Fiance Visa Refusal

Hi

We have recently been refused a fiancé visa on the grounds the ECO doesn’t believe we are not in a genuine relationship. A bit of back ground my fiancé is an overstayer who I met in the UK, we spent 8 months together before making the decision that he would return (at his own expense) to India to make an application.

'lack of personal contact and lack of evidence of regular correspondence between you. I am not satisfied that you have genuinely formed a relationship, that you have been in regular contact and that you relationship is subsisting and durable with genuine outward signs of affection and companionship'

As part of our application we submitted:

7 months phone bills
Photos from days out
Photos from engagement
Engagement ring receipts
Receipts from days out
Birthday cards and gift receipts
Letters of support from family and friends

Since he has returned to India we have been in contact daily via phone and Skype we have also sent each other cards.

Can anyone offer suggestions on how we move forward? Advice I have got is that there isn’t much merit in new application as we sent quite a lot of evidence and therefore new application would simply be refused. If we were to appeal what can we bring to the ECO’s attention to prove our relationship is genuine?

Thanks in advance 

Appeal and leave it to a judge to decide if your application satisfies the rules.

Is there anything i can do in addition to the evidence already submitted? Has anyone had any success overturning decisions at appeal?

Just received a letter saying that our request for a review of your decision has been considered but they have found no grounds to change the decision.

i was under the impression this would take months however we received the letter 3 days after submitting application for review and appeal. Does this mean the appeal hearing maybe heard sooner than the 5-6 months months?

Yes, the ECM review stage did not overturn the decision so it will now go to the FTT court in the UK. That will be many months from now.

Just wondering if anyone can offer me some advice on how to prepare for my appeal and what i should expect at the hearing?

Has anyone succesfully appealed?

Hi,
I was in the same situation as you, you can go and appeal and leave the rest for the judge to decide, infact, the ECO are just not conversant with new immigration rules before deciding applications especially if the grounds of refusal relates to subsisting relationship, with the above documents you've stated here, you stand a good chance of winning your appeal, how many times have you met your spouse?, have you lodge the appeal?

Thank you for your reply.

We were together for 7/8 months in the UK and used to meet up every week. Since his return to India i have not seen him however i will be going next week but i understand that this isnt something that can be put forward for the appeal as this is after the date of refusal.

Yes we have submitted our appeal and now its just a waiting game. What can i expect when i attend court for the appeal? Is there anything i can do to prepare?

I think an important part of a fiancé visa application is confirmation a wedding will take place:

1) Submit evidence of wedding venue and deposit paid.
2) Submit evidence from person who will conduct the wedding ceremony.
3) Submit both parties letter of intentions which should mention where the wedding will take place, how many guests will attend. Must state you intend to live together when married and give address of premises.
4) Submit evidence of photographer, wedding cake, etc.

We had done a majority of the above, the only thing we hadn’t done was put down deposits and I had explained in my letter that this was due to not knowing when his visa would be granted however I had included emails/brochures of venues as well as quotes from caterers/DJ's. In these emails I had given approx figures of number of people that would be attending.

As for intentions to live together we had provided 2 accommodation reports both with written statements from property owners giving consent for us to live there - the reason there was two 1) before wedding when he would live with family and 2) after wedding when he would live with me.

I believe we have covered all the bases hence the reason for appealing and not reapplying my concern is how do you prove a relationship is genuine when you have done so much what else could I offer top overturn the decision?

I will advice you to read the heading "Subsisting Relationship" on this forum, you stand 90% chance of winning when you appeal, the ECO are demanding lot of evidences which the law did not stipulates. don't re-apply again, because if different ECO treats your application, he/she might find another excuse to refuse the application. I will urge you to engage the service of good immigration lawyer, I am going through this process as you. I wish you good luck.

johnj1 wrote:I will advice you to read the heading "Subsisting Relationship" on this forum, you stand 90% chance of winning when you appeal, the ECO are demanding lot of evidences which the law did not stipulates. don't re-apply again, because if different ECO treats your application, he/she might find another excuse to refuse the application. I will urge you to engage the service of good immigration lawyer, I am going through this process as you. I wish you good luck.

90%? Really i so hope that is true.

Can anyone tell me how long the whole appeal process will take i see 6 months thrown about but also see that some people have been waiting close to a year.

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Was wondering if someone could advise me on a possible change of plans, we currently have an a appeal in process but i have been thinking about going india to get married to my fiancé the only reason being that we want to get married but im just wondering how this would look? We would submit a new application for spouse visa but im just wondering how the application might be viewed. Should i just wait to see what happens at appeal?

What if they flew to Las Vegas and got married there, is that an automatic disqualification? This is really weird.

Penny_78 wrote:Was wondering if someone could advise me on a possible change of plans, we currently have an a appeal in process but i have been thinking about going india to get married to my fiancé the only reason being that we want to get married but im just wondering how this would look? We would submit a new application for spouse visa but im just wondering how the application might be viewed. Should i just wait to see what happens at appeal?

Has anyone any thoughts on this?

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Quick Question

I have my appeal hearing in a couple of weeks but i am a little stuck on how to answer a question if asked..... The question is why can't i move to india to be with my fiancé, is there a right or wrong way to answer this question?