Parent Visitor Visa

[nima3]

Hi everyone,

I am a British citizen since March 2017, moved from a permanent role to contracting since June 2017 via my limited company (as a Director). Recently we have been blessed with lovely twin babies and I would like to invite my mother (without my father to reduce the risk of getting rejected) to come and visit us in the UK. I would really appreciate it if someone could review the below documents and let me know if anything is missing or can be added.

The documents I am providing are as follows:

• Accomodation
  • Tenancy Agreement
  • Energy Bills for the past 4 Months
  • Council Tax dated November 2017

• Permanent Employment Payslips(June 2016 - June 2017)

• Birth Certificate of the twins

• Limited Company Documents
  • A letter from the bank stating I am the sole account holder of the business account and have full access to the account
  • Business Account bank statement since July 2017 to date
  • Certificate of Incorporation
  • Working Contracts since June 2017
  • VAT Certificate and copy of the VAT returns for August 2017 and November 2017
  • So far I have not extracted any money (salary/dividend) from the business, but planning to do so if dividend vouchers would help to support the application.
  • Corporation Tax yet to be paid, have no documents to present for now

• Invitation Letter stating the purpose(Visiting us and our new born babies), date and length(1 Month) of her trip and the fact that I am going to accommodate her and support her financially for the whole stay(along with a list of documents provided to support this).

• Cover Letter, providing additional details about previous rejections(twice) of which, one was due to not being able to provide sufficient document to support her income(at 2010) and the other(2014) due to not being able to prove we have been in contact since my move to UK at 2007.

• Copy of Passports
  • My British and Iranian passports(including all the previous expired passports)
  • Copy of all the pages having entry stamps of Iran to be used as a proof that I travel to home to visit them regularly
  • My Partners' British passport

• Personal Bank Statements
  • Current Account since January 2017
  • Saving Account since January 2017
  • ISA Account since April 2016

• Family Photos as proof that we regularly meet each other outside the UK
  • Family Trip to Cyprus at July 2016 to introduce my partner to my parents
  • My trip to Tehran to visit my family at March 2015

• Personal Tax
  • P45 of when I left my Permanent job at June 2017
  • P60 for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 (Not able to find 2017)
  • Taxable Income Reports for 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2016-2017

Here is what my Mother is going to provide:

• Ties to home country
  • Original and Translated ownership documents of a house my parents are living in, which is in my mother's name
  • 3 Months utility bills of the house
  • Original and Translated marriage certificate
  • Employement Letter from my sister's employer in Iran
  • Copies of my father and my sister's National IDs
  • Original and Copy of my father's passport

• Proof of income
  • Original and Translated ownership documents of a property my mother rents out, in my mother's name
  • Original and Translated rental agreement of the rented property(above)
  • 6 Months banks statement of her account to which the rent are being paid
  • 6 Months banks statement of her saving account

• Her current passport and previous expired passports

• Copies of the previous Schengen and US visas from her current and previous passports

• Original and Copy of her national ID

• 6 Passport size Photographs

• Completed Visa Application Form

Apologies for the long post, really appreciate if someone can review this and provide some feedback, I do not want to leave any room for rejection this time.

Thanks

[nima3]

Senior Members, really appreciate if you guys comment and provide some feedback please.

Thanks

[ms_m]

Hi Nima3,

It seems as though you have been very thorough. I’m not a senior member on here but have had a lot of experience in applying for UK visas for my family in Iran. In my experience for someone to get a visa from Iran, it’s a bit of a lottery. A few pointers that I thought may help:

1. If any of your relatives have previously visited you in the UK, write the dates they arrived and left and what the length of their visa was.

2. I think you said that your parents own their home, if so, perhaps they could go to a estate agent ‘bongah’ and ask them to write the details of their home (how many bedrooms, bathrooms, size), the price per metre and the total value of the home. This is because as you know Iranian title deeds are a little abstract and so it puts the value of the home into more context, showing ‘ties.’ If the same could be done for the home she owns and rents out.

