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Refusal causing hardship

Family member & Ancestry immigration; don't post other immigration categories, please!
Marriage | Unmarried Partners | Fiancé | Ancestry

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beanjay1
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Refusal causing hardship

Post by beanjay1 » Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:04 am

Can somebody please help us with some advice. My partners Unmarried Partner Visa application has just been refused and we are desperate. The grounds for the refusal are completely wrong and many of our supporting documents have been completely ignored.

We have been living together in the Philippines for two and a half years but I returned to the UK for the occasional visit. We provided proof of contact during that time that I was away but this has been completely ignored and the ECO has calculated the time that we have spent together from the stamps in my Passport to be only18 ½ months.

My partner was able to provide evidence of two verifiable job offers in the UK, subject to satisfactory interview. She gave evidence of a University Degree and other qualifications, but none of that has been considered. Because I am retired they have based our total income on my pension and say that we cannot live with out Public Funds.

There are so many factual errors in the refusal that it appears to have been done purposely. This could be because of an earlier dispute that I had with the Embassy.

Can anyone please offer advice on the appeal? Should I be named as the representative and return to the UK for the hearing? Which is the best place to submit the appeal? Is it through the Embassy, or direct to UK?

Any advice whatsoever would be appreciated.

Thank you

Bob

Sarah D
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Post by Sarah D » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:34 am

Hi Beanjay, the exact same thing happened 2 weeks ago to my husband. His spousal visa was refused in India, and the reasons given in the notice of refusal are all completely wrong as the ECO clearly barely even glanced at the supporting documentation.

I am now going through with the appeal from here in the UK, through a solicitors, and very very luckily for me I work with an Immigration Barrister who is helping me for free.

He has advised me that in his opinion it is best to do the appeal from within the UK as the whole case will be considered in a British Court. He has told me that the maximum amount of time he has ever had to wait for the court date is 3 months. I dont know how things are like in the Philippines, but from our experience of trying to get anything done in India it takes 5 times longer than it would here, plus, the ECO who interviewed my husband was a muslim Indian who while scowling at him asked him questions like 'Why were you living together for 2 years' and 'Why did you feel the need to suddenly get married' (even though we were engaged for a year and a half), so I just dont really understand why someone who does not agree with the British way of life is making decisions on who should be able to live here. SO I am hoping that a judge in a British court will be more understanding!

In the appeal I put all of the evidence together again, got lots of witness statements from my family and friends, and colour coded it all. My Barrister friend has now advised me to gather every single piece of evidence I can of our whole marriage and relationship, and thinks that the Judge will only look at half of what we have sent before he gets bored and overturns the ECO's decision!

I dont know if anything I have said has helped, but I know it is good to know other people who are going through what you are going through and know how you feel. It would be good to know how you decide to proceed with this, keep me updated?

All the best and stay positive!

beanjay1
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Post by beanjay1 » Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:57 am

Thank you so much for your reply Sarah. It is so good to know that you are not alone in these things and it is good to have some support. You are very lucky to have all the support that you have – I envy you.

I have done some research on the Appeal and found that if you send it to London it is sent back to the local Embassy for review before London look at it and this takes three weeks longer. Also the local Embassy can review their decision and grant the Visa without forwarding the Appeal to London. If not it will be considered by the Appeals Tribunal in any case.

We submitted everything possible with the original application but I will try and pad the Appeal out a bit more. Basically they are trying to make me sweat because of a big row I had with them before the application was submitted. They gave me a lot of false information and I complained to London about it.

Even though I am dealing with English people at the Embassy they all fancy themselves as little Hitlers and want to show you that they can control your life. The problem is they can and they do – they have total power and many of them are power crazy. I am not exaggerating. They make me ashamed to be British.

Anyway I hope all goes well for you and your husband.

Thanks once again

Bob

hello_kitty
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Post by hello_kitty » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:06 pm

Bare in mind. Appeal may drag up to 7 months / 29 weeks. I counted from the day my case was rejected until to court, it was 7 months. Not 3 months as I thought earlier.

archigabe
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Post by archigabe » Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:57 pm

Unfortunately, a lot of these petty bureaucrats can get away with all kinds of nonsense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/nyreg ... ted=1&_r=1

beanjay1
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Post by beanjay1 » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:59 am

Thanks for your comments and support.

Whether or not the appeal is successful I shall be seeking a Judicial Review on the original decision to refuse the visa. I have definite grounds on which to do this. Correct procedures were not followed and the ECO failed to consider the application in the light of Entry Clearance Guidance Volume 1 – General Instructions (29/02/08). The ECO also failed to observe the rules of natural justice, which are the rule against bias and the rule regarding the right to a fair hearing. Some of the information provided by the applicant was not considered when arriving at the decision to refuse the visa.

