Immigrationboards.com

Hi,looking for advice about time to apply for naturalisation.

I had applied for ILR in 2 July 2009,
but been refused on 22 sep 2009,
went to immigration court on 2 dec 2009 when appeal was allowed according to immigration rules.
shamp in passport of ILR in 25/03/2010.
Could I use discretion to apply for naturalisation, therefore apply in Oct 2010( which is 15 months after application for ILR) instead of waiting till 25 march 2010?

Discretion to disregard immigration time restriction in last 12 months before naturalisation in case of:

-you made a successful application for indefinite leave to remain more than 15 months before your naturalisation application but the decision on your application was delayed due to something that was not your fault;
or
-you had an application for asylum or leave to remain refused but later approved as the initial decision was incorrect. This initial mistake resulted in a delay in you being able to apply for indefinite leave to remain.

anyone had similar story?

I think that is OK, but of course you are only mentioning one rule, and there are other rules, so do check everything out very carefully.

Thanks
I have applied using this discreation and my application has been approved.

sladkiy, congratulations. Glad it worked out for you.

Hi, sladkiy, I am now in the same situation as you were, just wonder how did you manage to explain to the HO about the discreation, did you just write them a letter? I find it quite difficult to put it in writting, how did you do it?

wiiwii wrote:Hi, sladkiy, I am now in the same situation as you were, just wonder how did you manage to explain to the HO about the discreation, did you just write them a letter? I find it quite difficult to put it in writting, how did you do it?

I think there is a boxed section where you can explain why you don't meet the requirements for 1 year on ILR and ask for discretion. That's what I did and sent off my application today. The NCS office initially didn't want to send it, then called one of the case workers who didn't even know of this rule, then misunderstood it, saying that I couldn't apply cos it wasn't 15 months since I had received my ILR.

Finally, I impressed upon them that it wasn't the ILR approval date but rather the ILR application date that started the countdown to 15 months. The UKBA woman on the phone relented, but still made a point of saying that this was a discretion so it was very likely that my application would be refused and asked the NCS to write this down on my file. Anyway, the NCS woman then told me that my application was most certainly going to be turned down and that I would lose all my fee and whether I wanted to proceed.

I agreed to go ahead and submit the application. Unless my English has taken a turn for the worse, I believe I can read what the guidelines say for myself. It may well be a discretion but it's a published discretion and they say they will "normally" allow this discretion, which leads me to infer it's more the norm than the exception. In the absence of the need to exert any other kind of discretion on my application, I believe the application should be successful as has been the case for numerous forum members here and some friends.

All this just to say, it does appear that a lot of people out there are misinformed, not least the NCS crew and even some UKBA staff for that matter. I just hope my application doesn't fall in the hands of one such staff. I could really do without the Idiot spammer and expense of a reconsideration!