Tube, train and bus can be covered by an annual pass if your travel is going to be regular enough to justify the initial cost. Read up at http://www.tfl.gov.uk
To add to JAJ's comment, although SA citizenship is a birthright entrenched in the constitution that can always be successfully reclaimed whatever the circumstances... it will be difficult, time consuming and expensive. Much the same official mentality as the UK Home Office looks to be applying to t...
Bloody hell, the SA embassy contact number is premium rate??!! Same as a 09xx sex-chat number ...... *Good morning, how may we talk to you today?* What a rip off, I thought their whole existence was supposed to be a service for South Africans abroad! Mads, its important to register her birth. For on...
Home Secretaries never seem to last very long do they? If a PM wants to get rid of someone in a hurry the logical solution must be to promote them to HS..
Just your bank statements, not your wife's. For the most recent 3 months. Regarding the employer's letter, it doesnt have to be very wordy. It should be on a company letterhead and state that you have been employed fulltime from x date to y date, and they intend to continue employing you. If your em...
Hi, its your sponsoring company that applies for the work permit. In my case (2001) the application took 4 weeks, though processing times vary considerably.
If a VC only just, barely, makes someone's case "exceptional" by the squeakiest of margins then I guess not too many cases make it in via that particular route! On a lighter note, seeing as it had a happy ending, a Readers Digest tailpiece: A teacher is marking exam papers and one kid's an...
Sally - you've had ILR a couple of years now, so do you qualify for UK citizenship? A British passport gets no questions when arriving at a UK airport.
Not sure of your exact situation but when I applied for ILR the Home Office pretty much wanted to know that (a) I had worked for the company which sponsored the work permit. (b) I was still working for them. (c) They still needed me. My case was simpler than yours, there was only one company and wor...
on the AN application form there is a space to nominate a different local authority area for your Citizenship Ceremony ...and indeed I did just that. I live in the sticks where ceremonies are few and far between so opted for my nearest big city (Glasgow) where they happen more frequently and got an...
Marco 72 and Dawie are correct in saying not everyone receives a letter with ILR. I and my family received none either, ILR was simply entered into our passports. But they *must* have record of the ILR on their computer systems, and the application forms filed away somewhere. As JAJ says, if they ca...
Ok this is becoming boring now. Someone took my idly stated point of view on the 1st page (my how its grown?) as a personal threat/insult/whatever and basically nuked it - while claiming to uphold the principles of open and free debate no less. So boo hoo. Its been an eyebrow-raiser to see the level...
Marco 72 - 10000 last year apparently, at least according to this BBC report six weeks ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6470179.stm I guess the crux of the issue depends on them actually destroying the info once the passport is issued. But as I said previously, I think all the data they'l...
OL7MAX - some fair comment accepted, although it was you who veered off into id cards and govt IT projects. My assertion was, and is, that requiring 1st time passport applicants to present themselves in person and satisfy the issuers that they are indeed who they purport to be is not unreasonable. A...
OL7MAX - I have never objected to criticism, but criticism about what they are doing without even a hint at what you would prefer to see instead isnt useful discussion. Regarding the interviews I didnt know about the '200 items' bit. Surely they arent going to collect masses of information about eve...
Nah I dont think this is cause for paranoia, more like a reaction to the increasing incidence of id theft. Sure its inconvenient but we've all jumped through hoops already to get this far, so hey. They say they will already have verified that the applicant's id qualifies for the passport and checks ...
Apparently its to reduce the level of fraudulent applications and they want to check that you are indeed you. Fair enough I think, I wouldnt be worried about it.
Im pretty sure theres no way they could ever know unless you tried to renew your SA passport from over here. In that case if youve been here 5 years or more they'll require a letter from the UK Home Office stating that you havent applied for BC. (Tip: allow plenty of time for all that to happen) I d...
Hi guys, just back from a holiday weekend so sorry I couldnt respond sooner. Rogerroger, I *think* you'll be paying only (only!) £268 but in my son's case the HO had received the application before the cut-off date for the new fees so there could be no argument about timing. However, in your case t...
