Nationality.. character checks?? Waiting times?

[cool_chap]

I applied for the British Nationality on the 2nd of Oct .2006; through the NCS. I got an acknowledgement a week later and another letter few days later saying that they are waiting for ' character checks' before making a decision. In all, I waited 8 weeks so far, and nothing arrived. I called the Nationality Helpline and they plainly say that character checks are made on everone applying for nationality.
I am in the UK sine march 1992 ( ILR since 1994 after marrying a British subject). I am also continuously employed since 1993, never dependent on public funds and live in my own house.
Recently, often one hears cases where the positive decision has been made within 2 weeks. I wonder, if mine is a 'difficult' case and would appreciate any similiar cases. Waiting times seem to differ from person to person. Many thanks.

[JAJ]

I applied for the British Nationality on the 2nd of Oct .2006; through the NCS. I got an acknowledgement a week later and another letter few days later saying that they are waiting for ' character checks' before making a decision. In all, I waited 8 weeks so far, and nothing arrived. I called the Nationality Helpline and they plainly say that character checks are made on everone applying for nationality.
I am in the UK sine march 1992 ( ILR since 1994 after marrying a British subject). I am also continuously employed since 1993, never dependent on public funds and live in my own house.
Recently, often one hears cases where the positive decision has been made within 2 weeks. I wonder, if mine is a 'difficult' case and would appreciate any similiar cases. Waiting times seem to differ from person to person. Many thanks.

Application processing times are as follows on the Home Office website:
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/applying/nationality/

If you don't hear after 5 months or so, then you can ask what's going on but in the meantime I think you just need to be patient.

Incidentally, are you saying your wife is really a British subject or is she a British citizen? (you can only have British subject status in a very few specific instances).

[cool_chap]

My wife is British Citizen since 1966. I thought that 'subject' and ' citizen'
( or even ' national' ) are same. My mistake. Also before the marriage, I came to the UK 9 times, never oversatying.
Still, no one can explain as to why some get their decisions within 2 weeks, while others wait longer!! I know that the IND website gives average waiting times, purely for guide- purpose.
Cheers.

[ppron747]

Not much comfort, but I think it can simply depend on the pressure of work in the particular caseworking group dealing with the application.

From I can gather, all of the groups deal with "bread and butter" straighforward naturalisation applications, but some of them have been trained to deal with less common applications as well - such as the various categories of registration which, while they're not particularly difficult, require different training. If some of the "specialist" groups get bogged down in, say, UKM or BOS applications, then their "normal" work on naturalisation applications is going to get slower.

So I really think that, to a great extent, it's the luck of the draw...

The point about citizen/subject/national may seem an anoraky thing, but there are seven different categories of British people, so it is necessary to make sure of the terminology. "National" covers everyone, but is also pretty useless, because it means it covers people who can live in UK and people who can't. "Subject" used to be the universal term, but now only covers two small groups, nearly all of whom are over 58 years old, with connections with Ireland or former British India....

And they say nationality isn't fun