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How did you travel to the UK if the Belgian Embassy still has his passport?rachelm1 wrote:Hi all,
My partner applied for a schengen visa from the Belgian Embassy just over 3 months ago.
Before applying we were given written assurance from the embassy that the visa would take a maximum of 4 weeks and that booking our flights to travel on 4th December would be no problem at all.
We were travelling to the UK, so hoped to add a trip to Belgium onto this trip, but the visa was NOT ready time.
We have since returned from our trip to the UK, but have STILL not heard anything from the Belgian embassy and now it's 5th Feb - more than 3 months since the application was submitted.
According to article 8.1 of the EU Handbook on Visa applications, "Only exceptionally, where additional documentation is required, the deadline may be extended up to a maximum of 60 calendar days". Therefore it seems that the embassy have failed to meet the EU requirements, not to mention the information they initially gave us about the visa taking a maximum of 4 weeks, which turned out to be incorrect.
I'm now wondering what we should do and what our entitlements are?
Can we cancelled the visa?
Are we entitled to a refund?
As he had to take a flight to get to the embassy, could he be entitled to a refund on his travel costs?
Who can we complain to about this shoddy treatment??
Any information gratefully received.
Thank you
rachelm1 wrote:The embassy don't keep the passport, you bring it to the embassy to be stamped once the visa is ready
The first step is to contact the Embassy and ask for a status update to find out what actually happened.rachelm1 wrote:Well we only realised later that his visa should have been processed within 15days, and for free as well, so guess we didn't receive the treatment that we should have had.
We do have a certificate from the British embassy confirming our relationship status, as well as lots of other evidence, so this should be sufficient proof of a durable relationship.
Anyway, irrespective of our relationship status, the maximum time for processing any visa according to the EU handbook is 60 days.
We have just found out, though by checking online - we still haven't heard a peep out of the embassy, that his visa was issued, but after 68 days! This is a clear violation of the EU guidelines and contradictory of the information they gave, so if you have any ideas about how not being able to use the visa will impact future visa applications and/ or our entitlements in terms of refund of visa fees/ compensation for inconvenience caused please do let us know.
Thanks