BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice

Subject: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 02:29 PM

Hello

My US Passport is going to expire in a year and 3 months. It took so much effort to get my UK indefinte leave to remain stamp put in it in 2003. They rejected my postal application due to lost bits which I know were in the package. So I spent hours queue at the Home Office to get it done in person. Not a pleasant experience. No public convienences, except a pay as you pee outside the building, which if you were alone would mean losing your place in the queue.

I don't want to go there again for the convenience of having the UK leave stamp in my US passport.

So I plan to take the citizenship test which should be easy enough after I study the Handbook.   Once passed, then to apply for UK citizenship and finally a UK passport.

Here is the rub. Upon reading info on UK gov site, I find I have to make same type of application I did for leave to remain, send off the bits including my US passport which they tell me to be prepared to be parted from for 3 months.

I am afraid some numbnut in the Home Office is going to lose bits again. Maybe even my US passport. I will have to pay £600.00 for this and it is keeping me awake nights.

Just wondering has anyone else recently applied, succeeded and could you tell me how it went?

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 02:45 PM

Is there not a fast track system, which of course they would charge you for. Whereby you can go in person and wait while they deal with you. Yes I know you went there before and had to wait, but it's Hobson's choice sometimes. I would advise you avoid the summer months as June July and August, are the busieast.
You can also consider 'Registerd Post' or Recorded Delivery' as options for sending your papers. That means it would be signed for on receipt.
You can insure a package, which would cover you for the cost of replacement, should your passport go astray again. Which on the face of it, is extremely unlikely.
I don't know anybody at the home office, just some woman at Inland Revenue ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:10 PM

You may be right John

Remembering now that they lost the last page of application form which had my bank details on. Rejected the the application because it was not paid for. Later found they had debited my bank account. All because one agent started my application, then left home offce and another took it over. God it was a mess.

I think I will go for the stand in line option unless it is a ridiculous cost. As if £600.00 isn't a bit greedy.

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: jacqui.c
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:26 PM

It's always the way VT. It has so far cost round about $4000 for me to become a USA resident for a ten year period and we really had to jump through hoops to get that done.

I'm going for USA citizenship next year, I hope, and am wondering just what I'm going to have to pay/do for that!

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:34 PM

Wouldn't be something if we could temporarily swap citizenships?

On second thought, what a redtape nightmare that would make.

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: jacqui.c
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 03:55 PM

LOL - don't try and confuse the little darlings!

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 04:54 PM

Do joint passports still exist?

If so (just a thought)

1. Commit matrimony
2. The silent one applies for joint passport
3. Then you apply for separate UK passport in own right.

Might it work?

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 05:46 PM

Passport via marriage
The Home Office must be satisfied that the marriage is genuine, and if they suspect not, then you get no passport, but you could obtain a criminal record for deception.

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 05:56 PM

Yikes, what are the criteria for them accepting it as a genuine marriage? The mind boggles! :0)

This whole immigration/citizenship thing around the world has become nuts! It's become Corporate Citizenship with people having to pay a small fortune, with no guarantee that they'll be accepted, and no way of ever seeing that money again, whilst the lousy Governments of each country make loadsa money and couldn't care a fig about the deep unhappiness it's causing to people who love and care deeply about one another.

Viva la Revolucion!

Good luck, Tam...keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 15 Jan 09 - 07:39 PM

Tam, an alternative: when my passport expired here, I went to the American embassy. They renewed my passport, which I then posted off for a new stamp. No problem, all you provided was your old passport and indefinite leave letter.

Last year my passport expired again. I sent it off to the American Embassy and got a new one, but found out the UK government now charges a substantial fee to put the new stamp into your passport. HOWEVER, if you travel with both your new passport and the old one with the stamp in, you're absolutely fine.

No queueing, no horrible toilets, no fees, no tests!

However, if you decide to take the citizenship exam, best of luck.

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 04:27 AM

You haven't got a grandparent born in Ireland have you? If so it'd probably be easier to get an Irish passport, and it gives you all the same rights in the UK as a UK passport does - even voting.

Subject: RE: BS: Applying for UK Citizenship: Advice
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 17 Jan 09 - 06:17 AM

Wow!

I am very happily committed in matrimony 5 plus years now. I would not have been able to get indefinite leave to remain without being married.

Looked it up on IPS.gov

Does marriage make me elibible?
No - you do not automatically become a British citizen because you are married to a British man or woman.

Before 1949, if a woman married a British man she automatically became a British citizen. This is no longer the case.

It is silly to have to pay same for the renewed leave to remain stamp as first application every time I renew my US passport.

But is it worth it to spend £635 for British citizenship? If I had UK passport, Chris and I would not have to be separated on each side of the pond to get through the passport controls.

I am very tempted to do it the way Ruth does, except for the worry of losing my original passport and the fact that it was issued in my former married name and shows change back to maiden name (my current name) in the back. Yes I am married to the silent one but I did not take his name.

This needs some thinking about. Thanks for all the advice.