Refusal of spouse visa

[jk2128]

Barely 3 weeks after my court marriage in Mar 2012 (arranged marriage), my Dad had an acute stroke. I had been in the process of applying for my visa in Apr, but delayed it because I wanted to stay back and care for Dad. I applied on 13 July barely days after the changes had been implemented. My dad subsequently passed away in Aug and in Oct I received verdict on my spouse visa - refused. My husband and I haven't seen each other in 7 months now.

My husband is on ILR and I applied for dependant/ spouse visa.

It has been refused on the following grounds:

Relationship requirements:
1) That I submitted my marriage certificate and 14 pictures (of which only 2 were taken other than at the wedding ceremony). Our stay at the Hilton Hotel only has my husband's details (plus 1, which was me).
2) That I haven't submitted ANY evidence of my communication with my sponsor.

We had submitted the following documents:
Marriage Certificate, Photographs of our engagement ceremony, court marriage and with family, Gtalk chat records, Email records, Information bill incurred at Hilton Hotel for our stay, Facebook public profiles indicating marital status, Phone call records, Money transfer evidence.

I am not sure what other documents should I be providing.

Financial requirements:
3) Failed to submit Notice to File a Company Tax return (CT603)
4) Bank statements from June to Aug 2011

My husband runs a private limited company as a Director. We submitted the following documents:
Letter of Employment (certified by Accountant)
Salary Slips for the last 1 year
P60 form
Letter of Incorporation of my sponsor's company
Contract with the client company including Extension letter
Weekly Invoices for the last 1 year months
Self Assessment form for Tax Returns
Annual accounts 2011 -2012
Personal Account bank statements from Sep 2011 to Jun 2012
Bank statements of Business Account from Sep 2011 to Jun 2012
Savings Accounts statements for last 6 months (Jan-Jun 2012)
Self Assessment proof of submission to HMRC
Annual returns 2011-2012
CT600-Dormant & Company Accounts (Statutory accounts and computations)
Certificate of Incorporation of the Private Limited Company
Register of Shares Certificate
Memorandum of Association
Letter from HMRC stating the UTR (UTR also reflected in statement of accounts/ company account documents)
Snapshot from Companies House website
VAT Return for last year

We had received a call to submit additional documents as per the changes, which we did, except for the bank statements. My husband had issued a request to the banks that posted the statements but he never received them except for 2 couriers that included PART of his personal account transactions. We had sought two deadline extensions waiting for the statements.

We plan to appeal now. I also would like to understand if appealing is the right step forward or does it make sense if we apply afresh (settlement visa fees are SO expensive).

Any suggestions would help. Thanks much!

[Lucapooka]

If you have the evidence an appeal will work. Whether you do this or choose to re-apply really depends on how long you are prepared to wait.

[harv]

So sorry to hear all this.

I would suggest that you stick with the appeal, the reason I say that is because with the appeal atleast you can be sure that you will get the VISA if you are able to prove all points raised by the UKBA.

If applying with a fresh application the problem is there is no guarantee that it will not be refused and the changes in the requirements has put off many applicants already.

Although appeal may take a bit longer than a fresh application, there is a better chance of getting accepted for the VISA. In terms of the timeline, I think you may be looking at around 6 months from the day of appeal to getting a VISA on your passport (just a speculation).

[jk2128]

Thanks, Lucapooka and Harv.

I guess we will stick with the appeal in that case and wait for 6 more months.

When I submitted my form in July, the online application hadn't been updated yet. I first went for submission on 12 July but I was requested for all pages of my husband's passport. I had just been asked to fill a 1 page form on this day. When I went again on 13 July, I was asked to fill a financial requirements document, which I did (the officers were initially confused about which document should I be filling in and they debated amongst themselves for a bit). Because the online application hadn't been updated yet, I had submitted the documents that had been requested for initially. I then received a call to submit additional documents on 3 Oct (as per changes), I was given a timeline of only 5 working days, which is weird because the bank itself takes about 5 days to post the requested bank statements to my husband who in turn would send it to me. As per the new banking rules, there are no other options to issue bank statements except wait for the courier. In our case, he didn't even receive the couriers even after he repeatedly called and verified with the banks about the statements. I think my hassle with this just increased because the online application hadn't been updated, otherwise I would have submitted the complete list of documents along with the form.

My husband earns a great deal more than what has been set as the standard. Both of us are well qualified (Engineer & MBA) and have worked/ are still working with reputed companies. It has been a stressful year to say the least, with dad's sickness, death and of course, my visa getting refused. The ECO certainly is doing his/ her job and I have no reason to doubt that. But refusing a visa on insignificant deviations does cause a great deal of stress on married life. I am one of the many who is still waiting to start her married life. Instead of rejecting visas on trivial grounds to prevent frauds, I guess the process needs a lot of work for it to be made more robust such that genuine cases do not suffer.

