Citizenship Ceremony cancelled due to Covid-19

[CULLINAN]

As more areas went in Tier 4 last week and calls grow for a National Lockdown - I think group ceremonies will be affected.

Has anyone else heard back from councils in Tier 4 who are expected to attend group OR private ceremonies soon in Jan as reported by previous user??

[Bengomango]

Hi Cullinan as my ceremony is cancelled and my council donot have any other option like virtual or private ? Is there anything I can do toward this or I just have to sit and wait ? Thanks

[CR001]

Hi Cullinan as my ceremony is cancelled and my council donot have any other option like virtual or private ? Is there anything I can do toward this or I just have to sit and wait ? Thanks

Nothing you can do except wait.

[Desmond123]

This is what I received from email I sent to Manchester Council when I asked if they have received my certificate and book me for ceremony.

We have not received any certificates since the 18th December.

The Home Office may have been premature in sending you the email, I expect that we will receive your certificate in the next dispatch.
We think that we will receive this next Monday the 11th.

Not to worry about the 21 days stated, once we have your certificate, we will book you onto the first available ceremony.

Kind Regards

[Abxnair]

Got this response form home office.
They processing early October. Not sure how some odd invitations are send via emails!

Government restrictions in relation to COVID-19 have understandably restricted the ability of local authorities to provide citizenship ceremonies, as the safety of customers must be paramount

Whilst we will continue to work closely with our local authorities to expand the provision of citizenship ceremonies, including the expansion of availability of virtual ceremonies, due to the changing restrictions and guidance relating to COVID-19, it is not possible at this time to advise when a certificate will be despatched once an application has been approved.

However, we can confirm that we have just completed the processing of certificates and ceremony invitations for applications that were approved in September and have now commenced processing those for applications approved early October.

Ceremony invites are sent by 2nd class post and can take up to 10 working days to be delivered.

We will update our website with any new information, in particular, in relation to the time it might take to despatch certificates. Please be assured that once a customer receives their Citizenship Ceremony Invitation Letter, they will still have up to six months within which to complete ceremony.

Exceptional circumstances relating to an urgent need to complete a British citizenship ceremony will, of course, be taken into consideration, with the appropriate supporting evidence. If you need to undertake a ceremony urgently, please contact us at Citizenship.Support@homeoffice.gov.uk. However, we are unable to guarantee that we will able to expedite any ceremony request at this time.

We would ask that you do not contact us, or your local authority, regarding your ceremony at this time and be assured that we are working as quickly as possible to despatch your certificate. Your patience and understanding at this time are much appreciated.

[successorxx]

Samco Have you heard anything or received your Inivitation? After my 10th attempt contacting the Home office through different emails I finally got this reply I hope is true and not generic again btw I was approved early August.

“Dear Mr xxx,

Apologies for the delay in response.

We have been looking in to your case and it appears there was a system error when your application was granted and the invitation was not sent to print, we have now resolved the issue and our citizenship and ceremonies team will despatch the invitation as soon as possible.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards

[qwisnia]

Samco Have you heard anything or received your Inivitation? After my 10th attempt contacting the Home office through different emails I finally got this reply I hope is true and not generic again btw I was approved early August.

“Dear Mr xxx,

Apologies for the delay in response.

We have been looking in to your case and it appears there was a system error when your application was granted and the invitation was not sent to print, we have now resolved the issue and our citizenship and ceremonies team will despatch the invitation as soon as possible.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards

May I ask which email did you use to get this reply?

[PhantomPermit]

everything to do with immigrants in this country has extortionate costs, slow service and poor standards.

[successorxx]

Samco Have you heard anything or received your Inivitation? After my 10th attempt contacting the Home office through different emails I finally got this reply I hope is true and not generic again btw I was approved early August.

“Dear Mr xxx,

Apologies for the delay in response.

We have been looking in to your case and it appears there was a system error when your application was granted and the invitation was not sent to print, we have now resolved the issue and our citizenship and ceremonies team will despatch the invitation as soon as possible.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards

May I ask which email did you use to get this reply?

Same email that was used in sending the approval letter.....Nationality support didn’t reply it’s been 2 months

[successorxx]

everything to do with immigrants in this country has extortionate costs, slow service and poor standards.

true....Just imagine I have been waiting for nearly 5 months and they forgot to send my invitation to print

[PhantomPermit]

everything to do with immigrants in this country has extortionate costs, slow service and poor standards.

true....Just imagine I have been waiting for nearly 5 months and they forgot to send my invitation to print

maybe they are lying who knows what the actual reason is. But at least you heard something back

[successorxx]

everything to do with immigrants in this country has extortionate costs, slow service and poor standards.

true....Just imagine I have been waiting for nearly 5 months and they forgot to send my
invitation to print

maybe they are lying who knows what the actual reason is. But at least you heard something back

Never underestimate the home office..lol they forget literally anything

[CULLINAN]

Scotland goes to March style lockdown from midnight.

