I am a citizen and my husband is on Student Visa. We applied for his spouse visa on 16/3/2009. Case officer requested for health checks, etc on 3/4/2009. I registered posted all outstanding docs to immigration on 16/4/2009 which they have picked up on 17/4/2009. When I called and checked today, the file hasn’t progressed at all. I am wondering from people with recent experiences, how long does this process take? My husband is not particularly bright at school and I am scared that if he failed this semester, they may cancel his VISA before his spouse visa gets approved. Also, I am due to give birth to our baby daughter end of June.
Any clue?? The last resort is seeking a solicitor. But in a job dealing with solicitors all day, I don’t know whether it is even worth while talking to them..?
Thanks
His visa doesn’t expire until 2012. However, one condition is that he passes all subjects. He has wrongly chosen his course and he is not getting passes on all his subjects. He has already received a warning letter and after second warning letter, the school can request immigration to cancel his student visa. Immigration case officer has already issued him with a bridging visa but it only kicks into affect when his existing visa has expired, not if it is cancelled. Does anyone know how long it will normally take for a straight forward spouse visa to get aproved?
Are you thinking about selling your home yourself? then
There is no point in getting a solicitor as there is nothing at all that can be done to speed the application. The fact that you already have a CO is promising and now you’ve had your medicals, it shouldn’t take long now unless there is some problem with the application. If your husband’s current visa expires before his spouse visa is granted, he should automatically be granted a bridging visa A to allow him to stay until the application is decided. The only time that would not happen is if he has a condition 8503 ‘No further stay’ condition on his current visa.,
EDIT:
The standard processing time for straightforward onshore spouse visas for someone from a low risk country, is 6 months but lately, they have been faster than that and I’ve heard of a couple that only took 3 months. The problem is that there’s no way of knowing how high the demand is at any given time, so while 6 months will probably be the maximum, it’s only guesswork to estimate the shortest time.
Has he spoken to the school about being a bit more lenient in his case seeing as he has applied for a spouse visa? A delay of just a few weeks in sending that second warning or notifying immigration could make all the difference.