Consulate Report Directory (Brockers Describe their Consulate Meetings) and CLN Delivery Time Chart Part 2
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Wonder what really happens at the consulates? Find out in the Isaac Brock Society’s Consulate Report Directory, currently 279 pages of first-hand accounts of renunciation/relinquishment appointments, arranged by consulate location, along with further information and links to the required Dept of State forms and the Dept of State manuals used by the consulates in processing CLN applications, with an appendix containing a timeline chart (booking-meeting-CLN) as reported by consulate location.
The Directory is updated as consulate visit stories are posted on the website.
You can post here or elsewhere on the site (we’ll keep an eye out for them). Some comments may be excerpted or condensed slightly in the consulate reports. The original posts and comments remain on their threads are not edited.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences…and keep ’em coming! It’s a new experience for everyone and your information is really helpful.
To change or delete your report in the Directory, you can post the change as a comment on this thread or e-mail Pacifica@isaacbrocksociety.ca
Click here for the Consulate Report Directory
Notes:
Consulates are listed alphabetically by country and the Directory’s table of contents links to each section (they don’t look like links, but they are.)
This thread is a continuation of Consulate Report Directory Part 1, which contains earlier discussion on this topic, 929 comments from its inception in March 2012 through February 2013.
To Book an Appointment and/or Request Information from your Local Consulate:
This post by Eric, Almost No US Citizenship Renunciation Appointments Left During 2016 in Dublin, contains a chart of links to the consulates’ website pages on renunciation/relinquishment, for info on booking appointments and/or requesting information at your location. (The title highlights Dublin, but the charts, article and discussion cover consulates around the world.)
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Glad I’m a night owl … gave me a chance to be among the first to say congratulations, Karen. The other 2 CLNs should arrive soon but why oh why couldn’t they just send all 3 at once.
@Karen
“Good on ya” 🙂
I wouldn’t worry about the other cln’s not arriving yet. It is par for the course. I believe Allou’s came some months after her children.
@Medea, EmBee and heidi
Thanks. It’s good to know that our situation is not unique. You’d think, though, that for AUD10k (for 3 of us at once) they could provide a better level of service.
We have finally received all three CLNs! We renounced on 16 June in Sydney Australia. My CLN was approved on 7 September, my husband’s on 18 November and our daughter’s on 23 November. I’m glad to have that part over with. Now on to the final tax returns.
@Karen, congratulations x3 it is then.
Karen,
Congrats, I am glad you didn’t have to wait to long. Mine took about 20 months to come. There is a real sense of relief when it comes to receiving the CLN.
Cheers,
Rocky
Had bit of a scare a couple of days ago when I received a letter from the IRS. A few weeks back I completed the final tax filings for silent disclosure (renounced already, CLN received): 5 years of taxes, the final year being the USC-NRA split, even those wretched FBARs, and the 8854. Did this all on my own, with the incredibly important guidance of the Brockers, and Phil Hodgen’s posts and e-mail lists. I know there is always a risk of having messed something up, and a nasty letter coming my way (which I plan to ignore, but still would not enjoy the process). I know you never receive confirmation letters from the IRA, so I was just hoping to sail past the SOL without ever receiving a note from them.
So, perhaps you can imagine my dismay a few days ago in picking up the mail, and there is a big, white envelope with an IRS stamp showing through the window. (In the upper corner is printed on the envelope: “Official Business – Penalty for Private Use $300”. Only the IRS would feel a need to print threats right on the envelope.)
However, inside was just a single piece of paper entitled “Notice CP51C”. And the document said that they reviewed the tax return I sent them and have concluded that I don’t owe them anything. It’s much like the ones sent by the Canadian Revenue Agency, where they give a brief summary statement of the return filed and their agreement that I don’t owe anything. Now, this only applies to 1040NR that I filed it seems, so perhaps the IRS does sometimes confirm NR filings?
Phew.
Sounds like the IRS is marginally polite to NRA filers. They reserve the serious abuse for their own citizens no matter where in the world they may live.
@Karen congratulations to you and family. enjoy your freedom. I know what a relief it is when the CLN finally comes. I have slept better ever since.
@OddlyNamed i was hoping to do my final year myself and form 8854. I don’t feel like paying anymore to accountants and feel I have dished out enough and I have a few returns to use as a model and for the NR part, there is no US source income. It’s only the one year 2016. However now seeing they might write has made me think twice. Thankfully it was just IRS agreement for you in that envelope but I would have had a fright seeing that letter.
@OddlyNamed
It’s always frightening to see correspondence from IRS. You are fortunate it was only confirmation that you owed them nothing. Congratulations!
@Medea, Rocky & UK Rose – thanks. I am relieved to have all 3. Have planned my trip to visit my mother in January – so we’ll see how smoothly that goes.
UK Rose – my plan for the final returns is to prepare them (mine and my husband’s) myself, then pay a professional to review them. This should save on the preparation fee, but give some confidence that they are reasonably correct.
