Hi, seeking some advice please, this has been a difficult 7 years and I would like to get this chapter closed.

Yesterday I received an email to let me know my application was rejected, here is the response;

Reasons for decision

A person will qualify for registration under section 4L if they would have been, or been able to become a British citizen but for:

Historical legislative unfairness
An act or omission of a public authority
Exceptional circumstances
You state that you are applying under section 4L due to an act or omission of a public authority and exceptional circumstances that prevented you from becoming a British citizen. You moved to the United Kingdom in 2005 and have lived continuously in the UK since that time. You were issued with a British passport on 11 March 2005, and a replacement passport was issued on 7 March 2012. You state that between 2005 and 2019 His Majesties Passport Office (HMPO) treated you as a British citizen and that no issues were identified during that period.

On 28 October 2019, HMPO revoked your British passport following concerns identified in relation to your father’s nationality. On 22 December 2023, HMPO confirmed that your father’s nationality could not be verified and that your claim to British citizenship could therefore not be established. On 21 April 2025, your subsequent passport application was refused on the basis that the previous passports had been issued in error.

You now apply for registration under section 4L on the basis that, but for acts or omissions of HMPO during your childhood, your nationality position would have been identified and resolved at the appropriate time.

It has been determined that you do not have an automatic entitlement to British citizenship and you are unable to establish a claim to British citizenship through your father. The British passports issued to you in 2005 and 2012 were therefore issued in error.

Section 4L is a discretionary provision intended to address situations where a person has missed out on British citizenship as a direct result of an act or omission of a public authority. It is not sufficient to show that an error occurred; it must be demonstrated that, but for that act or omission, the applicant would have become a British citizen. While it is accepted that passports were issued to you in error, this does not of itself establish entitlement to registration under section 4L.

You were born in 2003 and were therefore 16 years old when your British passport was revoked in October 2019, meaning you were still a minor at the point of revocation. Following revocation, discretionary routes available to minors, including the possibility of applying to register as a British citizen under section 3(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981, remained open to you. The opportunity to regularise your immigration or nationality status was therefore not lost as a result of public authority action. However, registration under section 3(1) is discretionary and it cannot be assumed that such an application would necessarily have been made or granted. Accordingly, it would be a hypothetical assumption that you would have become a British citizen had an application been submitted.

In addition to this, HMPO is not under a duty to provide immigration or nationality advice, nor is it required to advise individuals what applications they should make. Information regarding nationality and immigration routes, including discretionary applications, is publicly available.

Although you were a minor at the time, responsibility for taking steps to regularise your position rested with your parents or legal guardians. The failure to pursue available routes following revocation cannot be attributed to HMPO. Furthermore, the revocation letter issued by HMPO in 2019 clearly advised that you could contact UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) for guidance on eligibility to acquire British citizenship and the appropriate procedures to follow. A separate letter was also addressed to your father, meaning that he was made aware of your situation and the need to take further action.

In light of this, we are satisfied that your family was placed on notice that your British status was no longer recognised and that steps should be taken to regularise your position. The decision for your parents not to act upon that information does not constitute an act or omission by a public authority.
While it is acknowledged that you benefitted from passports that were issued in error, that error was corrected while you remained a minor and while appropriate discretionary remedies were still available. The opportunity to apply for registration as a child was therefore not removed by HMPO action or inaction.

It has not been demonstrated that you missed out on British citizenship as a result of an act or omission of a public authority within the meaning of section 4L. Accordingly, your application for registration as a British citizen under section 4L is refused.

The Secretary of State has therefore refused your application.

Arrangements are being made to return the sum of £130.00 which is refunded as unsuccessful applicants are not required to attend a citizenship ceremony.

Next steps

If you believe the decision to refuse your application was not soundly based on nationality law, policy or our procedures and you wish it to be reconsidered, you must complete Form NR and pay a fee.

I am swayed to contend on this basis:

The decision accepts that:

British passports were issued to me in error and I was treated as British during childhood. However, it concludes that I did not miss out on citizenship because I could have applied under section 3(1) after 2019.

This reasoning is flawed for the following reasons:

(a) Reliance on a Hypothetical Route

The decision acknowledges that registration under section 3(1) is discretionary and not guaranteed.

It is therefore speculative to conclude that I would have successfully obtained citizenship through this route. The high court ordered that the “but for” test should not rely on uncertain, hypothetical outcomes.

(b) Failure to Consider the Lost Opportunity During Childhood

The key issue is not whether I could have applied after 2019, but whether I lost the opportunity to resolve my status earlier.

