I hope some of you experts over here can review my case, what I am planning to do next and provide some guidance. This is regarding rejected UK tourist visa applications for my mother and father.
Present Situation: Standard tourist visa applications are rejected for my mother & father.
Immigration status & travel history of the applicants: They both are Indian citizens with low/medium overseas travel records. This is their 2nd UK visitor visa application. The earlier one was successful and they stayed in UK for just above 4 months. The new application was made soon after they returned to India from the earlier UK visit. Also they presently have a valid USA visitor visa and they visited USA in 2014, stayed in USA about 4 months.
Who is paying for the trip (sponsor): Me (i.e., son). I had supplied tons of documents to demonstrate my capability to pay. This included last 6 months of bank statements (about £18,000 minimum balance maintained at all times), 6 months of payslips, letter from the employer confirming my job, title, pay, etc, my last promotion / salary change letter reconfirming my salary, rental agreement in Liverpool. Council tax statement, copies of my passport, BRP, UK Driving License, last year's P60, my birth certificate, invitation letter clearly stating that I'll be responsible for all their expenses. The officer has not mentioned anything negative nor have they indicated that they are not satisfied with the sponsor's ability to pay.
Reason for rejection as stated in the rejection letter: The officer has stated 3 reasons for rejecting the visa application.
1. During their previous UK visitor visa application, it was stated that they would be visiting UK for about 2 months. However they stayed about 4 months during their visit to the UK. We did not explain why they stayed longer than what they stated within their application. The officer is not assured that public funds were not used during those 4 months.
2. Even though we had supplied a statement of account from the state treasury showing monthly recurring pension for my father, the amount is only about 15000 INR/month and the officer stated they are not happy with his financial security. Similarly my mother does not have much savings in her name, also we had not furnished any bank statement / financial documents for mother. So overall the office is not satisfied with the financial status of mother either.
3. We had stated within the application (and also given in the format of a notarized affidavit) that they have 2 kids, 5 grand kids, sisters, etc in India and also fully own the house - hence they will return to India by end of the legal stay issued by the UK authority. Looks like this is not sufficient and the officer stated that strong social & family ties are not demonstrated, which will take them back to India at the end of their stay in UK.
The visa application was rejected around 2nd week of December 2018. We are planning to re-apply.
My interpretation of the rejections and what went wrong?
1. Even though the earlier visa was valid for 6 months and hence my parents had the right to stay 4 months in UK, it was well beyond what was declared in the original visa application form. We could have made a proactive statement around this, during the second visa application. Any views on this, please? In the application form, they simply asked about previous UK visits. There was no section to declare such information. Now that the visa application is denied, I'm planning to write a detailed letter to the entry clearance officer and attach that with the next application, where I'll address this point. I'm planning to include the below points in my response:
- a) Apologise for not providing this information along with the last visa application.
b) The original plan was stay in UK for 2 months (July & Aug) and hence the original declaration in the visa application was accurate.
c) Once they arrived in UK, they loved the British culture and particularly the life in Liverpool. So we decided to visit a lot more places in UK than what we originally planned and consequently did a lot more shopping than originally planned. Eg: we visited Northern Ireland, Wales, London, Lake District, etc. We have the flight tickets, etc as evidence for the Northern Ireland trip. I'm planning to furnish some photographs, etc. Also shopped in majority of the shopping malls in and around liverpool (such as Trafford centre in Manchester, Cheshire Oaks designer outlet, Liverpool highstreet, Liverpool shopping park, etc). I can also give a summarised figure of the money they spent shopping in UK (must be at a minimum of £1500). All the expenses are charged on my credit card. So should be able to pull up the statements if required.
d) Re-iterate that during the 4 months of stay, they never availed any public funds (such as NHS, etc).I had obtained private health insurance. I can give copies of the insurance coverage document (is this a god idea).
e) I must have spent about £5000 overall for the trip, including all expenses. I can show evidences from credit card statements. Is this helpful?
3. We had given notarised affidavit stating my father owns the land and house, which has a fair value of INR 1 Crore at the moment. Also it stated my mother has gold ornaments, etc. Looks like the officer has not given any importance for this. Does anyone have a piece of advise here? Do they usually not value the affidavit? I know USA authorities take the affidavit seriously and I had give I-134 affidavit earlier when sponsoring my parents' USA tourist visa. Probably I should make the affidavit a bit stronger, giving firmer re-assurance? Does anyone have suggestion or template for a better affidavit?
4. With regards to the family and social ties, again I think I went a bit easy. For the USA visa, I had shown family photos, photos of the house, etc. I'll include all such information when we re-apply. Makes sense?
5. Finally, the land & house are solely owned by my father. Does it make sense to change the ownership to be joint between my father and mother, so they both can declare that they have approximately 500,000 INR worth property share? Any suggestion on this would be welcome. I'd like to know how others tackled this problem.
Really appreciate any comments and feedback. I really need to take time and submit a compelling application, so it will be approved.
