arick

Well done Retard! Good luck! I'm so happy for you?

Thanks for all your responses. Yes my Thai partner was drawn and I'm the quest. My neighbours in London are all thrilled somebody local was invites. I have told them it was my Thai partner.

I guess I will be looking more like June 24th the Thai festival in Surrey.

It is worth a try. The UKBA in Bangkok doesn't get that request often. When I showed my partner in Buckingham palace he didn't even know who the queen was.

He keeps it real and would rather being planting rice on the farm. I am the one feeling stupid with a empty seat beside me. I guess once Elton and Jessica J gets on the stage i won't feel so bad.

Same with us. We have job offers, but at her Majesty's command has invited the settlement visa applicant to attend.

I have a question. If the applicant of a settlement visa is waiting for that application to be completed. In the meantime they have an invite at the command of her Majesty . Is it the duty of the Thai UK Embassy to ensure that the visa application to process on time for that individual to attend Buckingham Palace. Also taking into account it is The 60th Jubilee. Surely he is the only person applying for his settlement visa that has an invite.

Dear tribalfusion001 - Just reading your entries makes me proud of the UKBA. You've got no chance (relying on your parents? give me a break)

Two other people who are waiting on settlements visas have included 3rd party support and have either supplied job offers or self employed jobs that they will be doing in the UK, both are based in Thailand. Seeing as an ex UKBA employee advised me that 3rd party support is acceptable with job offers for my wife and myself. Would like to explain with your wealth of knowledge of immigration rules and guidelines why you think it will be refused?

If it is refused why don't you just get the EEA permit. She will just have to wait for 5 years for permit residency. I would have done the same but I'm Canadian I have never got around to getting my British citizenship. Or get a visitor visa sort yourselves out then she can go back and apply for the settlement visa.

JohnnyGray appears to have very little knowledge of the immigration rules. Third party support is allowed.

Arik, Briish citizens cannot 'get the EEA permit' for their non EEA family to live in the UK, the non EEA family members have to apply under the UK immigration rules; unless they are all living together in another EEA state where the British citizen has been working or studying and are now returning to the UK.

This is not just a UK thing; it's in the EEA regulations. The same would apply for a French, German, Italian, whatever taking his/her non EEA family members to their homeland to live.

As I have already said, I have been in this position and know how stressful waiting for the decision can be, But take the long picture; you are preparing for a lifetime together. Although the wait (4 months) seemed an eternity at the time, looking back 12 years later it was nothing.

I know lifetime together. I am already to start planning Canada. Do you think somebody from Ubon would like the rocky Mountains. I'm scared of the Winters but there are good flight to BKK from Vancouver.

Dear tribalfusion001 - Just reading your entries makes me proud of the UKBA. You've got no chance (relying on your parents? give me a break)

Two other people who are waiting on settlements visas have included 3rd party support and have either supplied job offers or self employed jobs that they will be doing in the UK, both are based in Thailand. Seeing as an ex UKBA employee advised me that 3rd party support is acceptable with job offers for my wife and myself. Would like to explain with your wealth of knowledge of immigration rules and guidelines why you think it will be refused?

If it is refused why don't you just get the EEA permit. She will just have to wait for 5 years for permit residency. I would have done the same but I'm Canadian I have never got around to getting my British citizenship. Or get a visitor visa sort yourselves out then she can go back and apply for the settlement visa.

Good luck. My partner is going to miss the Royal Jubilee concert. We all entered the draw and guess who won. My partner from Ubon. Well if he isn't here then I guess i will be sitting in the back garden of Buckingham Palace with two hampers.

Bangkok is clearly are more awkward embassy compared with Nigeria and Jamaica. they are also taking a lot longer to process applications.

I don't know how you back either of those statements up; Bangkok has one of the highest issue rates in the world; over 90% for settlement.

The latest available figures (Feb) show that not only did Bangkok have more settlement applications than Kingston or any of the three posts in Nigeria, they also issued them more quickly than any of these!

I am not here to defend ECOs or the UKBA; search through my posts and you will find that where warranted I am as critical of them as anyone.

However, I do want people to be realistic; the advice says allow 12 weeks, so allow 12 weeks!

As said, I cannot comment on a specific refusal, yours, without knowing exactly what the refusal notice says.