[CULLINAN]

PM to make a speech @8pm tonight. Most likely England to go into further restrictions/National Lockdown.

[myukqueries]

Approved on 5th Nov - still waiting for invitation letter.
Chased Manchester council and this is their reply today:

“ We are yet to receive certificates for decisions made in October.

The festive period will have created some delays as we last received certificates on the 18th December.

Once we do receive your certificate, we will automatically book you onto the first available ceremony.

Currently, under tier 4 citizenship ceremonies are still going ahead and they also went ahead under the last lockdown.
So, we do not enviable any new instructions asking ceremonies to be postponed, but as always if we do, we will adhere to these.

Kind Regards”

[Yazzz95]

Approved on 5th Nov - still waiting for invitation letter.
Chased Manchester council and this is their reply today:

“ We are yet to receive certificates for decisions made in October.

The festive period will have created some delays as we last received certificates on the 18th December.

Once we do receive your certificate, we will automatically book you onto the first available ceremony.

Currently, under tier 4 citizenship ceremonies are still going ahead and they also went ahead under the last lockdown.
So, we do not enviable any new instructions asking ceremonies to be postponed, but as always if we do, we will adhere to these.

Kind Regards”

Hi,

My application was also approved on 5th November and still waiting for invitation. My council is Newham (london). Please update here once you recieve your invitation. Hopefully i will recieve mine around same time as well.

Thanks.

[azlan_ali]

Scotland goes to March style lockdown from midnight.

would ceremonies be halted this time?

[CULLINAN]

Scotland goes to March style lockdown from midnight.

would ceremonies be halted this time?

Too early to say. You need to contact your local council. It may impact ceremonies especially group ceremonies I believe.

[Desmond123]

Approved on 5th Nov - still waiting for invitation letter.
Chased Manchester council and this is their reply today:

“ We are yet to receive certificates for decisions made in October.

The festive period will have created some delays as we last received certificates on the 18th December.

Once we do receive your certificate, we will automatically book you onto the first available ceremony.

Currently, under tier 4 citizenship ceremonies are still going ahead and they also went ahead under the last lockdown.
So, we do not enviable any new instructions asking ceremonies to be postponed, but as always if we do, we will adhere to these.

Kind Regards”

I received similar email from them today. Although I have received my invitation from HO via email,the council said they would receive another batch of invitation by 11th January, hopefully we get good news.Fingers Crossed.

[nnn15]

If someone who's paperwork issuance was affected by the "system error" receives a ceremony invitation letter or naturalisation certificate, could you please post here?

My application was approved in March 2020, naturalisation certificate still hasn't been printed. After the HO confirmed that the paperwork for all applications approved through August has been printed and despatched, I submitted a complaint at the HO website as my paperwork hasn't arrived. Their service standard is 20 working days, it's been over a month and the HO hasn't responded to my complaint.
I did get a response to one of the emails I sent to citizenship.support in early December, they quoted a "technical problem" that they were investigating as an urgent matter, but I received no updates after.

[SamcoSamco]

Samco Have you heard anything or received your Inivitation? After my 10th attempt contacting the Home office through different emails I finally got this reply I hope is true and not generic again btw I was approved early August.

“Dear Mr xxx,

Apologies for the delay in response.

We have been looking in to your case and it appears there was a system error when your application was granted and the invitation was not sent to print, we have now resolved the issue and our citizenship and ceremonies team will despatch the invitation as soon as possible.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards

Good to hear that you received a valid response.
I have not received my ceremony paperwork yet. The latest response I received was that my paperwork is not printed and it will be processed as soon as COVID restrictions ease down. It’s a joke, I have seen people apply after me and got their approval and ceremony done before me. I do appreciate there are others who have been waiting longer and that we live through difficult times, but, I work as well and we made sure to put measures in place to reduce COVID impact on our customers and production. May be my certificate is taking so long because it is being engraved in hieroglyphs.

Can you share the email address you received a response through please?

Good luck and hopefully you will get this done and dusted before Easter.

[CULLINAN]

PM to make a speech @8pm tonight. Most likely England to go into further restrictions/National Lockdown.

National Lockdown confirmed.

[CULLINAN]

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lo ... ay-at-home

[naruto]

PM to make a speech @8pm tonight. Most likely England to go into further restrictions/National Lockdown.

National Lockdown confirmed.

So dose that mean everything is gonna pause? No more ceremonies and invitation letters will stop?

[CULLINAN]

Public services
The majority of public services will continue and you will be able to leave home to visit them. These include:
● theNHSandmedicalserviceslikeGPsanddentists.Weare supporting the NHS to carry out urgent and non-urgent services safely, and it is vital anyone who thinks they need any kind of medical care comes forward and seeks help
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