How to cancel/invalidate my UK visa....

[barbie1]

My brother got his UK student visa last month however his plans changed and he will be studying in Greece instead. The Greek consulate in our country told him to get his UK visa invalidated first otherwise he wouldn't be able to apply for a Greek student visa. ( I would assume once you get another university's offer and visa the previous becomes invalid by default but don't know of a procedure in place to deliberately do so...) When contacting the UK Visa Section of the British Embassy in our country via email they replied back saying they do not offer such a service. Has anyone found themselves in similar situations? I myself am past my student years but back then I was able to hold Student visas from several different countries such as the US and the UK because I was part of different exchange programmes and this was never an issue. I have never before heard of people being asked to invalidate one's visa in order to apply for permission to stay/ study in another country...if it can and should be done, how and where? Please help!

[bruteforce]

Even I have not heard anything like this before. If a student fail to enrol to the course of study, the institution is required to report the student to UKBA. The UKBA will then start process of curtailing the leave of student in due course. This is either a stupid or strange demand from Greeks or some misunderstanding on your side. Its worth checking with them and also advise them that there is no such service from UKBA.

Another thing you could do is send an email to UKBA stating all this and that the student no longer wish to continue his studies here in the UK and request acknowledgment.

[barbie1]

If a student fail to enrol to the course of study, the institution is required to report the student to UKBA. The UKBA will then start process of curtailing the leave of student in due course.

I am very much aware of that but I fail to see how this will affect the Greek visa in any sort of way. Once the UK visa becomes invalid because he failed to enroll (which I reckon will be very soon as they must be in the process of notifying UKBA after we let the university know he will be studying elsewhere), it is not something the Greeks will be notified of or will be able to read on the passport / old visa because it has got nothing to do with them...

[Deviser]

There is no immigration law in any country like you need to get cancelled another country visa or atleast I never heard anything like that.

[rothmans]

It is funny request really, your Visa is Entry Clearance Visa, if you don't enter the country I suppose it is valid for a certain time and then it becomes invalid I suppose... I never heard of cancelling entry clearance before....

[barbie1]

It is funny request really, your Visa is Entry Clearance Visa, if you don't enter the country I suppose it is valid for a certain time and then it becomes invalid I suppose... I never heard of cancelling entry clearance before....

Very true indeed. Enrollment at any UK university is already over and I highly doubt they'd take any students in even if there was a delay in processing their visas as it is too late into the academic year!


The British Embassy once again confirmed the don't offer this service and never heard of it before.

Well the Greeks are dumb...I wish I was there to ask why this mattered to them at all and how could they even tell if we had 'invalidated' it or not, it's not like the British were going to inform them or write all over the passport...