Secondly, while I wait for the appeal and the hearing, another 6 months would go by. Surely not the kind of married life I had been hoping for. I would effectively spend more than a year without staying with my husband. He is a busy man with a very responsible role and frequent travels to and from India is infeasible. He was also looking at the possibility of getting me a visiting visa in the meantime. Is that possible? Will that in anyway affect my dependent visa or the appeal?

[harv]

The UKBA will have full details of yourself including that of your partner about the Spouse VSIA application and its outcome. On this basis a Visitor VISA will have higher probability of a refusal.

I know, not the words you wanted to hear but that is the way it works...

[jk2128]

No Harv, that wasn't what I wanted to hear AT ALL

Can someone also clarify whether only the points that were listed as grounds for refusal will be discussed or is there a possibility that new or other grounds for refusal would be also looked at?

My husband and I also just found out that the additional documents that were requested from us based on new changes, were as per para 7 of Appendix FM-SE. Para 7, in fact, is not applicable to my husband since he is a director in his limited company and not a sole trader. One of the grounds for refusal was that we had not submitted CT603, which is part of Para 9, which is the correct category under which my sponsor falls.

I hope this will provide a strong case for us when we appeal.

[jk2128]

Can someone also clarify whether only the points that were listed as grounds for refusal will be discussed or is there a possibility that new or other grounds for refusal would be also looked at?

[harv]

If you have to face the judge, only the points raised at the time of refusal will be discussed and needs to be given evidence for. No further points can be raised unless its an extreme case i.e. further issues found at the time of hearing and the judge agrees (which is very very unlikely).

Just be prepared with as much evidence as possible on the points raised on refusal and you should be fine.

Best of luck.

[Franko]

My husband is on ILR and I applied for dependant/ spouse visa.

It has been refused on the following grounds:

Relationship requirements:
1) That I submitted my marriage certificate and 14 pictures (of which only 2 were taken other than at the wedding ceremony). Our stay at the Hilton Hotel only has my husband's details (plus 1, which was me).
2) That I haven't submitted ANY evidence of my communication with my sponsor.

We had submitted the following documents:
Marriage Certificate, Photographs of our engagement ceremony, court marriage and with family, Gtalk chat records, Email records, Information bill incurred at Hilton Hotel for our stay, Facebook public profiles indicating marital status, Phone call records, Money transfer evidence.

So did the ECO not accept any of the evidence of contact that you submitted? What phone records did you submit? was it mobile/landline bills or phone cards?

[jk2128]

Thanks, Harv. That helps.

No Franko, the ECO said we had not submitted ANY evidence. In fact, on reading that statement, I again verified if the bundle of documents that I received back contained those evidences - and it did.

The mobile phone records submitted included itemized billing showing the number, the date and time of international calls that I had placed to my husband. My husband, on the other hand, submitted his calling card records that detailed his calls to me.

[kputhran]

There is a letter from ILPA (Immigration Lawyers Practitioner Association) to Clive Peckover from UKBA on a number of mistakes in the FM-SE rules and a response as well from Clive considering changes to many of the points mentioned by ILPA. If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy of these letters in PDF format, please let me know.

With respect to CT603 (Notice to File), I went to the extent of calling up HMRC and eventually received a letter confirming that CT603 was never issued for my company thus rendering it irrelevant as a mandatory requirement under the new FM-SE rules (Company Director - Section 9). This is also referred to in Clive Peckover's response to ILPA.


Letter from HMRC (Corporation Tax) regarding CT603:
I can confirm that the company has not been issued with a CT603. Notices to file are issued around 30 days following the end of an accounting period. In fact the company could have put off filing its first corporation tax return until 31 March 2013, but because it filed early, indeed earlier than the notice would normally have been issued, the notice was not sent.
I can also confirm that notices are issued automatically and cannot be reissued. Assuming there are no changes to the company's filing date, the next CT603 notice will be issued around April/May 2013.


- Kirti

[kputhran]

Are applications according to the Rules in force at the date of APPLICATION or according to the Rules in force at the date of DECISION ?

What is the general rule or is this clearly mentioned anywhere by UKBA ?

- Kirti

[olawest]

Are applications according to the Rules in force at the date of APPLICATION or according to the Rules in force at the date of DECISION ?

What is the general rule or is this clearly mentioned anywhere by UKBA ?

- Kirti

date of APPLICATION

[kputhran]

@olawest - I would have assumed so as well, but practically it doesn't seem so which is why its illogical.

[jk2128]

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