Nigeria had maybe 5 settlement visas less the BKK in Feb how can you say BKK is 90% I have not even look at India yet.

I hope so,but i'm starting to panic a bit! They are fuc_king useless! pardon my french!

I hope we can all meet up sometime in England it would be a scream. I have a plan for when my partners visa comes through. I will share that with you at a later date!

June 24th is a big Thai Sunday with food and boxing and Lady boys in Epsom. Remember my partners came here last October in London to have a civil partnership. that was fine went back to BKK to get the settlement visa and then was turn down for no immediate funds available. So it shows you they only look at the papers in from of them. (no wander I had no fund available after the bloody wedding and all the flight and visa)

Don't over kill it. It is just rent or mortgage and council tax. £105.95 utilities you don't need to show.

Can someone tell me what the assessors consider to be sufficient income to support my Thai wife ( no kids) without depending upon the state?

A solicitor here in Peckham with lot experience. Said, You need to show that your income is above £105 per week.After your rent/mortgage and council tax has been paid. The UK government states if your signing on you can afford to live in £105 per week per couple.

So don't tell me we will be waiting 8 weeks. We have tickets june 4th for the concert at Buckingham palace. Our first application took only 3 weeks 3 days. Applied Feb 22nd refused March 14th. ECO intials VCF. Yes and refused because my bank statement showed a closing balance of £0.00 on the 16th and I get paid on the 18th. I make 4 times more that the UK government states a couple need to live on but they still refused on the ground of no immediate available funds. Yes also own my own house in SE1 by Tower Bridge.

I should change my name to Retard I guess.

Was that the only refusal reason? Ours was refused on 15th March, submitted 15 February, applied again 27th March, when did you re-apply?

Yes the only reason. the solicitor in London was surprised. I think if I had £500 in my bank they would of passed it.You think they could see I get paid every 18th and my partner had a job offer. Yeah I have been watching your for awhile. We replied on April 20th so I was hoping it would be another 4 weeks. My friends from got their visa in 3 weeks and another friend from Jamaica in 30 days.

Maybe some of our MP's need to get off of the back legs, and sort this out. All they are doing is taking taxes from us transferring it from several civil servants to government and back to civil servants.

Settlement visas, Because they are family should be a priority. they should be completed before any visitors visa's

A zero bank balance will not necessarily result in a refusal if sufficient statements (I recommend 6 months worth) are submitted to show a regular and sufficient flow of funds into and out of the account. Other than that it is impossible to comment without knowing the exact wording of the refusal notice.

I am reminded of posts a few years ago from a memeber who was irate that his wife had been refused on financial grounds when he had several bank accounts each with several thousand pounds in them. Unfortunately he had only submitted statements for his current account which showed him to be continuously overdrawn! Even that would not have been a problem had he also submitted a letter from his bank confirming that the overdraft was authorised and being serviced to the bank's satisfaction; which he didn't.

ECOs are not mind readers, they can only judge an application on the evidence submitted. I remember a once prominent member here who used to be an ECO saying that on average an ECO has about 5 minutes to look at assess, and decide upon each application. Make it easy for them, provide the evidence they need.

Usually at this stage someone says "All they had to do was contact me and ask for the extra information!" Forgetting that if they did that for every case where documents are missing then it would take longer for each application to be processed resulting in longer waiting times for all.

I showed six months of bank statements and and yes a incoming income of over £3000 every month. They need to see immediate available funds. You need to tell everybody they must show this. Even if you show a few hundred pound in your account at the last entry they would grant it. Bangkok is clearly are more awkward embassy compared with Nigeria and Jamaica. they are also taking a lot longer to process applications.

You recommend. I told you I submitted 6 months bank statements. So don't continue to make excuses for the ECO. They are clearly looking at a tick box system.

8 weeks tomorrow for me. Last time my wife had a visa it was 4pm she got her sms.

We paid for sms before and they never sent one, visa was sitting in VFS for 10 days, that's why I check the website after 1.30pm, plus sms is sent to her phone not mine, she's at work and I'm sitting in the apartment!

sms never work they text you 2 weeks later after they receive the results.

