I came out of my application submission appointment in late October with a date for my citizenship test, which I have next week along with the request to submit a few final pieces of paperwork. Most importantly of course, I have a case number and my application was made with the UK still in the EU.
I’ll still not be convinced that I have submitted everything until I get a formal confirmation through to that effect – given my wife’s experience where her application was held for a year untouched, maybe my unease is somewhat justified, especially as once submitted by my case officer, my paperwork will be passed on to a colleague of the case officer for reviewing.
In order to complete the jigsaw, I decided to follow up on my postal application for a Nachweis über Pfändungen und Exekutionen (or put better a Nachweis yielding “no trace”), having got the apostille on my police certificate through, new passport photos for Alexander (we again strongly endorse Bildermacher on Tuchlauben for a place that is very experienced with getting passport photos for babies and toddlers that won’t sit still for more than a couple of seconds) and a couple of supporting documents for other items.
The Nachweis über Pfändungen und Exekutionen is effectively a query of a database to see whether there have been claims exercised against your property or salary in order to satisfy debts against you. Lohnpfändungen effectively see your salary reduced to a bare minimum (Existenzminimum) and the claims against you are satisfied, by being paid to your creditors directly. If you are working for an employer there are payroll implications for the employer too. Exekutionen are claims enforced by a court of law. For someone applying for citizenship, the presence of items on the database query will certainly not aid your satisfying the financial criteria (some illuminating information by the Schuldnerberatung (debt counselling service) in German shows how real the issue can be).
The process was refreshingly straightforward, and the Bezirksgericht Döbling on the Obersteinergasse on the way to work was pretty empty. As a courthouse, I had to go through a security check to see the responsible staff member for issuing the paperwork that I needed. Having explained that I had applied by post back in October, a phone call was made to a colleague who said that the paperwork had been processed, but to be on the safe side they would give me a second copy, in case it was not already at MA35. Simple and straightforward and by 8:20 I was work-bound, despite my colleagues’ suggestions that it might take quite a while to be seen. All the paperwork I need is now complete for next Wednesday, now time to get reading my booklets for the citizenship test.