arkon

Today we got a call from the british high commision which seems fully staffed by Aussies and they want somone who has known our 3 month old son for 2 years to counter sign the back of the photos. Also Our marrage certificate is from the British virgin islands and also clearly does not compute. I mean what box can you tick for that one? As a result we are having a right ding dong trying to get him a UK passport, Then we were asked what did we want a passport for him anyway!!!! I mean WTF has it got to do with them! We explained it was so we could visit a dying relative and I think the consulate then begrudingly said so long as we can get someone that has known us for 2 years to counter sign then he can have one. We have only been here 10 months so we need to now send the photos home to somone who has never seen him to counter sign the photos and send them back to us. What a load of tosh!! Then the consulate threw another spanner in the works by saying "of course you won't be able to bring him back into australia without a visa and if you get him a visa it will void your own PR visas!!!!

So now we are having to go for an interview with some Australian pen pusher to get him an Aussie passport so that at least he can get back in without voiding ours!

It took 6 hours on the phone over 2 days to Dima and the british consulate to finally get a plan of action but as of now I don't hold out much hope.

So its now official, we are prisoners here, we can either leave and leave our son behind, or leave and not be able to get him back in, or If we muff it up and get the wrong visa for him then ours could be made void so he can come back but we can't

I've condensed the saga somewhat but you get the idea. So basically chaps if you have a baby out here and try and get him a passport, tread very carefully and watch what out for the misinformation the officials give you otherwise you could end up voiding your own visas!! :scared:

Tangram

My sympathies for you Arkon, truly, I can't imagine my state of mind if it was my daughter involved. I hope it works out for you all to ease the pen pusher agro !

Emzee

I would be shocked if i didn't know you were in Australia

arkon

I know, as of yesterday we were being told by the people who are paid to know the answers that he couldn't get an Oz passport because we are not citizens and he couldn't have a UK one because they wouldn't recognise the marage certificate (which was good enough for dima) and the guy that signed the photos had only known us 10 months although he has known our son since birth and its his passport we want.

And cop for this one today the Australian handling our UK passport application started to have doubts about my wife's legitimacy for having a british passport because she is Scotish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :scared: :scared:

I really can't express in writing on this forum how pissed off we are with all of them! I mistakenly thought the british consulate would be staffed by british workers, what a knob.

Also I need to say we also had a phone call from the lady handling the passport app going absolutely apeshit at us for sending her a letter explaining why we had only been here 10 months and what did we expect it to achieve!! She was really angry that we had sent a letter in. It was one of her collegues that asked us to send them a letter explaining the reason why noone in Australia has known us for more than 10 months!!
Whats that saying about left hands and right hands?

Englishmum

JAJ will be along soon to put you right (if not, send him a PM - he seems to be an expert on all things to do with passports, visas and immigration so either he's a Civil Servant with the High Comm or an immigration lawyer methinks ).

For what it's worth, do you happen to know any Brits who worked in the Civil Service? I was an Admin Officer and once you have completed your probationary period satisfactorily you are then 'Established'. Believe it or not, this means that even if no longer working there, former Established civil servants are able to sign UK passport applications. I was told this by the British High Commission in Singapore, when my Scottish next door neighbour had the same problem; they had only lived in Singapore for a few months and her (English) husband needed to have his new passport application countersigned. The High Comm officer (English) said that I would always be able to do this. I did notice that there were many Singaporean staff working at the High Comm...I think they do the 'local' admin work but aren't able to make any firm decisions...you may need to escalate it and speak to a British official who is on assignment in Australia (and there will be...my sister-in-law is a senior Immigration Officer and worked at the British High Comm in Kuala Lumpur for 18 months).

Celtic_Angel

oh dear...it sounds like a huge nightmare!!

hope you manage to sort it all out without throttling somebody......good luck!

arkon

Thanks Englishmum, No we don't know any british civil servants. As of the end of play today we know have a direct phone number and a name to speak to at the british high comm and she has promised to help. But I've heard this so many times since we have been here its all just lip service to get you off the phone.

Did you know when we called the high comm to return a call we were greeted with a woman asking for our credit card details, when asked why she said it was $7 a minute to speak to someone!! We said we were only returning a call but she just kept demanding our credit card details like some broken reccord. After the 3rd time of asking and us refusing she eventually put us through!

