Thirty one applications were forwarded in March. Nineteen have been acknowledged, four came back for missing papers, and eight are still silent. Here is what to do about yours.
Thirty one plot applications were taken at this office in March and forwarded with the council's covering letters. People have been asking at the counter one by one, so here is the whole position at once.
Nineteen have been acknowledged by the office in Male. An acknowledgement is not a decision. It means the file arrived and is in their list, and we have no way of knowing where in that list it sits.
Four came back to us for missing papers. In three of those the missing item was the same thing: a signed consent from a family member named in an older allocation. We have written to each of the four applicants with their reference number and what is needed, and any of them can come to the desk and we will help fill it in.
Eight have had no response at all. The council writes a chasing letter on these on the first Sunday of every month and records the reply, or the absence of one, in the file. You are welcome to read your own file.
What we would ask. Please do not send a second application because the first has gone quiet, because two files in the same name slow each other down and we have seen it happen. Come with your reference number instead and we will show you the last thing we heard and the date on it.
And one thing worth repeating, because it comes up every month at the counter. This council does not decide who gets a plot or who owns one. It takes the application, checks the paperwork, adds what the island's own record shows, forwards it and chases it. What the council says about a plot is never a ruling, and if anybody tells you otherwise they are guessing.
The next list closes at the end of this month. Applications are taken at the counter on any working day, and it is worth coming in first without the form to ask what the register shows, because that twenty minute conversation has saved several people from applying for the wrong thing.
