GarryUK

Things are really not looking good.

I emailed Liverpool (via the website) stating that having applied via the Embassy I have no receipt or tracking number, and asked if by providing every other bit of information they could give me the tracking number and a status update. Got a reply Wednesday saying:

Thank you for your enquiry.

In order for us to track your passport application please can you provide the following information:

The application number
Your full name and applicant’s full name if different
Your full postal address
Applicant’s date of birth (DD/MM/YYYY)

I will be happy to conduct a further search for you.

Well I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure I said I need them to provide that to me as I was never given one. Will reply back in a minute in the hope I can get some sense.

I also emailed the Embassy in Bangkok pre-empting the need for an Emergency Travel Document. While they said that if I've been waiting more than 8 weeks I won't have to pay the 5320B fee, I'm most concerned by the 1-2 weeks to issue as I'd already pointed out that my flights are booked and are non refundable to arrive Sunday 29th June and leave Saturday 5th july.

Thank you for your enquiry,

We do apology for delaying passport in the UK, according to the Home Secretary has announced to assist the British Citizen who has applied for the passport to the HM passport office and plan to travel as urgent, they are increased many applicants to apply for an ETD at the British Embassy. To apply for first time Emergency Travel Document (ETD), we still require supporting document of the child, the same as applying for first time passport and have to forward all paperwork via e-mail directly to the Nationality officer to approve for the nationality status and it takes approximately 1-2 weeks before issuing an ETD.

Please prepare as below list, all originals will be returned at the time of application and we require certified translations (ie official translations from a licensed translation) of any documents that they are not in English.

There shouldn't be any problem reprinting and completing all the documentation, although I may have to get more translations done unless I'd left extra copies with the wife, but if I have to miss our flights while waiting for my daughters passport, then turn up at the airport when we have it looking for a flight home, I'll have written off £500 for the missed flights and have to look forward to paying considerably more for a new flight home at short notice.

What are the chances of me recovering these additional costs by suing the passport office or government? Sadly I imagine slim to none.

Little hope of getting the passport in time having seen what's happening in the news now so not happy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10892345/David-Cameron-30000-passports-delayed.html

I take a tiny bit of comfort knowing that someone else is in exactly the same boat as me. I submitted our application at the Embassy just before the change so also got no reference to use to track the application. I also called the passport helpline, who also told me they'd email Liverpool who would call me back within 2 days, but 2 weeks have since passed so I'm clearly not getting a call. It's been a little over 8 weeks since we submitted our application and 8 weeks since the money was taken on my card but as yet no passport. Let's hope next week it turns up...

Thanks for your update, if you applied at Trendy then you're a little after us so I'll update when (if) we receive our daughters passport which might be an indication that yours is close if it's simply a time issue.

I think they need the long version to confirm if you are either a British citizen otherwise than by descent or a British citizen by descent.

In other word are you able to pass on your British Citizenship to your son who was not born in the UK?

Agreed. My interpretation is that if your parents were not born in the UK then the only way your child is entitled to be a British citizen is if they were born in the UK, even though you hold a British passport. If however your parents were born in the UK then your child/children can claim citizenship even when born outside the UK, but the same rules would apply to their children (would need to be born in the UK or have one parent whose parents were born in the UK).

Wow, that was easier to think than it is to say.

Garry . What father birth certificate did you supply?

My wife has setylement visa, so If I applied for a visitor visa on my sons thai passport , do you think it would work?

I was born before 1984 so I don't need to provide copies of my parents' birth certificates, and fortunately I had my long version with me (and will take it again just in case).

The only problem I foresee with a general visitor visa is the need to return to Thailand. I imagine that as your wife has a visa and you both intend to live in the UK, they'll not believe the child intends to return to Thailand so will likely refuse it. I would normally suggest you speak to the passport advice line detailing your situation and enquire as to whether the need to return would be overridden by the issuing of a British passport, but my calls to them have been fruitless so I doubt they'll offer useful (or even correct) information. If you could convince them that you'll all return to Thailand before the visa expires (why not take a short holiday?) you'd then be able to return to the UK using the passport. Not the cheapest way to do things, but it should satisfy everybody if you can convince UKVI that you'll really go back to Thailand.

To be honest I hope one of the moderators or more experienced posters like 7by7 review and comment on my thoughts here.

Your wife could get your daughters passport if you sent her a consent letter for her to do it. You would have to have it notarized at the embassy in London though.

