Post
by KID1413 » Wed Jul 26, 2017 4:10 am
We are suffering the same.
I'm a Spanish national and my spouse is non EEA. We submitted our application the 23rd of June. On the 6th of July, it was received by Sheffield, on the 11th we were told our application wasn't "straight forward" and it would require more than the 15 working days they aim to deliver.
I have checked the country where we did the application and the data from May 2017 says it's up to a maximum of 15 days. I don't know whether that's working days or days since it was received in Sheffield or what but I'll probably give them a call this week as that's over the limit for 15 working days since the day of receipt of acknowledgement.
On my application I didn't include photos, chat logs as it wasn't mentioned, but I saw many people doing this, primarily from countries that are "riskier" but I don't consider Japan to fall under that category. Our application does not show anything that can be misleading to a "marriage of convenience" as we are pretty much applying for that FP after 3 years living together, both inside and outside the UK (we had our own visas sorted out during our stay there so no need for a family permit whatsoever)
In addition, it is my understanding that the home officers are the ones who should prove your marriage as a marriage of convenience and not the way around, so until they can "demonstrate" that, you should be good to go. Countries that are usually less developed are more inclined to be frowned upon and raise a flag but for that, it's better to include all your supporting documents such as photos, videos, chat logs, etc to clear any doubts.