuming the council says they have not yet received the certificate from HO?

[purp]

Hi All,

My mum has a bit of a strange issue, her naturalisation application was approved back in March but due to covid her certificate was delayed from getting to her local council. Its been months now and her certificate is still missing. She contacts her local council every 2 weeks and still no joy. The council has written to immigration and no response from them.

Has anyone been through something like this? Can anyone advise?

Has your mum received the ceremony invitation letter as yet?

I am assuming the council says they have not yet received the certificate from HO?

Yes on both counts, she got the letter in April .

[CULLINAN]

Did you try to chase HO? You should write to HO asap rather than chasing the council.

[nnn15]

I have a similar issue, my naturalisation was approved by the end of April, I don't know exactly when. I have an approval letter, but the certificate is still missing. I wrote the Home Office multiple times, but they take months to respond and they haven't given me any case-specific information so far.

There's been a recent change in the help line response a couple of weeks ago - they said I should have received my certificate by now and if I don't receive it by 3 December I should call them again and they could make an escalation. Probably you should call them too.

If you don't get a response from the HO, other options are filing a complaint at their website or reaching out to your MP asking for help. In my experience none of this helps resolve the issue quickly though.

[purp]

We tried calling but didn't get very far, they said only the council could contact them on her behalf and they have already written several times on her behalf.

I have a similar issue, my naturalisation was approved by the end of April, I don't know exactly when. I have an approval letter, but the certificate is still missing. I wrote the Home Office multiple times, but they take months to respond and they haven't given me any case-specific information so far.

There's been a recent change in the help line response a couple of weeks ago - they said I should have received my certificate by now and if I don't receive it by 3 December I should call them again and they could make an escalation. Probably you should call them too.

If you don't get a response from the HO, other options are filing a complaint at their website or reaching out to your MP asking for help. In my experience none of this helps resolve the issue quickly though.

[purp]

Thank you, will try this and see.

Did you try to chase HO? You should write to HO asap rather than chasing the council.

[nnn15]

Please post here if you manage to get this resolved. I'm struggling with a similar issue and would like to find out what can be done to complete this process.

[purp]

Sure, she called council again today (out of habit lol), they said they wrote to HO again yesterday, they said the same thing you said, its been months and they haven't heard back themselves. We will call HO tomorrow

[nnn15]

Hi purp, I called the HO help line today and explained that I've been waiting for the ceremony invitation for over 7 months now. They submitted an escalation on the spot, I received an email about it. They said I should get an email within 2 weeks and if I don't get it by mid December I should call back.
If you haven't done it yet it's probably worth doing, just to make sure your case is flagged to the HO. They stated that all the paperwork for up to end of August approvals has been issued, but evidently it's not the case as we still haven't received ours.

[purp]

Hey nnn15, glad to hear you are making progress, my mum also got an email from HO on Friday as well, saying the below.

"I refer to your application for British Citizenship and your email enquiry. Upon investigation I can confirm that your citizenship ceremony documents have not yet been printed or despatched to the local authority. Your citizenship paperwork will be generated in coming weeks when current restrictions due to Coronavirus are eased.
In normal circumstances customers were required to book their citizenship ceremony within three months of being sent an invitation from the Home Office. Due to the current circumstances we have extended this period to six months. We will keep this under constant review. Please be assured that no adverse decisions will be made on your application because of delays caused by Coronavirus (unless there is a material change in your circumstances, for example, you are convicted of a criminal offence). "

I don't know if we should still follow up with a call or not.

[nnn15]

Hey nnn15, glad to hear you are making progress, my mum also got an email from HO on Friday as well, saying the below.

"I refer to your application for British Citizenship and your email enquiry. Upon investigation I can confirm that your citizenship ceremony documents have not yet been printed or despatched to the local authority. Your citizenship paperwork will be generated in coming weeks when current restrictions due to Coronavirus are eased.
In normal circumstances customers were required to book their citizenship ceremony within three months of being sent an invitation from the Home Office. Due to the current circumstances we have extended this period to six months. We will keep this under constant review. Please be assured that no adverse decisions will be made on your application because of delays caused by Coronavirus (unless there is a material change in your circumstances, for example, you are convicted of a criminal offence). "

I don't know if we should still follow up with a call or not.

Which email did you get a response from? I didn't have any luck with any of the support emails at all.
You seem to have received a generic copy-paste response, but at least they appear to confirm they've checked you mum's application and that the paperwork is not despatched. The HO confirmed to me in writing that they've issued and despatched the certificates for all the applications approved by the end of August which is a discrepancy.

I feel like if we don't follow up the HO won't do anything - we are waiting for many months now, and the HO stated that the backlog up to the end of August has been cleared. They must have overseen that they missed some applications approved in spring, and I feel like we need to flag it to them.

Also you can see on this forum that some people who submitted their applications in August already got approved and received their paperwork, so the HO can actually process applications even during this lockdown. They just wouldn't get back to our applications. This is why I've taken the strategy of following up aggressively with them. I'm going to submit a complaint as they failed to deliver on the 12-weeks timeline, stated that they've cleared the backlog up to August which is not true. And I hope at some point they can start investigating and print out paperwork, it shouldn't be that difficult given they do it for other applications.