@Karen, of course every trip is different, but I had no problems on a recent trip to the States, having renounced a few years ago. Got the ETA within a few hourso f applying and the only problem was I didn’t take a good photo at immigration so had to do the fingerprints again and have another photo taken. But there were no questions or comments about my passport having a US birthplace on it. I took some photocopies of my CLN and my cancelled US passport just in case, but they weren’t needed.
@Medea, ESTA is all done – no problem there. And I chose January because I know what a zoo LAX can be during the holidays. Glad to hear it all went fairly smoothly for you. I’m expecting the same.
@Karen
Thanks for the tip. I had thought of that and am contacting some accountants that I had dealing with to see if they would agree to review them. I am reasonable certain that I can make a decent job of it because I prepared by own 2015 for an experiment at the same time my accountant was doing it. and then cross checked it and I actually filled it out correctly except he used a different exchange rate.
I know the final year is tricky but I intend to do my 1040 and schedules up to the day before renunciation and then the form 1040nr for the rest of the year with all zeros. take a pro rota for the foreign income exclusion and other exemptions. i am just so angry with how much I dished out already to accountants to be told I owe zero tax and don’t feel like paying anymore.
Hope your trip in Jan goes according to plan
I am posting below a comment and an excerpt from a comment relating to appointment wait times which came up this week in a discussion on another thread. In that discussion, DoD commented that he sent in an appointment request 19 weeks ago and has received no reply to it or his follow-up e-mails.
For several years appointments in Canada were booked directly with a particular consulate. The centralised booking procedure began in February 2016..
My story on US Embassy, Helsinki Finland
I had initial appointment in the embassy in February 2015. I started emailing them late in 2014, some emails I got replay, some not, but the appointment was arranged fast. Visiting the embassy felt like going into prison. Everything that has anything to do with electricity is taken away from you (at least they provided storage for duration), you must go trough airport-style security to a building that is fortified behind bars and wall. While on the premises you have a guard with you all the time and you may not leave at your own convenience.
The first consular was genuinely amazed how anyone wold like voluntary leave the greatest country in world. After brief discussion and paying for the freedom I was done with uncle Sam, or so I tough. They estimated that processing of my forms would take no more than six months.
After promised six months had passed in summer 2015, I emailed the embassy to ask about my status. They asked upper echelons and found that my application was faulty. Next appointment was scheduled on August 2015 to resign the forms. The consular was different person and the process was fast, but somehow the new consular made mess of it too.
After few days I found the documents from my mail box for to fill. After few more months the embassy was not responding to my emails. Daniel and Keith from Facebook group American Exparties helped to arrange a DoS contact to sort the mess of my application. After emails to DoS contact the embassy contacted me and arranged another appointment to fill the forms again and the DoS contact ensured that my process was smooth and I’ve got the necessary documents. This time the consular (same as second time) at the embassy really made sure that every form was filled correctly.
@Mikko, sorry to hear you had so much trouble. Looking at the report directory we don’t have any reports from Finland, your’s is the first so that may explain why they were so bad. If they’ve never done one before they’re probably more ignorant of the process than you are.
What happened with me when I renounced at the embassy here in Switzerland was that i e-mailed the documents back to them and then during the appointment they went over the paperwork with me to make sure it was correct before anything else. Only when we were all happy with it was I told to go to another counter to pay the fee.
I hope you didn’t get charged twice for the applications and if so I hope the DoS has agreed to refund you since the mistakes were at the embassy’s end of things and not yours.
@Mikko,
Thanks very much, Mikko, for your report, which I’ll add to the Consulate Report Directory. Yours is our first from Helsinki. I’m sorry you had such a long-drawn-out hassle — sounds like you were faced with severe incompetence and lack of communication on DoS’ part.
As well as your report, I’d like to add your timeline data to the Directory’s timeline data chart. Could you let us know in what month/year you received your CLN. Thanks!
@Mikko, hope the corrected final set documents were backdated to reflect the first renunciation/relinquishment appointment since the subsequent appointments were the fault of the DOS. Sorry that your experience was filled with so much incompetence and so unnecessarily onerous. The US Embassy should be ashamed of themselves.
@pacifica777 I was probaly one of the first, if not the first they had, based on how incompetent and amazed they were that someone would go this process willingly.
I had time, so I went trough all emails I have left of the process for more complete timeline. I also made small corrections to the story, it was at first written based on memory only and had few mistakes.
November 2016, first email to embassy for details of renunciation, emails about means to deliver documents required before booking an appointment, they want me to send documents containing personal details over unsecured email.
