Just a quick update that we attended my wife's SET(M) appointment today at Croydon today.
Appointment was booked for 10 - arrived about 9:20 - immediately admitted and passed through security. Whether our application form was complete or not determined our queue and we were jumped to the front of the validation queue. That was quick and the guy knew his stuff.
(as a side note - I was astounded to see people hurriedly filling out the application form in the queue!!)
Headed upstairs and paid our fee. But - our number was called before we even had finished paying - so we went straight to our counter.
Our chap looked fairly new - and was wearing a border agency uniform rather than civvies as most of the rest of the staff. He seemed uncertain of what he was up to and after reviewing our 6 documents told us it should be 6 documents per year, not 6 overall. I questioned this and he checked with a manager.
When he returned - he didn't admit his mistake, but he said that he could do with one more document from our second year, so we gave him a telephone bill. It took about 20 minutes of being with him before he sent us to sit and wait. He then called us back 20 minutes later to get our payment receipt which he'd forgotten to request.
It was a further hour before he called us back to tell us it was successful and that it would be at least an hour before we got the passport back. He gave us our original documents but not, crucially, the ticket number on the front of the application.
50 minutes later the visa was ready - and we had a little bit of fuss not having the ticket but we got the passport. All in all, we were in there for about 3 hours.
Documents submitted:
Application form + Photos
Wife's passport
My passport
2 x bank statement (as part of '6' documents)
1 x gas bill
1 x electricity bill
1 x council tax bill
1 x telephone bill
1 x water bill
Life in the UK pass certificate.
Nothing else asked for - but we did bring financial evidence, employers letters etc and virtually every official document from the last 2 years. We had one of the biggest bundles there and were well prepared. I think that helped.
History:
Wife arrived on Fiancee visa Jan '08
Married Mar '08
FLR(M) granted 16 Apr '08
Onwards and upwards - citizenship next week
M.
