Passport hasn’t been returned

[Iham85]

Dear team,

Just looking for an advice here please.
My brother applied for a visit visa to the UK on the 03/08/22. His visa was refused in September. However, since then he has not received his passport back.
We contacted ukvi several times and three escalations were raised but no benefit so far. I have emailed the HO office complaint email address being his sponsor but no reply was received.
Every time I speak to ukvi they just issue an escalation while hiding behind the phone lines. He has lost significant time not being able to do English exam to travel in the last 4 months and this causing him mental issues now. He is due to finalise his study application for canada and now he lost the opportunity to join the course in May given the delay in his passport return.

There is no way to speak directly to HO about this because the automated machine will direct us to UKVI number.

What else can we do? Can we lodge a legal case against UkVI? How we can get this started if any?
Any similar situation before?

Appreciate your input.
Thanks,
Iham

[vinny]

See also Seizure of passport actionable in law.

[lolo2]

Did he try going back to the application centre?

I understand in some countries this might be difficult to do without an appointment, but sometimes it's possible to visit the centre if something went wrong with the application.