The decision was irrational and unreasonable to the extent that no sensible person could have reached it and the effect of the decision was disproportionate to any perceived risk to the national good of the United Kingdom.

I will not pretend that I do not know why the application was refused; I was given too many hints long before the application was submitted. However, I know better than to go into those reasons when seeking a Judicial Review.

I will add to this post from time to time and wish everyone the best of luck in the future.

Bob

PaperPusher
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Post by PaperPusher » Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:07 pm

Whether or not the appeal is successful I shall be seeking a Judicial Review on the original decision to refuse the visa. I have definite grounds on which to do this
Are you sure that you will have grounds if the reconsideration or appeal is successful & do you have lots of money to do this?

Good luck with the entry clearance, hopefully it won't get to the appeal stage but they will overturn the refusal themselves.

If you knew the amount of time, which is minutes not hours, they have to look at your documents & application, perhaps it is not surprising the amount of terrible decisions that are made, or why documents get overlooked. Some countries get hundreds of thousands of applications with not that many staff to deal with them.

I'm mentioning this because it takes alot of emotional energy railing at the system. It may be incompetence or a genuine mistake rather than a personal vendetta against you.

Good luck again.

PP

beanjay1
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Post by beanjay1 » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:07 pm

Many thanks for your sensible and level headed response PP. I don’t know if I will be able to get a Judicial Enquiry but I will certainly try my best. I am not railing at the system; I know the system is not perfect, but I have ample evidence that, even prior to the submission of the application, the Embassy were following a course of intent. I can also show reasons as to why they felt that they wanted to follow that course. I think that the ECO in this case is being made a “sacrificial lambâ€

beanjay1
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Post by beanjay1 » Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:58 am

I’m sorry I did not respond to hello_kitty. You were lucky to get the visa in 7 months. Bear in mind that, in theory, it is possible for the Embassy to prevent you from ever getting a visa even though your appeal to AIT is successful.

If they think that you will be successful on appeal they are able to hold up the process for as long as they can so that they are able to then say that some of the information that you supplied in the original application is now out of date. They make you re-supply the information and then refuse the visa again. The whole appeal process starts over again and, in theory, can last forever.

The Embassy probably has something of this sort in mind in my case. I will keep you posted.

Bob

nchowdhury
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Post by nchowdhury » Thu Mar 27, 2008 6:29 pm

[quote="Sarah D"]Hi Beanjay, the exact same thing happened 2 weeks ago to my husband. His spousal visa was refused in India, and the reasons given in the notice of refusal are all completely wrong as the ECO clearly barely even glanced at the supporting documentation.

Hi Sarah D,
How long did they take to give decision in india.
Probably I too had to go to India for the same reason to apply and I am not quite sure how long it takes. I dont want to loose the job here and I have a little daughter 2 years old. I cant leave her also for long time.
Thanks and regards

beanjay1
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Post by beanjay1 » Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:20 am

Sorry to hear about your problems nchowdhury. Unless you are a British citizen acting as a sponsor, or representative at Appeal, the British Embassies overseas are accountable to nobody. They can unreasonably refuse visas and there is nothing you can do. Even if you win your appeal they know that by that time the will have disrupted your life and cost you a fortune in unnecessary expense.

It is somewhat different if you are British because you can use the services of the Parliamentary Ombudsman providing that you have substantial evidence to support your claim. Fortunately they leave plenty of evidence of their inefficiency, negligence and lack of knowledge everywhere they are involved. If the Ombudsman finds in your favour you can usually get all of your expenses refunded, but this does not compensate you for all those wasted months.

I don’t know the position if you are not British, but if you live in England it is likely you can use the Ombudsman if you can show that the visa was unreasonably withheld. You should look into that, especially if you are spending a lot of money on airfares.

I wish you the best of luck with your appeal,

Bob

nchowdhury
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Post by nchowdhury » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:00 pm

Hi beanjay1.
I am not a british citizen my partner is british citizen and I am supporting her over here. I have 2 years daughter.
I came here under HSMP and stayed for four years. Since my arrival I am staying with my british partner. HSMP rule changed and I dont qualify anymore and above all my blunder mistake was I submitted application 8 days late and they did not give me right to appeal also.
HO advise me to apply under marriage/unmarried parnter visa so I did and that also got refused. I am no where.
In this forum I got advise to go back to India and apply from there. So I am thinking so.
I read your problem its very sad really these people play with life so easily.
Thanks and regards

ribena
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Post by ribena » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:33 am

Hi Bob and everyone,
Since when the ECO or BHC actually are able to help us? Our case have many factual errors too.Docs were ignored, etc. My EEA FP was rejected despite giving them with proof as per their request. Prior to submission of the application, my husband has been in constant touch with them via emails on doc needed etc. And of course during the interview, I was asked to provide proof of things which I was not told to bring along.
Long story short, we received the rejected letter on 27/2/08 and send in the appeal on 28/2.

