Hi I am new to this board but would like to share my wife and I experience.
My Wife is an Indonesian national who has been living and working in Norway for the last two years but her contract is now ending and her Norwegian Visa is due to expire on August 9th.
I am a British Citizen and have lived here all my life 36 years.
We got married February in Thailand which was attended by friends and family of us both.
We waited to apply for her settlement visa so that she could still visit on her visitor visa which expired in May this year while we looked around and located a new place to live together once her settlement visa is approved.
We knew the expected processing times are at least 12 weeks for 90% (now 95%) of applications according to the Uk website.
My wife attended her visa appointment on 29th April and found the office quite disorganised, she even helped the other applicants when she was there to come up with a system for organising who's appointment should be seen in which order.
She had issues with the teleperformance website (UK Visa application centre in Norway)where she had registered and we paid the 59 euro fee but received no confirmation for this. Only on my credit card statement. The advisor said this was needed and a receipt should have been provided when she registered on the website.
There is no priority settlement visa service either otherwise we would have used it.
She also advised that unlike her visitor visa which was done through a different visa service world bridge in Oslo she wasn't given a DHL tracking number when submitting her documents.
Her application was received but we both had no confirmation of this only a letter that was sent on 22/05/14 advising the application has been received but is on hold pending the minimum income appeal hearing, which was just won by the home office on last week.
Our letter which was addressed to my address which is in the UK but addressed to my wife. It was from the 16th floor Apollo House address in Croydon not the lunar house address. A VAF number was provided in relation to our application.
It stated we did meet the minimum income threshold with the evidence we supplied but we didn't include the letter from my employer stating how long I had worked there and salary. If we supplied this information while the application was on hold pending the appeal, and we met the rest of the criteria the visa would be granted.
We did expect that we may need to send the information as that's the only thing we didn't have before we applied as we were double checking all the rules which changed around 6th July. So while the visa was being processed I asked my employer for this information and was ready with it.
I sent a reply letter to the address on 28th May posted by Royal Mail on 29th and proof of delivery in Croydon was signed on 2nd June.
We waited and waited and are still waiting for any news on the visa. I have contacted the enquiry service which is very expensive by phone £1.37 a minute when speaking to an advisor. After we had previously contacted them visa the inline mail form (which doesn't seem to provide a lot of room for a full detailed email).
We have been supplied various contact ids in relation to our query but tried to stick with one and so far the application status is still the same since 22/05/14. Awaiting information.
I have contacted them twice by phone once today and then once on 4th July where I was told that my case would be escalated as we were concerned about if we have to apply for my wife's passport to be returned, if they had received our letter and extra supporting evidence how would we go about it as the email address VisaEnquiries.UKVisaSection@fco.gsi.gov.uk on the letter we had no response from at all and adjusting the address to fco.gov.uk receive an automated email advising to use the new enquiry service.
We wanted to know if they had definitely received our letter with the evidence as we had no acknowledgement. Since we had proof of delivery on 02/06/14 we hoped for a response by now or a change of status rather than the same requesting information.
The gentleman that I spoke to on 4th July advised us that if we had supplied the evidence we just have to wait and no response is usually provided when you contact them. After talking for a while in total it cost £26, he advised he would escalate the issue so we could get some answers to our questions. He gave me a contact Id and we waited and received no response.
When I called the enquiry service today and then provided the last contact I'd I was given on 4th July. The lady said all she could see in her system was my email address and the date of birth of my wife and the reference number. No further notes, nothing had been done. I was furious but remained polite to the lady.
She advised he shouldn't have said he could escalate and confirmed the status of the application was still waiting information but she could not confirm who the they were waiting information from if it was from us or somewhere else. She could not confirm if our documents had been received and was unable to find out or enquire.
She did advise it may take 3 months and 1 day or even 6 months for a decision to be made.
She also did keep mentioning the Sheffield office which she said is where settlement visas are sent if we were to request my wife's documents back due to the Norway visa expiry and that if we were to request them we would be cancelling the application, with no refund.
If we were to go through that process we would be sent a form to fill in, but when I advised her
The letter was sent by the Croydon office and it was the Norway processing centre sent it through there, she said they would contact the Norwegian visa processing centre to request the documents back (from Croydon).
She didn't say how long this would take. So the current estimate for the average of 12 weeks was 22/07/14 for any decision but our estimate with the 7 days on hold for our supplying the extra evidence is 31/07/14.
We are hoping for some good news in the next few days so we don't need to cancel the application so my wife has to get her passport back so she can return to Indonesia.
Does anyone have any advice Citizens advice? Is this normal to here nothing? If the evidence was received should we have received an acknowledgement?
Does anyone know how long it might take for a return of passport for an application made outside the UK if we have to go down that route.
Thanks in advance, and good luck for anyone applying for Visas.
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