I think we're all waiting with baited breath to find out if barbara_g has gotten her naturalisation yet. She posted on Aug 27 stating that she'd received the oath papers in the post on the 14th.
More so I think *I* am waiting to find out because I took the bold step to do this as well. My oath did not come through as quickly as Barbara's. My initial paperwork was with them for about two weeks...despite saying they were now serving people who'd applied in Dec 2002, and that it would take eight months at least.
I received my oath on Wednesday, Oct 8, and posted everything back straight away. The next step is to get a form back from them stating I am now a naturalised citizen and include documents to allow me to apply for a British passport.
Might be interesting to know abit more about how to do it and what goes on...
This was my experience and it seems to parallel for the most part what Barbara has done/discovered/experienced.
I'd lived here longer than the minimum three years, but the paperwork only needed to be filled in for the past three years (the "qualifying" years). Good news in that I didn't have to detail as much as I thought I would. For instance, I had to list all my visits in and out of the country, the dates and the purpose. Other things the form needs are dates and places of your parents' birth, your spouse's birth, your divorce(s), your spouse's divorce(s). You will also need to find two British people "of good character" who have known you at least three years. You'll have to report any criminal pasts, or court judgements. If you brought children with you and they are under 18, you can include them in this one application.
It cost me £120.
Having gathered all this information, references from two people, plus originals of passports (both), marriage certificate and birth certficate (spouse's), I sent all this with the money to the Home Office.
I have to add that for being another round of red tape that you have to go through, the instructions are very clear and relatively easy-to-follow.
Also, as Barbara mentioned, you can go to a solicitor's office and have "certified" copies made of documents you don't want sent through the post. All they do is photocopy them and them stamp each page and sign as being official copies. We walked into a solicitor's office, one we've used before but we didn't say that so we could have been strangers off the street, and we were not charged at all. Not even for the copies.
A couple days after I sent off the application, I got a note (look for the plain envelopes from Liverpool in your post) from the Home Office stating they'd received my things (and listed what they had) and that they were working on the application, but not to get too excited because these things take time and they had a lot of applications before mine. That if I needed to have any documents sent back, they could be requested in the meantime. (I suspect in this case they'd do what the solitors did and take photocopies and mark that they were genunine.)
Within 10 days or so beyond that I got the oath. It's a piece of paper that gives you a couple options to read. Take it to a solicitor and read your choice there in front of him/her. Then he/she signs, you sign, he/she stamps it and then you drop it in the post. They even send you a mailing label to use.
As I mentioned, you're given two options to read. One is an oath that you give to God giving your allegiance to the Queen. The other is an affirmation that you give your allegiance to the Queen. In other words, one's religious, the other isn't.
Well, I posted it off Wednesday, as I wrote earlier. The next day I received all of my documents back with a note that everything seemed to be fine and that barring any last-minute discoveries up until they actually send the naturalisation papers, that my application has been approved and all I need do now is wait.
So this is why I've been waiting for Barbara to let us know if she got her papers through yet. If she got her oath on Aug 14, is she still waiting (almost two months later)?
I'll let you know what happens during the next stage. But I suspect the REAL paperwork begins once I get the papers to apply for a British passport. That requires two photos, a reference from someone of great standing, etc. And then who knows how long that whole process will take. I'm going to go out on a loose limb and predict the whole thing, from filling out papers to getting a British passport will have taken me four months. But I don't think the Home Office wants that advertised too loudly, considering the warnings of delays in processing.
I suspect that it was made much easier for them because my application was a no-brainer 'married a Brit' application, and that I'd been here a while and I've got credit established.