See for passport application info: http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/services/1415/21479-Requirements-for-the-Ordinary-e-Passports-Applicat.html

Have just been reading that as you posted the link earlier, thanks. I think rather than go to her home from the airport we're going to have to stay in Bangkok so on the Monday after arriving we can go to the MoFA together and apply for a Thai passport, then to the British Embassy if her British passport doesn't arrive by then to see if an Emergency Travel Document is possible having not actually held a British passport yet (am following another thread where the guy will investigate this route tomorrow).

Hi, I (british citizon) also have a similar situation where I would like my thai wife and two months old daugther to visit uk within the next 4 weeks. I am applying for a 6months visitors visa for them. My thai wife (been to uk twice before) and the baby both have Thai passports. Can anyone from their experience suggest or foresee what problems I might be facing with this approach. ?

I might like to add, I could not register the birth at the Brithish embassy as I forgot my birth certificate back home, so I went and got the Thai passport for the baby which costs 20baht.

Where did you get her Thai passport, MoFA in Chaeng Wattana? And how long did it take between application and receipt of passport? I'm surprised you say it only cost you 20B as according to the MoFA website the fee for an ePassport is 1000B, not that I'm bothered by that, simply want to know where to go and how long it'll take as my flights cannot be changed so I have a timeframe within which I must complete anything I need to do.

Hard to predict about the visitor visa. It helps that your wife has been twice before as it shows she does return, but you'll have to convince them that your daughter will also return and that you're cool with that. Rather than hijack the thread you should post your visa queries in your own thread. You should explain how long each of the two visits lasted and when they were, plus how long you want this visit to last.

Garry you say you been waiting 8 weeks dor tour daughter passport. Do they give you tracking number or contact to find out when it will be ready?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Our application was made via the British Embassy just prior to VFS taking over the role, and as far as I know I wasn't given anything when they sent it all off for me. I tried calling the passport helpline but they wouldn't help (said I'd called the wrong number but he'd pass on my details for somebody to call me, needless to say nobody did). They took the new lower fee on April 7th but that's as much info as I have, so we're just blindly and nervously waiting.

I've just read another thread in which general opinion is that the child will need to leave Thailand on a Thai passport (having not entered on a British one), but we've not applied for one. So my plans to turn up, take the family away for a couple of days as a goodbye, then come back to England with my wife and daughter are starting to look questionable. Seems in the week I'm there we're going to have to apply for a Thai passport, and maybe an ETD at the same time. I really need to see how you get on Tuesday and hope that her passport does eventually arrive before I get to Thailand.

Good luck.

Oh dear, I never considered for one second we'd have a problem, but this thread is making me wonder.

At the end of June I'll be flying to Thailand to collect my wife and 2-month old daughter who are moving to the UK. The wife already has her visa but we're currently still waiting for our daughter's UK passport. She has not applied for a Thai passport. I'm already wondering if I'll need to apply for an Emergency Travel Document should the passport not turn up (it's been 8 weeks since the application was submitted at the Embassy just prior to it changing to VFS, we have 5 weeks remaining for it to arrive), but now I have the added confusion as to whether we'll need to try to get a Thai passport in the week I'm there.

Thomas please let me know what happens because my situation is IDENTICAL to yours. We have the wife's spouse visa but 8 weeks on we're still waiting for our daughter's passport. As the visa isn't valid until July 2nd (we never expected it to be turned around in just 10 days otherwise I wouldn't have put a travel date of July 2nd) we do still have 5 more weeks, but if it doesn't come by then applying for an Emergency Travel Document was my plan too.

For our visit visa application we submitted each set of documents (originals & copies) with a plastic sheet front and back, held together with a hard plastic spine. Those and the coloured section dividers were removed.

Thanks guys, but I am going a different route. I called the helpline and also got a Northern Irish woman and must say she was great, very helpful. She highlighted the issues in getting the passport and the lack of correct info given from places such as VFS, and the subsequent application being rejected. In short we will get his passport in the UK

So, assuming you're in the same boat (Thai wife, child born in Thailand) are you expecting to be able to apply for a passport in the UK while the child is still in Thailand? Or have you paid for a visa so the child will be in the UK? And if it's a visit visa would the child be expected to return to Thailand before coming back (as required by the visa), or would they become exempt from that requirement once they have been issued with a British passport?

I really don't want my thread to go off-track, but I'm curious as to what other route you think is possible.

Update: 8 weeks in and still no sign of a passport. My call to the passport advice line as mentioned a few posts back was fruitless - the guy was unable to offer any help or advice in as much that not only did it seem to be a problem me being in the UK while enquiring about an application made abroad, but he also inferred (even though I selected the option for applications made abroad) that I had called the wrong number. He did say he was emailing the right department and that they would call me within 48hrs, but being Saturday that would mean Monday or Tuesday. Well, Sunday now and I never got the call last week, so what next?