3. This point I’ve found is very important. In the cover letter include a table showing the names, relationship, address and phone numbers of the family your mother has in Iran. I realise you’ve provided details about your father and sister but it’s also good to do this. Whilst no one would expect you to provide copies of passports for your mother’s sisters/brothers/nieces or nephews, I’ve found that by simply putting their address and phone numbers in a clear table just further proves the ties to Iran.

4. Does your mother have life insurance/health insurance/travel insurance from Iran. Sometimes you also get these with bank accounts (specifically Pasargad that I know of). If she does, please do provide these.

5. With regards to the income for rent, does the same amount go into her bank account around the same time each month. If so please hilight these in one colour to show it is the income from the rent she receives and mention it in the cover letter. Id your mother receives any income in the form of interest for either her current or savings account please hilight these too and mention these in the cover letter.

6. I think it would also be useful if you could provide more information about your father in the supporting documents (his work/retirement fund/bank accounts) to show that your mother has reason to return to him. It sounds terrible I know.

I find it astonishing that we have to jump through all these hoops and yet the Entry Clearance Officers still try to find fault.

Please let me know if you think of anything else/have any questions.

By the way, have you booked your mother’s appointment yet? Will she be applying in Tehran or Abu Dhabi? The appointments in Tehran are notoriously difficult to book. They say they are released on a weekly basis but apparently the travel agencies in Tehran buy the appointment slots and sell them on. There is definitely something dodgy going on and I have complained s several times but have received no answer. There was even a petition going around before for the parliament here. Anyway, I digress. If you need help booking the appointment slot please let me know and I can try to help.

[nima3]

Hi ms_m,

Thank you for all the suggestions provided, Indeed your are a senior member when it comes to the UK visas for Iranian applicants!

• I have never had guests or visitors from Iran so the first point is not applicable to my case I guess.

• With regards to the 2nd point, I kind of understand the fact that even if the deeds are provided (along with certified translations) still they are not going to be very meaningful to the entry clearance officer and won't make much sense to them, so surely a document from an estate agent would help to make things a bit more clear and smoother. Will get this sorted.

• For the 3rd point I was thinking maybe to provide a letter (approved by the ministry of education) from my niece's school as a further proof for ties to the home country. I will add the table you mentioned to the cover letter anyway just to be on the safe side.

• Not sure about any insurance they hold but thanks for raising this as it was completely off my radar.

• I have confirmed that the bank statement is of the account which the rents are paid to on regular basis. Will further highlight those transactions. Will do the same for interests paid on the saving account too.

• We have not prepared any document from my father's side, need to see what can be provided, I am pretty sure bank statements are something which can be prepared easily and in a short matter of time but not sure about the rest.

After many attempts I finally managed to secure an appointment for her in Tehran which is through VFS. I am pretty confident that agencies snipe(a term used when robots perform actions which are usually carried on by humans on the web) the appointments, so it was really difficult to secure an appointment even when it was shown as available. As by the time you click/select to book it, it is already gone!

One question that I would like to ask is, since it took sometime to actually secure an appointment some documents are couple of weeks old now. As an example, I started the application late January and my mother's bank statements are all dated on mid-feb and the appointment is going to be in mid-march, would that cause any issues? I mean generally how recent all these documents must be?

I will double check all the documents and will come back to you if I have got more questions.

Thank you so much for going through the long list and providing feedback and the lessons learnt from your previous experience, really appreciate it.

Regards,
Nima

[ms_m]

Hi Nima,

Glad I could be of some help! I know how frustrating it is and it’s really difficult to jump through all the hoops just so a close family member can visit for a few weeks.

I’ve got a few thoughts and suggestions but will go through your points first.

