Just a tip with regards the NIE application. I applied for appointments online for my wife and myself last week, the soonest we could get them for was the end of Jan 19. Given that we will be looking for work, property and a car very soon I decided to have a quick search online to see whether there was any other options. I came across http://www.mynie.co.uk/ and emailed them to see if they could do anything. A prompt reply came back promising appointments within a few days so I duly paid their fee of £29.99 for each of us, filled in our personal details, and waited. I didn't have long to wait, payment was sent at 4pm Friday 16th and at 8.45 that evening I got an email telling me appointments were available at two different police stations for the 20 and 23 Nov, and did I want to take them. Which I did.
The appointments were identical in the way they proceeded, arrived early, was called in before the appointment times, was out within less than 10 mins. The only difference being that my wife was given her NIE cert immediately, whereas I was told to come back in a week for mine.
The whole point of this post; to recommend MyNIE.co.uk, and to advise that the only docs we had to provide were passports and a photocopy, a passport photo, the completed ex15's, the completed 790 payment forms (which must be paid at a bank prior to the appointment). We weren't asked for anything else, importantly we weren't asked to give any reason for requiring the NIE, no rental agreement, no confirmation of a job offer, nothing.
I'm not guaranteeing every application will be this straightforward, but thankfully ours was.