I fly out in 5 weeks, and we're all due to fly back together on July 5th, so still plenty of time for the passport to turn up.

I'm starting to wonder about all the possible problems:

> Could it be because we applied at the British Embassy on April 1st a few days before the changeover (to VFS on April 6th), especially as they took the new lower rate of £76.01 while I fully expected to pay the old rate of £104.50

> Could it be because the person filling out the application has to live in the country where the application is being made? I completed the form giving the childs address, but I actually live in the UK myself.

> Could the passport have found it's way to VFS with all their applications, even though we paid the fee for it to be posted to her home?

I have to question why if there are any problems with the application that nobody has called one of us to explain what's wrong and what we need to do. I'm therefore fully expecting to have to go to the British Embassy as soon as I get to Thailand to apply for an Emergency Travel Document which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that the wife's spouse visa which was expected to take 3-4 months was turned around in just 10 days (from date of application to visa received at home).

Anyone else apply for a first child passport March or April this year? And have you received the passport?

I'm sad for the people that genuinely should be given a visa, particularly if the refusal is because they failed to include something and weren't given the opportunity as suggested above to submit the additional documents or face refusal. I think UKVI (or whoever it falls to) should be given the resources to better police our borders, and the power to detain and kick out more quickly people that really shouldn't be here (those deemed to be illegal immigrants that have over stayed). All this crap about if you can't prove where they're from just call them naughty and send them on the way, lock the blee-ders up until they decide they'll leave. Human rights my ar-se, if you were here legally you wouldn'd be detained. I have to say though that I won't be voting for one of the mickey mouse political parties that talk out their ars-es just as much as the bigger parties as such a protest vote really won't achieve anything, we'll have to find another way to sort things out.

It now looks like the account details should have been mine.

Unfortunately I was misinformed above.

Then when starting the application procedure you select 'applying for someone else'.

During the application you enter their details as it is their application.

The account is yours.

So I was right and misinformed!

Not really, OldGit is right in that normally you would infer that the application has been completed by the Thai/Laos/Foreign person wishing to come to the UK (even if in actual fact you're going to do everything for them), so you would put their details, but you can indeed use any email address you like which becomes the login name. This is how I did both my partners visas.

There is of course the option for an agent (or partner I guess) to make an application on someones behalf, just remember to indicate that fact at the end where it asks if anyone helped you (the Thai/Laos/Foreign applicant) to complete the application.

EDIT: BTW, didn't have a problem picking Laos from this site (check if you need a visa to come to the UK): https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa

I went to the office on Wednesday to find out you can't apply for an oversea's applicants passport within the UK if the applicant is not present in the country.

My son is in Thailand, so they are trying to say I have to travel back to Bangkok to have an interview and submit my application from there.

Now the application then gets sent from Thailand to the UK back to Thailand. All I want to do is submit the application from the UK as I am presently here and working.

It doesn't make any sense travelling abroad to send an application back to the country I am in at the moment.

Has anyone ever submitted an overseas passport application whilst in the uk ?

Having not received my daughter's passport yet the wife is getting nervous, even though we don't travel to the UK until the beginning of July, so I just phoned the helpline and got the same sort of response. It turns out you can't enquire about an overseas application if you're in the UK. Clearly the logic no-one but the passport office can see is why I have to be in Thailand to call the UK helpline, what's the problem with me calling whilst I'm in the UK? I'm still the same person making the call, and I'm calling the same number, so why does my current location matter so much?

Well done, my wife and child will be coming in July.

Garry

Did you get another e-mail first, ( in addition to the other 2 ? ) , before documents were sent to you yesterday ? It looks like we are 1 day behind you with our application, so i hope this arrives soon. Well done mate.

Yes, appointment on the 9th, 2 emails as per your post received on the 16th, then another on the 17th with the subject "UK Visas and Immigration have made a decision on your visa application". We had paid for EMS so her passport (and I hope the supporting documentation originals) arrived by post on the 24th.

Just a quick update, her documents were returned by EMS today and her visa was approved. That's just over 2 weeks from submitting the documents at VFS Trendy Office Building on the 9th to receiving everything back on the 24th. Based on past performance, and considering it was Songkran, I like many others had trouble believing the stories of such a quick turnaround, but I can confirm those stories are indeed true.

Good luck to everyone else waiting on decisions.