1. If you can get the letter from the estate agent that would really help. Basically you need to make everything as easy as possible for the ECO
2. A letter from your niece’s school would be great. In addition to this perhaps you could ask your brother/sister to write a letter to accompany this to say that your mum is involved in your niece’s life/helps with childcare etc. The more weight you have behind you the better. Definitely include the table- please don’t forget this.
3. Insurance isn’t a necessity but if they have it then it will work in their favour.
4. Definitely hi-light the relevant entries on the bank statements and ensure that the statements are printed in English because some banks in Iran print them in the Arabic numerals.
5. See what you are able to get from your father’s side. Alternatively, just a letter from him to say that he relies on your mother etc and that she will return to Iran. I think I’ve seen some examples of this on other threads on the board.
6. Documents and translations should be within 3 months of the appointment date so that should be fine. It’s also best to refer to this in the cover letter that your mother started gathering the documents as soon as she began her application (the date of which is written on the application form automatically).

I also had some thoughts on what you can do to make your application stronger but will go into more detail tomorrow. The reason I say tomorrow is because I currently don’t have access to the computer that I did the latest application on (for my aunt and uncle who got their visas through today!!!) and I wanted to send you through an example of the cover letter (including the order you should put things in) and an example letter of invitation. I think that the letter of invitation should be from both you and your wife. I’ve also seen the list of documents you have above so I will write these in the order I think they should be in (based on the guidelines).

For all of the documents you include, you should list these in order in the cover letter and also go to oanda.com currency converter. Say for example there is 50 million toman in your mother’s saving account and you list this in the cover letter, in brackets after it you should write “Equivalent to £....GBP , reference oanda.com accessed on” and the date because oanda is the website that the ECOs use and the conversion is the bank rate and not the ‘azad’ rate. Again it makes it easier for the ECO (spells it out for them!).

Another question I had was re. a checklist. Did you have this on the website after you got the appointment? The reason I ask is so that I can refer to it for you in my message tomorrow because there are some anomalies between the checklist and guidance particularly re.the order things should be in and whether you need to include flight tickets. Do you perhaps have an email address that you can inbox me and I can send you everything more easily?

[ms_m]

Actually I don’t have permission to read private messages so I won’t be able to read your message if you send me your email!

[nima3]

Hi ms_m,

You have been extremely helpful, really appreciate this. Yes indeed its been very stressful, I have been through many visa applications for myself since I came to the UK and none of them has been this painful/complicated to be honest.

Thanks for the additional points, all taken and noted, will ensure we don't miss a thing and will try my best to not give any excuse to the ECO to reject the application.

The answer to your question is Yes, I have downloaded the checklist at the end of the application, though haven't had the chance to go through it yet and see what exactly is there, but did a quick scan and seemed to be straight forward.

foreign text removed by moderator

Once again thanks a lot.
Nima

[ms_m]

Hi Nima,

No problem at all! Let me know if you have any other questions and I’ll send you all the examples tomorrow!

[ms_m]

Foreign text removed by moderator

[ms_m]

foreign text removed by moderator

[CR001]

Hi ms_m,

You have been extremely helpful, really appreciate this. Yes indeed its been very stressful, I have been through many visa applications for myself since I came to the UK and none of them has been this painful/complicated to be honest.

Thanks for the additional points, all taken and noted, will ensure we don't miss a thing and will try my best to not give any excuse to the ECO to reject the application.

The answer to your question is Yes, I have downloaded the checklist at the end of the application, though haven't had the chance to go through it yet and see what exactly is there, but did a quick scan and seemed to be straight forward.

foreign text removed by moderator

Once again thanks a lot.
Nima

Lets not try to be clever by posting email addresses in foreign language hoping no one will notice. You have merely posted information to strangers on the forum, many of whom are scammers and spammers waiting for such information to be posted.

You will both be banned if you persist in ignoring the forum rules, posting contact info and posting in any other language but English!!

[CR001]

Foreign text removed by moderator

I strongly suggest you both read the forum rules, as you were required to do when registering as a user.

[nima3]

Apologies, points taken.