Received a call from BHC KL on 10/3 saying we won the appeal.

Once the advice for appeal, we have been advice by the UK Visa Centre to go to local hearing(paper hearing if I am not mistaken) as both of us are in Malaysia now.

If you are in the UK, you may appeal it directly to UK IND.

If you are in Philippines, I would suggest to appeal to the Philippines BHC and write a letter of complain to the High Comm. Sometimes it help to speed up the appeal.

Good luck

beanjay1
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Post by beanjay1 » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:37 am

Hi nchowdhury and ribena,

The British Embassies overseas seem to serve no useful purpose whatsoever and that is the cause of my original problem. We sought the advice of the British Embassy four months before submitting the application and got absolutely no response whatsoever. We complained to the Foreign Office who passed our complaint to the Embassy, which immediately made them antagonistic. They then started to feed us with completely wrong information, regarding our application, in order to purposely mislead us, and it was only by coincidence that we found this out. Obviously we have this documented.

When they found that (after four months of research) we had submitted an application that complied with the regulations, the invented their own “regulationsâ€

ribena
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Post by ribena » Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:35 am

Hi all
BHC oversea does more damage than helping us. Probably their real mission is stopping ppl from getting into UK rather than in.

Just to share with you/everyone what had happened to us during the application and appeal. Sorry.. long post..

Nov07-Feb08 - Emailing/phone BHC & VFS to enquire which documents required.research on forums. Before we submit the application, we sent the final list of docs to BHC to verify everything is in order. we have the ok from them.

Nov07 - Initial enquire with VFS for unmarried partner, we were told we must get married or else we can't apply for EEA FP. rude staff and doesn't let us explain further. lodge a formal complaint to BHC/HO and it was picked up by BHC.

15 Feb08- Went to VFS to submit application. Only my bank statements weren't recent enough. got that sort out and VFS officer is satisfy with the docs provided along with our own add. docs. received a call from VFS officer saying I need to attend interview the following week.I called VFS back to enquire if I need to bring further docs. I was told No.

21 Feb08- Waited 2 hours plus before called in. Was asked unreasonable questions, was asked to provide proof of this and that on the spot. ECO wasn't being very polite etc. After 20 mins of grilling, she said she can't make the decision the same day and it will be in a day or two. Nothing happened.

25 Feb08- Trying to reach the ECO Assist. with no luck. Husband sent an email saying we need to know asap as he has urgent travel.

26 Feb08- BHC called us to say "decision has been made'. When I asked whether it's good or bad news, they said they don't know.

27 Feb08- Picked up 'decision' at VFS. Application was rejected. refused under national immigration 281 .something..( can't recall)
Reasons:
- my hb doesn't enquire for a job is uk (actually he did but i didn't know) and no proof of his job qualification(s) during application nor was I able to produce during the interview. Coz we were not asked for it!
- single deposit of fund (when i tried to explain, i was crudely cut off). We transfered the bank from his a/c 1 to a/c 2 as per BHC advice.
- they can't determine whether my friend actually own the property (this was not mention at all during the interview). Again, the BHC advice us that a letter from friend saying their willingness to let us stay will do. refusal letter stated they want to at least see tenancy agreement or house deed/mortgage.

Using the previous complain, we lodge another complain on we were't told up front by BHC, being mislead on information or not getting any at all.

28 Feb08- Sent in appeal at the BHC guard house. We use directive 2004/38/EC to refute the national immigration and appeal was done point by point. apparently appeal need to be in 3 copies but of course we were not informed of this (what else is new, even VFS doesn't know that, i called to check). Guard refused to accept my appeal. Request to speak to someone inside. Same thing I was told. No 3 copies, they will not accept.

I was told by the guard and someone inside that there should be a piece of paper saying appeal to be done in 28 days and 3 copies. obviously someone forgot to attach that together with my refusal letter. I argued that this is not my problem as it is your staff that is incompetence in their work. And that I will not be punished and bullied for someone's fault. Demand to speak to his supervisor. That someone inside have the cheek to tell me that is my responsibility to check online for appeal procedure. Which I replied by telling him off how can he assume I am computer illiterate. If BHc can't even give us correct information, where else would I get my info from? VFS is not much of a help either.

We are from another state and we were not familiar with the area and no proper access to computer as well.

Finally after much of 'stand off', they accepted my appeal. That someone inside was also rude and not helpful. I don't like the tone of his voice as if they are sitting on same throne, all high and mighty.

10 Mar08- received a call from BHC saying we won. was told to hand over my passport with a letter saying our next traveling date.

12 Mar08- Picked up my passport with EEA FP from VFS office.

We hope once we are in the UK, EEA2 is all we need to do and can finally take a rest from all this. Been dealing with immi for the past 3 years.

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