So don't tell me we will be waiting 8 weeks. We have tickets june 4th for the concert at Buckingham palace. Our first application took only 3 weeks 3 days. Applied Feb 22nd refused March 14th. ECO intials VCF. Yes and refused because my bank statement showed a closing balance of £0.00 on the 16th and I get paid on the 18th. I make 4 times more that the UK governement states a couple need to live on but they still refused on teh ground of no immediate availabe funds. Yes also own my own house in SE1 by Tower Bridge.

I should change my name to Retard I gues.

I can always get a flight,but yeah a good price right now. I just want to get this visa first and think about flights later. I just wish the embassy could just contact people to tell us what's going on. "Sorry for keeping you waiting sir,you are in a line and we will do our best to get your visa done in the next week or so" Anything like this so we have some kind of idea what is going on!

Dear Mr Chogiekim

I writing to inform you today that we have not processed your visa as yet. We have many applications to process and yours is not a high priority for us, we are not sorry about the delay, but it will be processed according to our guidelines of up to 12 weeks for settlement visas.

Thank you for your application fee of £810, we all decided to have a bit of a jolly up on your account, we had a great time in Pattaya! Things could be worse, Mr Bloggs has been waiting for 11 weeks, but his wife is quite ugly and so is he!

Yours sincerely

ECO, UKBA, Brtish Embassy, Bangkok, Thailand

My partner and I are Gorgous that is why they refused us in 3 weeks and a day! Or were they jealous.

Still no news yet! Getting angry now. Found flights with quite a few airlines at around 18,000-23,000 one way. Cheapest with EVA and British airways! Come on Embassy sort yourselves out!!

skyscanner check that. it was only £281 oneway to London form BKK on air India.

Another week gone by. That makes it 8 weeks. The house has been aired out, the furniture is in place, there's food in the fridge, the car is topped up witth petrol. There's a job waiting for her.What else is left? Ah yes! the bloody visa

I can not believe you have waited for 8 weeks. Do you have children with your partner? Is your application lost? when did you apply?

This should give you a clue why settlement/fiancee visas take so long, it's got nothing to do with the process being more complex and time consuming, it's all about how much money UKBA receives in Bangkok and other countries.

In February there were 5293 applications for the following visas, general visit, business, family, other, and these visas cost £78 each, that makes a total of £412,854, there were 125 settlement visas in February at a cost of £810 each, total amount £101,250.

UKBA guidelines, non settlement visas up to 15 days, settlement visas up to 12 weeks, guess which visas are processed first, the one's that make the most money for UKBA!

Excellent work. I will text news of world via David cameroon.

Possibly. I just think they don't have many staff and they probably work on flexi time. It's friday today,can't see them really working hard today! I'm really not that impressed with their service. They charge us for this visa which is way over priced,then we have to pay further more for the uk test and citizenship. Surely if we have to pay for all this we should at least get some kind of help back towards our visa. I might write to my local MP to see if he can help!

Teachers in London make £11000 to £20000 more then a ECO

What I find annoying about this waiting game is that when we lodged the application, my partner was told it would take about a month and that we were lucky to apply when we did ( miss the longer waiting time). I know that it states on the receipt that it could take upto 12 weeks which is in my opinion a worse case scenario. It would have been better for the VFS staff to not have given an indication at all, there we were thinking a month, it'll be two months next week!

Strange ours was place on Feb 23rd and given back March 14th refusal. We wrote that we were traveling on the front page in 4 weeks do you think they even look at that!

Called them today,still they say within 3 months. Went on the application tracker,and it just says the same,being processed at the embassy. They did send me an email about 5 mins ago. This is what they wrote.

Thank you for your e-mail dated 11/05/12

Entry Clearance Applications fall under the Data Protection Act and therefore we are unable to provide information regarding possible visa applications to third parties including an applicant's partner or sponsor. Please also note that you will not be informed when your application is ready for collection unless you choose to purchase the SMS and email update service at the time of visa application submission. However, you can use the Track your Application facility on the VFS website to track the status of your visa application and to determine when your visa decision and documents are ready for collection from the VFS visa application centre.

So really still not getting anywhere!

I included a letter giving me dpa to talk on her behalf, I previously sent an email to UKBA last year regarding a visit visa, but I didn't have dpa, so got the same response as you. I can pick up her passport from VFS, (she signed an authority letter), when it's been processed that is.

Do you think they are sitting on settlement applications until near the 12 week timescale and dealing all other visas as a priority?

Settlement visas should be priority.!!!!