Ahooi

Right so a year has passed and I thought I’d update you guys on the steps I had to take on the road to UK citizenship!

You have to get a Certificate to prove that you have not previously applied for UK citizenship BEFORE you apply if you want to keep your current citizenship. Well this is the rules for South Africans!

Of course bloody Murphey’s law, I just missed the free ticket to this as it now costs £75 to apply for this certificate. The form to do this is called form NQ and is available on the UK Border Agency’s website:

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/nonacquisitionbritishcitizenship

This changed on 1st of April and it took about 6 weeks to come through, but I think that was due to the fact that the rule change happened whilst they were processing my application. I posted it in March and they then posted it back saying it now costs money so I had to do it all over again…

Once you have this, you have to submit it with forms BI-1664 and
BI-529 to the SA embassy available on the Embassy’s site for the ‘Retention of citizenship’. These forms are a bit confusing, I just filled it in as best as possible and it came back with no problems. They promise on the site to process this within 2 weeks, but once again it took 6 weeks and I had to moan a bit before I got it. (Note - the phone numbers on the website did not work.) Complaint was sent to: Ravago, C:  Home Affairs London LRP [ravagoc@foreign.gov.za] who forwarded it to tegbarut@foreign.gov.za so I hope this helps someone out there!

SEE my next entry on Applying for Citizenship!