alsora

Hi All,

Just wonder if somebody could help me out there.

I am a British citizen of Middle Eastern root, both myself and my wife are medical doctors. I work in NHS here at the moment.
My wife who is an Iraqi citizen applied for spouse visa back in August 2012 and her visa got rejected in November. We filed our appeal back in December 2012. Still we have not hear from UK border agency!!!

I have a lawyer, she just advises me to wait.. I contacted my local MP, noe of them made any difference. my self and my wife are going through hell, just waiting to hear from Uk border agency.

My questions are:
1) Is there any way that i can use to expedite the reply from UK border agency?
2) should have not appealed and just reapply for spouse visa.
3) Could my wife apply for other type of UK visas such as student or visitors ? will that affect our appeal process.
4) Do you think it is wise to change my lawyer because Im not very satisfied with them, just they are interested in the fee you are paying them?


Many thanks

englishguygoinghome

Hello and welcome

I know how frustrating the wait is, we went through the same under the old rules. It looks like the UKBA just ignore the appeals and often don't even comment on them when they get to court - certainly in our case the deadline for them to reply came and went, was extended, then a court date set and the judge ruled in our favour - all without the UKBA making any kind of response. It took almost exactly 1 year between filling in the application form online and getting the visa back, we even got an MP who was directly involved with immigration matters to write to the UKBA for us. The UKBA WILL ALWAYS reply to an MP if that MPs secretary chases them but the response may be pretty inaccurate and unsatisfactory.
That very much depends on your grounds for appeal. Applying for a new visa will cost more money and MAY be faster. An appeal should not contain new evidence, but can contain additional evidence to refute reasons for rejection IF, in the judges opinion, there was sufficient evidence in the original application without the additional paperwork.
You should be able to get a visitor visa if you include a carefully worded letter explaining that the visit is only temporary while you wait for your appeal to be approved and highlighting specific evidence you have included to prove that your wife will be returning after her visit and not staying in the UK.
That depends, we had very bad experinces with two lawyers and did the appeal ourselves. Are you dissatisfied with the lawyer themselves or just with the message they are giving you?

SanDiegogirl

Why was your original application rejected? The reason might have an effect on whether your wife can get a visitor's visa.

alsora

Many thanks for your reply.

It's very frustrating to wait that long for the UK border agency to deal with your visa in this way which took them three months to come with their hasty decision in my case. from their reasons for refusal it appears they have not even looked in my documents i submitted. I feel I have been let down by the system which we all work very hard for it, paying our taxes and being a law abiding person.
My lawyer advised me to not apply for any visa for my wife, reckoning that will automatically terminate my wife spouse visa, which i thought it is abit unreasonable!
My lawyer, emmh I do not think she cares and does not give the much advise just telling me to wait. I feel there must be other way to at least expedite our appeal process.

englishguygoinghome

No way to expedite an appeal - sorry. Been there, tried all of that. BUT the immigration tribunal can be quite helpful when you call them, or at least understanding of the problems and sound like they care when they tell you "no, we are still waiting for the UKBA to get back to us, they are usually late"

alsora

Their main reasons are:
They do not think our relationship is genuine as we did not live together from the marriage certificate date on ward that long. not taking in to account that I could not stay there that long cos of my limited annual leave that I can get from hospital.
Also I did not submitted my P60, as that was lost in the post. Instead I submitted 6 months worth payslips, 12 months bank statement with my monthly wages on them with hospital supporting letter.

SanDiegogirl

So you did not provide enough evidence of a long term relationship and you did not provide an important document - the P60.

Why do you think the refusal is unfair?

Since you need to produce new evidence a new application may be quicker.

alsora

well as I said I sent payslips of 6 months and bank statements for one year with highlighting of the my wages which were way higher than the minimum income set by the UK Border agency. In addition to that 150 pages worth documents of Skype, face book conversation , phone call
with 60 photos of different occasions. I think thats why I think the refusal was unfair