Had my nationality position been identified during early childhood:

- My parents could have taken appropriate steps.

- My status could have been regularised at a time when I was clearly integrated into the UK.

Because I was treated as British throughout my childhood, this opportunity was not available.

(c) Weight of Minor Status

I was 16 at the time the issue was identified and this letter was sent to myself.

As a minor:

- I had no control over nationality decisions.
- I was entitled to rely on the position presented by the state.

The decision does not give sufficient weight to this.

Ground 2:
Incorrect Conclusion That My Family Was “Placed on Notice”

The refusal states that:

- My father was made aware of my situation and the need to take action.

This is not accurate. The correspondence sent to my father at the time did not relate to my nationality status or advise on steps to regularise my position. It was limited to requesting documentation relating to his own circumstances (specifically his mother’s death certificate).

No clear guidance was provided regarding:

- My loss of British status.
- Available routes to citizenship.
- Steps required to regularise my position.

It is therefore incorrect to conclude that my family was properly informed or placed on notice.

Ground 3:
Omission by a Public Authority

In addition to the error in issuing passports, there was a failure to:

- Identify the nationality issue at an earlier stage.
- Provide clear and effective guidance when the issue was identified.

Given that I had been treated as British for over a decade, it was reasonable for my family to rely on that position.

This constitutes an omission within the meaning of section 4L.

Seeking some advice and happy to discuss alternative routes that I can explore. Would just like this done as quickly as possible as I am seen as stateless despite still holding an NI numbered issued within the same year of passport revocation, and still being on the electoral register. (Riddle me that!).

Thanks

Some background information would be useful. Where were you and your parents born? Why was your father’s nationality status disputed?

Apologies some background:

Father born in Islington, London - July 1962
Mother born in Kitwe, Zambia - April 1976
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa - July 2003.

There are several factors in which HMPO said had drawn the conclusion that my father’s nationality was in question. My father’s mother died when he was an infant (I think around 2-5 years old), his father had divorced his mother and was never really in the picture and so he moved back to Nigeria with his grandmother until he returned to form his own life in Britain, in his teenage years.

Due to this he had limited access to documents and so when HMPO requested his mothers death certificate etc. it took him a while to trace.

When my father asked the home office for his documents to support his identity confirmation, they had advised him that a lot of information around existing addresses etc. had been “lost from the system”, causing a further blocker.

He essentially has spent this time attempting to confirm his identity to HMPO, as the Home Office have never revoked citizenship etc. In turn HMPO’s claim is that due to his nationality being questioned, he may not have actually been a citizenship at the time of my birth and therefore I am not eligible for a passport as it puts my citizenship into question.

Hope this explains.

If your father was born in the UK in 1962 then I’m at loss as to why his nationality is in doubt unless his father was a diplomat.

This is what we’ve been seeking to understand however HMPO have kept reasoning quite vague/ unclear, including the delay/ non-response to SAR requests.

They claim that the verification of his identity is reliant upon the documents that he has spent years collecting (his mother and fathers marriage certificate from Nigeria, his grandmothers residence confirmation etc.), but have held this process and “internal investigation” in limbo for the past three or so years.

I reapplied for my passport back in 2025, and they stated that following an investigation (to which they still have claimed is ongoing), “we have concluded that your father was not entitled to hold British Citizenship, nor settled in the United Kingdom at the time of your birth.”

This stagnancy in turn resulted in myself looking at routes to clarity, complete and whole citizenship- irrespective of my fathers situation- and following solicitor advice, I applied for citizenship under section 4L on the grounds of exceptional circumstances and an act and omission of a public authority (HMPO) leading me here.

Is your father’s nationality in doubt or his identity? The former should just require his full birth certificate - his parents’ documents are irrelevant.

Well both I suppose if we are going from the requested - although identity has never been explicitly stated by HMPO.

I can only assume that this is an identity issue - that HMPO do not believe that your father was born in the UK - rather than a nationality issue. Has your father's British passport been revoked?

BritInParis Hey, yes exactly that, however the home office have not revoked his citizenship.

When my father requested a SAR from UVKI (Home Office), they provided it to him, however the ‘Identity documents and other references’ section is removed and states ‘(Missing details due to error)’. I have evidence for this along with the home office stating it was deleted in human error.

His address section also does not show all of the addresses he/we have lived at and where we currently live, it states ‘not recorded as having lived here’, despite numerous evidential records including all of the electoral registers I found for him at each address, dating back to when he lived in London.

I rarely make this suggestion but I would look to engage a competent immigration solicitor to go through the whole thing with you because something here doesn't pass the sniff test.