Please keep me posted if you manage to find out how to resolve this.

[Ivan122]

I have a similar issue, my naturalisation was approved by the end of April, I don't know exactly when. I have an approval letter, but the certificate is still missing. I wrote the Home Office multiple times, but they take months to respond and they haven't given me any case-specific information so far.

There's been a recent change in the help line response a couple of weeks ago - they said I should have received my certificate by now and if I don't receive it by 3 December I should call them again and they could make an escalation. Probably you should call them too.

If you don't get a response from the HO, other options are filing a complaint at their website or reaching out to your MP asking for help. In my experience none of this helps resolve the issue quickly though.

I have a similar problem, my application for naturalisation was approved at the end of May and since then have heard nothing. My council (Coventry) hasn't received my citizenship certificate and I haven't received an invitation letter.

I contacted HO by phone about two weeks ago (they never responded to my prior emails) and they also told me that they will "escalate the matter". Unfortunately, I think those are just empty promises they tell people to get them off the phone. The very same day I have received the exact same email as Purp posted here on 29 November. Very generic, avoiding to give me any sort of date on when can I expect the issue to be resolved. Instead, they repeatedly mentioned that I should not try contacting them again or bother my city council and just patiently wait for my invitation letter. It's been over 6 months since I was approved! I think I have been truly patient but right now I feel I'm entering a state of resignation, there is no where to turn, no one I haven't already spoken to... I don't know what else to do..

[raij]

hey everyone Start of june aproval here - but no letter to me or the registr office , as for today i have received same generic reply from 2 departments , of course i phoned H.O. to complain - thye now told me all letters up to end of august approvals have been sent out on 11 and 19 Nov - and that our invites should arrive by 3rd December - i will believe it when i see it
called my Mp again who sent a letter at start of nov to home office , and got assured that they will start chasing it up soon
i am truly sorry that all of us are in such position , and it deeply upsets me as to how our cases are "handled"
I am grateful tho that we have a place like this forum to vent out, seek advice and support each other

[nnn15]

I have a similar issue, my naturalisation was approved by the end of April, I don't know exactly when. I have an approval letter, but the certificate is still missing. I wrote the Home Office multiple times, but they take months to respond and they haven't given me any case-specific information so far.

There's been a recent change in the help line response a couple of weeks ago - they said I should have received my certificate by now and if I don't receive it by 3 December I should call them again and they could make an escalation. Probably you should call them too.

If you don't get a response from the HO, other options are filing a complaint at their website or reaching out to your MP asking for help. In my experience none of this helps resolve the issue quickly though.

I have a similar problem, my application for naturalisation was approved at the end of May and since then have heard nothing. My council (Coventry) hasn't received my citizenship certificate and I haven't received an invitation letter.

I contacted HO by phone about two weeks ago (they never responded to my prior emails) and they also told me that they will "escalate the matter". Unfortunately, I think those are just empty promises they tell people to get them off the phone. The very same day I have received the exact same email as Purp posted here on 29 November. Very generic, avoiding to give me any sort of date on when can I expect the issue to be resolved. Instead, they repeatedly mentioned that I should not try contacting them again or bother my city council and just patiently wait for my invitation letter. It's been over 6 months since I was approved! I think I have been truly patient but right now I feel I'm entering a state of resignation, there is no where to turn, no one I haven't already spoken to... I don't know what else to do..

Have you submitted a complaint on the HO website?

[purp]

Have you submitted a complaint on the HO website?

Sorry guys just seen these messages. No we haven't submitted a complaint yet as her local council is "helping" her chase HO. I will speak to her tonight and if she happy with it, then I'll go ahead. I see there's a few people affected by this, she was starting to think she got singled out because her local council had said they sent all the certificates for her batch in June/July and it would seem, HO took hers out of the pile.

Will update tonight if we go ahead with the complaint.

[nnn15]

Have you submitted a complaint on the HO website?

Sorry guys just seen these messages. No we haven't submitted a complaint yet as her local council is "helping" her chase HO. I will speak to her tonight and if she happy with it, then I'll go ahead. I see there's a few people affected by this, she was starting to think she got singled out because her local council had said they sent all the certificates for her batch in June/July and it would seem, HO took hers out of the pile.

Will update tonight if we go ahead with the complaint.

My council also told me they were getting certificates in order, but they are on September approvals now and my certificate hasn't come. The council asked if I'm sure I'm indeed approved - well, I received an approval letter saying "I am pleased to confirm your application to naturalise as a British citizen has been successful".

I don't think anything will get resolved if we just wait as the HO confirmed the backlog up to the end of August has been cleared. So it doesn't sound they are going to deal with earlier cases. I've submitted a complaint and also an escalation request. Will share if anything of that works. No response from the HO so far, but they are still within the timelines.

[nnn15]

An update - I received a response from my MP, the HO told them that my letter was sent back in August.
My letter hasn't arrived and neither has the naturalisation certificate.
I know that ceremony invitation letters are sent via 2nd class untracked Royal Mail and get lost easily, but that shouldn't happen to the certificate.

I will have to follow up with the MP.