Avon81

Hi all,
My wife & I recently submitted our spouse visa application from Canada, &
last week we made the trip to Toronto to submit her biometrics & documents. With the assistance of this great forum & other research I was able to figure out that the local VAC, run by VFS Global, scans all documentation for settlement applications directly to Sheffield & doesn't accept originals. With this in mind, we'd prepared 3 piles of documents: originals, colour copies on "letter" size paper (North American standard) & a further set made on A4 in case they were required to be in that size.
After arrival, the clerk said the "letter" size paper was just fine, & handed us a pile of bar code separator sheets & instructed us to divide our documents accordingly. Once we'd completed this, she proceeded to scan the documents, & showed us her monitor as they appeared there. I asked her if she was scanning them to the UK & she said yes, she was. Once done, she put all the scanned copies in a UPS envelope, along with my wife's current passport, they then took photos & fingerprints & we were done, the whole process taking about 45 minutes.
I've been perfectly good with this until today, when I read on the VFS Global Canada landing page the following statement:

"Settlement application - All customers applying for UK settlement, including Priority Visa applicants, must send their supporting documentation directly to UKVI in Sheffield, UK by post. Prior to sending any documentation to UKVI, applicants should make sure that the courier company they are planning to use will deliver to Post Office (PO) Box addresses in the UK."

I don't remember seeing that before, although of course it is possible I missed it in my old age.... Naturally it has me worried, as I was under the impression that our documents were being scanned directly, with no further action required from us. To make matters more confusing, elsewhere on the site, it says:

"Note for all Visa Categories applied for in Toronto:
With effect from 01 December 2017 all applications submitted in Toronto must be submitted at the Visa Application Centre in Toronto. They cannot be sent directly by the applicant or their representative. All applicants are advised that they MUST bring all of their original supporting documents along with a photocopy of each document to their Visa Appointment.
Failure to provide photocopies along with your original documents may result in delays when you are submitting your application. Photocopying services are available at the Toronto VAC at a cost of $1.00 per copy. If we are unable to provide this photocopying service for oversized documents, we may have to request you to return with the required photocopies before your application can be accepted
The instruction above is only for the submission of applications at the Toronto VAC. VACs located in Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa will accept your application with originals as per current process."

I can only think that the landing page blurb was a blanket statement that once applied to all Canadian offices, but now Toronto is the only one that scans, & they haven't updated it yet? Hopefully I'm just overthinking things here, but any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks in advance,

rockaju

hi,

I submitted settlement application at Visa application centre, TLS contact. All my supporting documents(Sponsor's docs and applicant's docs) were scanned. I received two emaills from VAC. One email saying that Application transferred to Embassy(Received on the same day). Another email saying that documents received by UK visas and Immigration(next day).


All the scanned docs will be sent securely to Sheffield for processing. They wont take any photocopies of docs at VAC. Are you sure that they took photocopies of your documents and sent along with your passport? Did you receive two emails?

Avon81

No, they didn't take any copies themselves, just used the ones we brought with us. Didn't even look at the originals which we also had with us. They noted my email address but to date I have not received any email. Don't think that part in and of itself is any real cause for concern (yet) as others who have had their documents scanned & posted timelines have only received email(s) after a few days, sometimes not at all. I will be monitoring my inbox closely!

mouseyone

I'm getting ready to submit my spousal visa at the vfs in toronto. Curious to know how long you waited till your response.

bpounds

Hi,
I had same experience today at Vfs Toronto.I wonder how your application went through? Did you need to contact home office? Thanks

POIKKIMAKI

bpounds

Thanks for the reply but I was trying to ask if they took copies instead of original documents ???just worry if it cause a problem for example I had both my husband's original pay slips and made copies .they took copies and gave me back originas..

POIKKIMAKI

bpounds

Thank You, hope we all have good news soon!