The written case assessment
Every file we prepare begins with a written assessment, and we accept no file without one. Since the reform of 2025 the first question is no longer which documents to gather but whether a route exists at all, and for which member of the family, and a certificate requested before that question has been answered often serves no purpose. The assessment answers it in writing, with the reasons and with the law on which they rest.
What to send
- The family line, from the Italian ancestor down to you, with the names as the family uses them and as they appear on the documents, the dates and places of birth, marriage and death as far as they are known, and the dates of emigration and of any naturalisation.
- Copies of the documents the family holds, Italian or foreign: certificates, passports, old Italian papers, naturalisation certificates, letters from a consulate or a comune, previous applications or refusals.
- Your own circumstances: where you live, which citizenships you hold, whether you are married or in a civil partnership and since when, whether you have children and when they were born, and whether you have ever applied before, anywhere.
- What you want: a passport, the registration of a child, a move to Italy, the recognition of a parent, a reacquisition, a marriage application. The route follows from the aim.
Nothing needs to be certified, apostilled or translated at this stage, and photographs of the documents suffice. If you know nothing beyond a name and a village, send that, and we tell you what the records are likely to yield.
What you receive
A written opinion, in English, which states whether a route to Italian citizenship is open to you under the law in force on the date of the opinion and, if so, which one: recognition by descent, the declaration for a child, grant by marriage or by residence, reacquisition. It names the conditions which apply to your line, the documents the file requires, who issues each of them and in which form, the office which receives the file and by what means, and the time the procedure takes as far as it can be foreseen. The opinion is yours whether or not you then instruct us, and it is written so that another professional could act on it.
Where no route exists, the opinion says so, with the reasons, and sets out what would alter the position: a decision pending before the courts, a declaration by a parent, a period of residence in Italy. Where the only route is a claim before a court, the opinion says that too, and the family is introduced to one of the lawyers with whom we work in partnership.
The time
We reply to the first email with what we need and with the time the opinion will take, which depends on the length of the line and on the documents already in hand. Where a search in a comune or an archive is needed before anything can be said, we say so, and the time then depends on the office.
A family in Cardiff sends the names and dates of a grandfather from Picinisco, a photograph of his British naturalisation certificate dated 1968, and the birth certificates of the father, born in 1961, and of the applicant, born in 1988. The opinion establishes that the grandfather held exclusively Italian citizenship when the father was born, that the father is Italian by birth, that the applicant was born in 1988 to a parent who held two citizenships, and that the condition of article 3-bis is met through the grandfather for the father and not for the applicant. It sets out the route: recognition of the father at the consulate, then the applicant’s own position, examined on the father’s recognition and on the conditions of the reform, with the alternative of the two-year residence. It lists eleven documents, names the Consulate General in London as the competent office, and sets out the order in which the documents are to be obtained.
Write to info@italiancitizenship.co.uk with what you have. The first reply tells you what is missing and when the opinion will be ready.