I've paid my taxes for all my life and am still a british citizen, surely I shouldn't have to pay to speak to someone at the British high commision should I?

ladylisa

[QUOTE=arkon]Also Our marrage certificate is from the British virgin islands and also clearly does not compute. I mean what box can you tick for that one?


Sounds like a case of 'computer says no' my sympathies to you. I had the same problems last year when the US embassy in London lost my passport and refused to acknowledge they had lost it. I was therefore stuck in the UK and my husband in the US for weeks. Very long winded and stressful situation indeed. The only reason it was sorted out in the end is that my FIL had a friend that was an MP he made a few calls and hey presto all sorted.

judy lewis

I know this isn't going to help, but the Canadian High Commission in London lost all our documents. Fortunatley this did not include marriage certs and passports etc.

However, it was the final leg of our application to come into Canada. Unfortunately they lost a statement from my husbands ex, saying she was happy with the financial arrangements. Cost us hundreds of pounds in getting copies and authenicated sworn copies. And even though they had Fedex had a signed receipt from them, they still denied receiving documents.

Perhaps we should have seen that as a sign

I can only wish you luck and hope you get this resolved. I know how stressful dealing with these red tapers can be

jjmb

Why dont you just get an australian friend to sign the document? How is the UK commission to know whether you have known a person exactly 2 yrs without interrograting them. After all you could have met them in the UK or anywhere. If I remember rightly it doesn't have to be UK citizen who signs.

Sue

Can't you get a notary to sign instead? We are in the US and that's what we had to do when my son needed his passport renewing.

callé

What a nightmare! just want to say i hope you get it sorted soon. Good thing you didnt wait until you were ready to go home and then get held back by all this!

banjo

Hi Arkon,

sorry...just coming in on this now as we've been away for a couple of weeks! Your Aussie struggle continues I see.

Anyway, I was thinking why not concentrate on getting the Aussie passport for your little chap first. That is by far the easiest and quickest one to get and then at least he can travel if you need to. He doesn't need a British passport to enter the UK so no visas will be rendered void and everyone will be able to return here.

We got our little Aussie his passport a couple of months back. First we got his cictizenship certificate....that only took about a week. As for the photo, our little chap was not quite one yet so we got someone to sign who had known him for that length of time - I don't think I even put a covering letter in as I thought surely they can work out the maths. I took it into the post office and two weeks later the passport was here.

The British side were a different story. They sent a letter saying we had to get a copy of an acceptable version of our marriage certificate. I told them that was the one we had and it had always been 'acceptable' in the past. All in all it took about 3mths to get his British. It was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and stress.

Hope your situation comes right. Have you tried emailing the British Embassy? I've found if I send them a question they are pretty good at getting back within 24hrs.....usually by telephone.

JAJ

Are you permanent residents (at least one of you)? Or eligible NZ citizens. If so, your son is an Australian citizen even if you are not.

If you are temporary residents, he's not a citizen.


There is absolutely no reason why they ought not to 'recognise' a marriage certificate from the British Virgin Islands. Most foreign marriages are automatically recognised and the British Virgin Islands aren't even foreign - they're a British overseas territory.

Also - if your wife is a British citizen who is born or naturalised in the UK, then your child is automatically British irrespective of your marital status.




She obviously doesn't know the procedure. If you have been in Australia less than 2 years then it's glaringly obvious that 99% of applicants in your situation won't be able to come up with a local signatory that meets the '2 year rule'

Most British missions are flexible on this.


If the consulate won't sort this out quickly, then call/fax your MP in the UK and ask him or her to raise the issue with the Foreign Office in London (who are responsible for all British missions overseas).


Jeremy

JAJ

The point about 'voiding' your PR visas is absolute nonsense - it can't happen. And if you have PR then the child is a citizen and Australian citizens cannot apply for, be granted or hold Australian visas.

It's right in one sense however, you will need an Australian passport to get the child back into Australia (if it's a citizen). Get that now, as well as a British passport.

Since your child's birth certificate proves nothing about citizenship, and you've already encountered at least one Australian who believes that he's not a citizen because you're not, also get your child a citizenship certificate. It will save hassles later on, if the passport is lost:
http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/119.pdf

All this shows that an overseas consulate is not the right place to get advice on Australian immigration and citizenship matters. The fact it may be staffed by Australians proves nothing.



Jeremy