Naturalization - Tips from my appointment

[tereliye01]

Good Evening All,

Please see below for some useful points from my NCS appointment couple of days back:

1. Please ensure you were physically present in UK 5 years before the day you apply (for NCS the day after as that's when HO receives your application). For example, if you are applying on 21st January 2015 and you traveled to France for 10 days from 20th January 2010 to 30th January 2010, the earliest you can apply is 31st January 2015. I did not know about this but was lucky that Brent NCS keeps your application and posts it out the day after you are eligible. They have checked and put my application in their locker and will post it out in 1st week of February.
2. Biometrics are not mandatory for everyone (if you have had them as a part of previous application) and the lady at NCS told me that given I only had my biometrics done last year as part of ILR, I might not receive a Biometric appointment at all. She said, HO randomly picks applications to perform biometrics.
3. If you are applying for Naturalization and Passport together, when you take the passport form from the post office, don't forget to fill out the last payment page from the form and tear it and give with your application form. The lady said, if you forget and if the NCS overlooks, the application is then as good as Naturalization and Passport applied separately.
4. It is okay to use the October 2015 version of the form if you have already taken references and only Section 6 of the form has changed as confirmed by Brent NCS. The lady took a print out of blank section 6 from January 2016 form for us and we filled it up there and she attached them to our forms with her counter signature.
5. General point on timelines as I have seen many discussions around the pilot scheme being given priority over others. I was told that it will take anywhere between 3-6 months for Naturalization and further 4-6 weeks for British Passport. I will add my timelines to the monthly thread when my application gets posted but just an FYI at this stage.

Hope this helps & Good Luck All...!!

[Casa]

Concerning that NCS you attended are saying they send the application to the HO the day after someone's qualifying date. The date of qualification is no longer the date it's received by the HO as was previously the situation. It is now the date that the application was submitted at the NCS appointment.

[tereliye01]

In my case then, the NCS said, they will keep the application pack with them for 10 days and post it out later and if I wanted to post on day of application, they warned that we might get a refusal and no fee (£2,010) would be refunded. If application day is same a NCS appointment, then I was in UK 5 years before on the day I had the NCS appointment but not in UK on the day after that. Doesn't matter much as all this means is a delay in application of about 10-15 days but there is some confusion around dates which I wanted people to be aware of. PS: my NCS was Brent.

[cs95tdg]

2. Biometrics are not mandatory for everyone (if you have had them as a part of previous application) and the lady at NCS told me that given I only had my biometrics done last year as part of ILR, I might not receive a Biometric appointment at all. She said, HO randomly picks applications to perform biometrics.

In addition to what casa has mentioned, the above point is also incorrect. Biometric enrolment is now an essential and integral part of the Naturalisation application process (not random or optional, irrespective of whether biometrics were submitted as part of a previous immigration application), used to verify an applicants identity. It's a bit concerning that the NCS appears to be providing inaccurate advise. I have to say I applied through Brent in November, and found the advisor who dealt with my application (& that I spoke to over the phone) to be very helpful & efficient. But as with everything else, it appears you may have a different experience based on how knowledgeable a particular advisor is.