No Answer after Partial IHS Refund & Interview

Hi I am posting here my case progress it might be helpful for other people and also I will get some advice from all experienced people here. I have applied Tier 1 Entrepreneur extension visa with my business partner (50K). This forum helped me to prepare my documents. (All documents were properly filed and tagged with table of contents). My visa case time line is

Application submit: 25 August’ 2016 received by home office 26th August’2016.

Biometric received and submit: 09th September’ 2016 (letter dated 7th September’ 2016)

Partial IHS Refund received on 23rd September’2016 in our personal accounts.

Interview date 25th October’2016.

We both Interviewed on same time on Skype, interview lasted for 45min.

Questions were about my name, business name, partner's name business address, me and my partner role in business, our services, contracts, employees name with spelling and their role, about our investments, why we invested money in several installments. Business gross profit, net profit and turnover. Accountant name & address and how do we approach them.

We are still waiting for reply from home office because after interview it seems everything has stopped.

My Question is should we wait or go for SAR (Subject Access Request) to know about my case progress?

I am waiting for your kind advice

Thanks in Advance

We applied on 29th June
additional document requested 22nd August, additional documents summited 31st august.
Interview letter 15th Oct , interview date 25th oct at 14:00 battleship building. Interview went well all questions related to business were easy and we thought will get result within 2 weeks of interview.
Amount invested 250 K as share capital and 150 k as director loan.
No communication after interview. Business in profit staff has done more than 5000 hours and apart of our investment business has 200 k loans for machine financing and 75 k overdraft from bank and good credit rating dealing with multinational customers and suppliers. Monthly sales 60 to 70 k but still home office can't decide if its a genuine business or not very frustrating as we need to travel urgently for business.

Sometimes we think we made a mistake should have invested in USA or some other country. It is very difficult to take out time to do so much paper work for visa. It is so complicated and confusing its very easy to miss one or other document or miss a full stop or coma and get your visa rejected as HO does not see business or use brain just want truck loads of documents. Most of solicitors also don't know the correct documents and give bad advice.
The system should be more simple and practical so that genunie business can get visa. You have to be super human to get all documents right and get visa in service standard time of 8 weeks. If HO does suprise applicant site visit than they can understand business in 1 hour and processing application will be must faster.

We had our interview before you guys, i think i saw you there. My case was very simple with simple presentation of documents. I dont know why they are taking time. One of my friend got extn visa this month and they applied in september2016.

If you search the forum, you realise that many applicants had to wait for 6-8 months to hear back. Your case is not that different. SAR is not relevant for the progress of your application. This is really a waiting game

Yes you are right we were after you. I am really fed up now and have stopped thinking about it. Let them do what they can i don't care anymore.

Worst case they can reject the application and if its for missing documents we will reapply with that documents and if they make a mistake then we will get decision overturned in AR Review. Nothing else can happen so we are just concertrating carrying on with business and even investing more money for expansion. Whatever happens will eventuatly get visa if not this time than in next application.

It just that it feels sad that we are stuck can't travel because HO is not capable to decide on applications for more than 6 months which for a businessmen who has to travel frequently is a very long time. The service could have been much better but now we are stuck and have no other choice but to wait patiently take everything with a smile i know and am confident that if business is genuine eventitually everybody will get visa if not in this application than next application.

zimba88 wrote:If you search the forum, you realise that many applicants had to wait for 6-8 months to hear back. Your case is not that different. SAR is not relevant for the progress of your application. This is really a waiting game

Yes Zimba you are right we have to be wait no easy way. I am already making 2 booking for Christmas holidays if i get my passport than Australia if don't get my passport back than scotland. Why should we stop enjoying our life because of HO Slow service.

I wish everybody good luck

Thank you guys i got my answers and advice. i am planning to invest more into the business but HO decisions are stopping me. For peace of mind i wanted to go for SAR.

Thank you for your reply

If your business is genuine and you fulfilled all conditions attached to your visa than you have nothing to worry will get visa either on this application or if any document was missed than when you reapply.

So don't worry carry on your with your business i wish you success all the best cheers

Khanbhai when was ur interview letter dated?

we received interview email on 13th October'2016 and interview letter was posted to us on 15th October'2016, interview was on 25th October'2016.

We also received on 15th oct and letter was dated 13th Oct interview was on 25th oct. I think on 13th oct they had some meeting and send interview letters to many people...)))

It can be possible because there were another team they had interview before us. They had same questions mostly about there business plan.

In our timeline they sent me letter between 9th September and 13th October. Two letter I did not mentioned above.

One On 17th September’ 2016 Letter (dated 16th September) received about declaration not signed by both applicants on visa form page 54 (My business partner had to signed my form and I had to signed his form). That was error we made on application form.

Second On 27th September’2016 after Partial IHS refund, Letter (dated 23rd September’2016) received about my personal bank statement, which was incomplete 83days instead of 90days. Again me and banker made mistake, I asked them for three months statement they gave me for 83 days and I did not checked it. Then i Posted them on 4th October.

Here my Point is they were contacting us almost every week before interview, they were asking everything which was required. But after interview it is a long silence.

Even we were send a letter on 22nd August asking for full birth certificate or passport copy of one of my employees as by mistake we had given short birth certificate which did not have name of both parents and this employee did not have passport. We send this document on 30th August and during interview we were not asked any question regarding that document or employee. We were only asked about current employees.

They did not ask us any questions for personal bank statement as i had given them only my saving bank statement which had no other transaction apart from maintenance money which we were keeping for last 6 months. All financial questions were from Business statement. We had given them more than 3 years of Bank statement for my LTD company bank account. We were asked details of some payments which were over 25 K and send to our suppliers in china these were almost every month as we import lot from china. Were also asked about regular direct debits which are payments to uk based suppliers and machinery hire purchase and lease payments.

We were 2 team members me and my dad whereas my Dad received NHS Surcharge partial refund on 22nd August i am still not received partial refund. We applied on 29th June and interview was on 25th Oct so soon going to be 5 Months.

I am not sure what days Home office closes for Christmas and new year break but i have heard that during 18th Dec to 10th Jan they don't work as most of the staff is on annual leave so lets hope we get the result before that otherwise it can go into Jan / Feb and we need our passport urgently for business travel.