The wife got her passport back today and she has indeed been granted a visa to come to the UK, so as soon as we have our daughter's passport I'll be getting her on a plane. We have hit one snag which we couldn't have foreseen - when asked what date she wished to travel we used common sense and thought that as visa approvals are taking 3+ months there was no point putting a date sooner than that, so we put 2nd July, and that's when the visa is valid from meaning she's got to wait a month more than she needed to. Going forward my advice to anyone applying would be to put the day after the date of application for the proposed date of travel unless of course you wish to intentionally delay the start of the visa to travel on a particular future date for any reason.

Absolutely chuffed to bits, especially as up until the last few days the processing times for settlement visas given by UKBA (based on January 2014 figures) were showing 0% approvals at 40 days whereas now (based on March 2014 figures) they're showing 3% in as few as 3 days and almost half within 3 weeks (15 days, but as that's working days it's 3 weeks) so they seem to have their act together right now.

Thank you to everyone that offered advice getting me to this point.

Garry and Dear.

I realise this forum isn't very active but maybe this info will help someone in the future.

I've just applied for my daughter's UK birth certificate at the UK Embassy and then I went to the Visa Application Centre at Trendy floor 28 to check I had all the correct paperwork and to book an appointment for when I have received the birth certificate so I can then apply for the child's UK passport.

I need to have a colour copy of every page of my UK passport but just a colour copy of the first page of the mother and daughter's Thai passports.

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Plenty of people told me the information I was being given by the Embassy regarding the need to provide a complete full copy of your (British) passport was wrong, so glad to see you were given the same information (hopefully by VFS at Trendy which shows everyone is working off the same page).

We didn't register the birth first, assuming the wife's visa is approved we'll look at whether that can be done when they arrive in the UK.

You only need your parents' (British) birth certificates if you're below a certain age, as I'm older we didn't.

My wife submitted her application on the 9th and 7 days later we got the same 2 emails. Like you we paid for EMS so just sitting and waiting to hear from the wife that she's had her passport back, then we'll see...

drb submitted his wife's application on the 3rd, had a call on the 9th and successfully received his settlement visa the next day. See http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/719744-uk-settlement-visa/

We'll see in a few days if they're actually turning applications around this quickly or not, though my wife was told to expect to wait 3-4 months.

We applied for our UK settlement visa on the 9th April, emails received back suggest it took a week to reach the decision centre. Just waiting for the next email saying it's ready for collection (we paid for it to be sent to her, so that'll give us notice that whatever the decision we'll know after a few days). She was told when it went in that it'll take 3-4 months so well done you getting an answer so quick.

The current settlement visa fee is £885. For some reason UKVI will only take payment in USD, using their exchange rate; so you will probably end up paying more than this.

For more information on the requirements, see UK Settlement Visa Basics.

If you have any further questions, I suggest that you start your own topic as they could get lost in this one.

It cost me 1447 USD (864 GBP) when I paid last week, whereas today it says it would cost me 1505 USD (899 GBP) if I were applying this week. GBP values taken from Google, we'll see what it actually cost me when I get my credit card bill.

The guide to supporting docs under the section "Information about your sponsor in the UK" states that:

If you are completing Appendix 2 then you will need to demonstrate that you meet the 'Financial Requirement'. You need to read the Immigration Rules at Appendix FM-SE to see which documents you are required to submit.

If you do not need to meet the 'Financial Requirement' then you may wish to provide some of the following documents to help show your sponsors circumstances in the UK.

Evidence of your relationship to your sponsor and any contact between you:

> Birth certificate

> Marriage certificate (already included with translation)

> Death or divorce certificate (not applicable)

> Photographs of your wedding or other time spent together

> Phone records

> Emails, letters or cards

Based on both this and having re-read Appendix FM-SE it does not appear that this information is necessary. However, following Rob180's comment I found myself adding a covering letter last minute indicating that I was including our baby's birth certificate, a copy of my passport visa stamp pages showing my visits to Thailand, and a few pages of photos from when we met up to our wedding in October, and that I hoped these in addition to our marriage certificate already included would show a genuine and ongoing relationship. I also mentioned that since switching to the Skype app on the smartphones we treated ourselves to when we got married there's a bug that results in video calls not being logged (it logs all the chat and missed calls, but not successful calls), and that I am therefore unable to provide up-to-date logs showing our twice daily chats whilst apart.

Hopefully I've read all the available guidance correctly and that this information isn't necessary for our settlement visa application, otherwise we could end up having to reapply. In the meantime I now try to use Skype on my laptop whenever possible as this does correctly log our calls.

Fingers crossed as we've gone past the point of no return and everything has now been submitted. Will post again when we get a decision.