Asking for additional documents for Spouse Visa

[Zaina92]

Hi,
We have applied for spouse visa back in October 2022 and did the biometrics on 20th of October and on 09th Jan 2023 we got an email from home office that we can now apply for a priority visa to get the decision in 15 working days. We paid extra £610.87 for priority visa the very next day and by the time we paid and they sent us the payment confirmation it was already a week gone. So, they send us email the receipt of payment on the 13th Jan 2023 and same day they are unable to conclude the application at this time as they require additional information. This was because we submitted academic IELTS and not IELTS for UKVI in our case Skills test A1. I am very frustrated because I hired a lawyer to go through all the documents and check if everything is valid for spouse visa. Our lawyer is an immigration lawyer and what a waste of £750. Home office asked us to submit the results within 5 working days and we couldn't sit for IELTS due to no seats available until 26th Jan and we got our results on 2nd Feb and we submitted the documents same day to home office on Sheffield.SettlementDocsRequested@fco.gov.uk but we never got any email back since 2nd Feb they never told us if they received the document or not or are they still dealing with the application on priority basis. I contact UKVI via online portal to ask what is the status of my application and they said they cannot escalate it before 15 working days are over after the submission of IELTS test. Is there any way to find out 1. If they received our documents?
2. How long will it take now after submission of approved IELTS test results?
The normal priority visa deadline was yesterday 06/02/2023.
Anyone who is reading this I would not suggest them to do a priority visa or hire an incompetent lawyer who claims 20 years of experience in immigration. Anyone else in similar position please write back to this email.
Thank you!

[shohjura]

Why did they refuse your ielts academic? What score did you get?

[AmazonianX]

Hi,
We have applied for spouse visa back in October 2022 and did the biometrics on 20th of October and on 09th Jan 2023 we got an email from home office that we can now apply for a priority visa to get the decision in 15 working days. We paid extra £610.87 for priority visa the very next day and by the time we paid and they sent us the payment confirmation it was already a week gone. So, they send us email the receipt of payment on the 13th Jan 2023 and same day they are unable to conclude the application at this time as they require additional information. This was because we submitted academic IELTS and not IELTS for UKVI in our case Skills test A1. I am very frustrated because I hired a lawyer to go through all the documents and check if everything is valid for spouse visa. Our lawyer is an immigration lawyer and what a waste of £750. Home office asked us to submit the results within 5 working days and we couldn't sit for IELTS due to no seats available until 26th Jan and we got our results on 2nd Feb and we submitted the documents same day to home office on Sheffield.SettlementDocsRequested@fco.gov.uk but we never got any email back since 2nd Feb they never told us if they received the document or not or are they still dealing with the application on priority basis. I contact UKVI via online portal to ask what is the status of my application and they said they cannot escalate it before 15 working days are over after the submission of IELTS test. Is there any way to find out 1. If they received our documents? [align=center]No, you will have to wait[/align]
2. How long will it take now after submission of approved IELTS test results? No one can tell you, some still get treated as priority after additional information is requested however the priority lapses once it can't be decided by CW on giving it a once over.
The normal priority visa deadline was yesterday 06/02/2023.
Anyone who is reading this I would not suggest them to do a priority visa or hire an incompetent lawyer who claims 20 years of experience in immigration. Anyone else in similar position please write back to this email.
Thank you!

[AmazonianX]

Why did they refuse your ielts academic? What score did you get?

IELTS UKVI lide skills is used for spouse visa while IELTS Academic is for some other routes. However some applicants scaled through on spouse visa using IELTS Academics, his didn't.

[Zaina92]

My husband score was 7.0 in IELTS academics but they did not accept it saying because it is not IELTS for UKVI so we paid £100 again to resit for a low level exam A1 skills test that only gives pass or fail in his case pass and it only test your listening and speaking. It was bizarre but they are the rules and they implemented this rule back in 2015 and despite we asked our lawyer to check all documents and specifically asked if this is the correct IELST she said yes this should be fine and she submitted IELTS Academics just extreme bad luck I suppose incompetent lawyer and not knowing about the rule. However we are still waiting for the decision and our case is Priority case. I just don't wish anyone else to go through this I hope so stressful.

[shohjura]

So issue was it was Ielts academic, not ielts academic for ukvi which is taken in front of cameras etc. it had to be either ielts academic for ukvi or ielts life skills for ukvi

[Zaina92]

Hi shohjura,

Yes, that is right. We got the email from VFS on 08/02/2022 and we have collected the passport and visa is approved now. Happy days. thanks to everyone for the contribution