This is a very interesting thread, My friend is struggling with his case and I feel it may need to go throu the process that you outlined here.
The facts of his case are that
- his wife and daughter who had visited him twice before, applied for a workpermit dependant visas (he is on old style workpermit)
- they are not legally married, but lived together from 2006 until 2007 when he came over.
- they do not have any bill (there are no bills in his home country) and they cant find any letters with same address as his wife moved house when he came over.
- they were able to apply for family visit visas for the wife twice before.
- they are customarily married (not legally registered)
- they submitted wife's father's affidavit attesting to the customary marriage
- they have had 2 children, first one in 2007 and the youngest one in 2010, but the first one passed.
- the wife applied for the dependent visas in early-November 2011.
- she tracked the application online, but was not updated (still showing "under processing") until she sent an email to the embassy on 7th December enquiring.
- she was told that it was processed and sent back on the 29th of December.
- she went to collect on the 9th of Dec and was told the application had been return more than a week ago.
- the application was refused. It was considered on two grounds.
- they were not convinced that she was married to my friend as there was not enough proof.
- under unmarried partners, they were not convinced that they had lived together for at least 2 years before the application to be considered under "unmarried patners"
- all this despite having proved this in his wife's previous family visits
- although against my advice, my friend hastly put together an appeal with emails, money transfer receipts and photos and the wife submitted the appeal to the embassy on 14 December 2011.
- after advising him that they needed to send in travel documents for the wife's uk visits and his visits back to his home country, they sent an email to the embassy on the 19/12/11 requesting to send more documents via email.
- this email was not responded to.
- they also sent emails requesting an explanation why the application was not tracked initiall (which still shows as "under processing") and they didnt receive any response.
- they sent further two emails, which were not responded to.
- the wife snet another email on 12/01/12 asking whether the provided email was no longer in use, also requesting an explanation as outlined above, and also asking if the appeal had been upheld.
- no response was received.
- my friend called HMCTS (tribunal service here in UK) on 23/01/2012 with refusal reference to check if appeal was lodged with them, they said it was not.
- they sent emails to the embassy again, they said there is no direct phone call available.
- this time they received an email(on 24/01/12), purpoting to be replying to the email they sent on the 12th of January.
- note that that was more than 5 weeks after the appeal was sent (using FEDEX which they paid for)
- the response indicated that they received the appeal on the "20/012/2012" to quote exactly how they wrote the date.
- I told him that ukba may be playing games with them, since that seemed like a deliberately misleading date.
- the email response they got, mentioned that the embassy placed the appeal in a queue and will be reviewed when its turn arrives. If the review upheld the decision, then thats when they will froward the appeal to the tribunal service.
- on 31/01/12, they received an identical email to the one received on the 24th.
- note this was after six weeks after sending the appeal.
- they responded to the embassy email(on 31/01/12), asking 3 questings:
1. why they did not respond to questings about why the initial application was not tracked properly?
2. which date exactly they intended to indicate as the day they r eceived the appeal?
3. why they never responded to some other emails and why it has taken them this long given that from 19/12/11, appeals are now sent directly to hmcts.
- they havent received any responce as of now (18:30pm 03/02/12)
- my friend called HMCTS today (03/02/12 4pm) and they said they still havent received anything.
- they (tribunal service) advised them to send in a copy of the appeal directly to them next week
- my friend has been busy gathering remnants of supporting documents and filling the form anew and i couldnt help but sympathise with him. I refered him to this forumn, but seeing that he may not have time, I thought it would be best to post this on his behalf.
- i feel bad i had advised him initially that this was a strainght forward case since his wife visited before, and since requirements for a family visitor spouse are similar for either married or unmarried dependent visas.
- i have now advised him to complain to
UKBACustomerComplaints@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk and also after seeing this thread, I am thinking they may deserve a REFUND of their application fees given that their application was not handled well from the start, and also that ukba has not met its service level agreement.
- however, apparently it seems there is no guideline or threshold upon which the embassy/consulate should forward an appeal to tribunal service, meaning they can sit on it indefinately.
- Changes to appeals brought in on the 19th December address that issue, but as this case was decided before, they probably thought it would be quicker to take the option to send it to the embassy concerned, who in most cases review the decisions quickly.
- I appreciate that this is a complicated case guys but whats your take on it.