Late December, early January appointment at the embassy is scheduled
February 19th, 2016 initial appointment at the embassy
July 1st 2016, I email the embassy to esquire status of my certificate, no answer
July 19th 2016, another email to embassy on same subject
July 22th 2016, the embassy responses. They have contacted the DoS and found that more documents need to be signed. New appointment is scheduled on August 19th
August 19th 2016, new appointment at the embassy to resign the forms
August 22 to 26 2016 (not sure of exact time), letter from the embassy, containing the documents to sign again
October 4th 2016 I email embassy and ask status of my certificate, no replay
November 1st 2016, Daniel Kuettel from American Exparties Facebook group contacts DoS for me
November 3rd 2016, I write to the DoS contact Daniel arranged to me and tell I am offline next week.
November 7th 2016, email from the embassy for new appointment on November 14th
November 14th 2016, I email embassy that I can not be at the appointment today (I did not have internet access for previous week to arrange more convenient time). DoS contact emails me and asks to book another appointment and promises to look after my paperwork in the DoS
November 16th 2016, new appointment scheduled on November 18th
November 18th, final appointment at the embassy
December 2016 DoS contact confirms the application is being processed
January 20th 2017 the certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States is mailed from the embassy
I had initial appointment in the embassy in February 2016. I started emailing them late in 2014, some emails I got replay, some not, but the appointment was arranged fast. Visiting the embassy felt like going into prison. Everything that has anything to do with electricity is taken away from you (at least they provided storage for duration), you must go trough airport-style security to a building that is fortified behind bars and wall. While on the premises you have a guard with you all the time and you may not leave at your own convenience.
The first consular was genuinely amazed how anyone wold like voluntary leave the greatest country in world. After brief discussion and paying for the freedom I was done with uncle Sam, or so I tough. They estimated that processing of my forms would take no more than six months.
After promised four months had passed in summer 2016, I emailed the embassy to ask about my status (the delivery time was said to be six weeks, six months at worst). They asked upper echelons and found that my application was faulty. Next appointment was scheduled on August 2016 to resign the forms. The consular was different person and the process was fast, but somehow the new consular made mess of it too.
After few days I found the documents from my mail box for to fill. After few more months the embassy was not responding to my emails. Daniel and Keith from Facebook group American Exparties helped to arrange a DoS contact to sort the mess of my application. After emails to DoS contact the embassy contacted me and arranged another appointment to fill the forms again and the DoS contact ensured that my process was smooth and I’ve got the necessary documents. This time the consular (same as second time) at the embassy really made sure that every form was filled correctly.
@Medea Fleecestealer
@badger
I was charged only once and the documents were signed on the orginal date. On second time the consular was ashamed and on thirhd time the same consular was ashamed and sceary (probably the feedback from DoS was not so good) to make everyting correct. On second appointment I was OK with it, everyone makes mistakes but on third time I really had to limit my talk to OKs because I was so angry with them, just wanted to get out of there fast.
@Mikko, was this for a straightforward renunciation? If so they must be pretty clueless to screw up two pieces of paper – the Oath and the Statement of Understanding. Did they get you to fill in form DS-4079 as well – the longer one with lots of questions?
https://eforms.state.gov/Forms/ds4079.pdf
@Medea Fleecestealer
Yes, this was simple renounciation, no extra frills included. DS-4079 was one of the many documents I needed to fill. From what I gathered from emails and appointments, signatures were missing from inside pages.
Thease were the documents they asked me to email (and emailing thease personal contains big security risk). In the end marriage certificate was not needed, but that cost me another 20€ extra to obtain it in English.
U.S. or foreign birth certificate.
” 1. U.S. Consular Report of Birth Abroad. ”
” 2. Bio-pages of your most recent U.S. passport. ”
” 3. Bio-pages of all current foreign passports. ”
” 4. Certificates of Naturalization for any country, including the United States. ”
” 5. Certificates of Citizenship for any country, including the United States. ”
” 6. All marriage certificates and divorce decrees. ”
” 7. Change of name documents. ”
” 8. Completed form DS-4079 – download the form from the Department of State website here. ”
” 9. Completed Loss of Citizenship Questionnaire
” 10. Completed Informal Loss of Citizenship Acknowledgment, which must be signed/dated and sent as a scanned document.
@ Mikko,
Thanks very much for all the details.
I’ll use your latest comment, instead of yesterday’s, in the Directory. So, I take it you’d like both the timeline and story parts put in. If you only want the story part (or whatever), just let me know.
I noticed, in your comment, there’s 2 different years for your first e-mail contact with the embassy. In the timeline part you said you first emailed in “November 2016,” but in the story part you said “late 2014.” I’m guessing it was November 2015, since your first appointment was in February 2016 as you said in your earlier comment that ”the appointment was arranged fast”.
Except for that, nothing was fast, though. What an ordeal. I’m glad you really pushed and pushed (though very sorry and annoyed you had to) and that you have now have it completed and can go on with life.
Thanks again for sharing! It’s very helpful for people dealing with this convoluted process.
@pacifica777
Yes, the process with the embassy started in 2015. And of course you can use extended timeline.