Stressing over family visit visa

[bobbylad]

My wife and I live in China, I'm British and she is from the Philippines. We also have a 6 month old daughter who is a British citizen who we want to take to see her grand parents. We applied for a family visit visa on 18th June and just today the British embassy called her up to ask her about a previous refusal of an extension to her Tier 4 visa about 2.5 years ago which she didn't include on the application. The college she originally enrolled in had its licence revoked shortly after she arrived and the UKBA told her to find a new place of study so she enrolled in a masters degree course at Kings College. The course didn't finish until 2 months after her Tier 4 visa expired, she applied for an extension a week before it was due to expire and it was rejected so she appealed. While awaiting the appeal she completed her masters degree, cancelled the appeal and left the country as there seemed little point in waiting. I think she didn't see this as being refused a visa when she applied for this family visit. The person on the phone simply said "oh ok, that clears that up" without adding any further comment.

Do you think this will harm her chances of getting this approved? I am already a week into the leave I booked for the trip, I thought it would all be done by now.

[MPH80]

Short answer - yes - it probably will.

But she might get lucky.

[bobbylad]

Original circumstances of it seem to be evidence of compliant travel. Her visa expired in Jan, her course ended in March. As the appeal process takes longer than two months she had no reason to wait for its conclusion, she called the UKBA from Heathrow airport to say she was leaving the country they told her it wouldn't affect any future application. Though I guess forgetting to mention it would do, if I had known about this I certainly would have made sure it went in the application even though the box has such strict character limits online.

[MPH80]

Well - you just have to wait and see.

[bobbylad]

Feeling lucky, collected today its been issued. Took 29 days.

Now all the flights are about £200 more expensive than a week ago, I always need something to moan about.