Reconsideration for UK ctznshp - preaction protocol letter

[Gattopardo]

I am writing on this forum with regards to my application for British Citizenship, since I have now been stuck in a reconsideration process for 8 months, without receiving any information from the Home Office.

I am an EU national who have been living in the UK for 10 years. I received my permanent residence certificate last summer and applied for British citizenship straight away on 2nd September 2016 via the Nationality Checking Service (NCS) of my borough.

On 2nd November 2016 I received a letter from the Home Office requesting to provide a letter from UK NARIC by 16th November confirming that my degree was taught in English. I immediately contacted UK NARIC who advised it could take months to receive such letter in the post. I therefore sought advice from NCS, who suggested taking the ESOL Trinity Level 3 exam, which I passed on 13th November 2016. Since the date in which I completed the test was very close to the deadline, NCS sent my exam report to the Home Office and contacted on 14th November the case worker, who assured that my certificate was recorded on their systems. However, on November 23rd I received a letter from the Home Office stating that my application for British citizenship was refused since, according to their records, I had not provided any proof of knowledge of English.

I applied for reconsideration on 7th December 2016 with a covering letter and since then received no update on the status of my application. On 6th March 2017 I wrote a letter to the Home Office to explain the situation one more time and request an update, however I received a letter on 8th March saying only that reconsiderations are dealt with in date order and there is no specific timeline. I have not received any communication from the Home Office since that date.

I have recently decided to talk to an immigration lawyer since this process is really frustrating me immensly. The lawyer adviced that we could send a preaction protocol letter to try and speed up things (for a fee of £500+VAT), however in his opinion I should wait until the 10th month after my reconsideration application or else the letter would not be 'powerful' enough. I am not sure two months would make any difference (it is now 8 months since I applied for reconsideration) and i am very tempted to send a preaction protocol letter now and try to end this lenghty process asap.

Could someone please share their experiences with reconsideration processes and in particular preaction letters? Are they effective and after how much time?

Thanks

[CR001]

Unfortunately, you did the wrong test. ESOL is no longer accepted and hasn't been since November 2015.

You should have done IELTS SELT for UKVI.

There is no timeframe for reconsideration requests, it will take as long as it takes.

[secret.simon]

I therefore sought advice from NCS, who suggested taking the ESOL Trinity Level 3 exam, which I passed on 13th November 2016.

Unfortunately, you did the wrong test. ESOL is no longer accepted and hasn't been since November 2015.

Given that it seems the NCS gave incorrect advice, you may be better off suing the relevant council for incorrect advice.

I am not sure that a PAP would help any with chasing a naturalisation application through the system. Naturalisation applications are wholly at the discretion of the Home Office and given how significant it is, there are no timelines imposed on the Home Office going through the naturalisation applications.

[Gattopardo]

Unfortunately, you did the wrong test. ESOL is no longer accepted and hasn't been since November 2015.

You should have done IELTS SELT for UKVI.

Thanks CR001 for your quick reply. I ran my certificate through Trinity College this morning and they confirmed that my qualification "meets the minimum requirement set by the UKVI for a British citizenship application since it was taken under the new SELT conditions in a registered SELT centre and is less then two years old and is therefore suitable for use in UKVI applications". So this will not be a problem.

There is no timeframe for reconsideration requests, it will take as long as it takes.

I know there is no timeline for reconsiderations, however I read on this forum (I cannot find the post anymore, but will look again) that someone in a reconsideration process sent a PAP letter and received an answer within a couple of weeks. Whether it was a coincidence or not I don't know, but if anyone who reads this post sent a PAP letter to speed up the reconsideration process and have any kind of feedback that would be highly appreciated.

Thanks