gypsymoth

Best of luck fluidfusion, it looks like the last month has brought loads of us back who haunted these pages back in spring/summer.

The very best to all of you!!

Just caught up with the news.............

What a relief!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr & Mrs Chewy........congratulations isn't a big enough word for you.

Best of luck for your honeymoon and your future life in the UK.

I sent only certified copy of info page of passport, but included scans of previous THAI entry stamps in the personal section along with photos and travel tickets.

I also got my boss to write a letter saying how I'd bent eveyone's ear for so long and my colleagues were wishing us all the best. It's always a gamble if you're over-including (like 6 years of paperwork) cos you dont want the examining officer to groan at the size of your file, and you want them to be able to see the wood from the trees.

Do do do incude a personal letter that expresses sincere feeling, as I reckon that makes a big difference poking out from all those phone bills and bank statements.

I managed to talk to someone in the visa section today and they said the file they are awaiting from the UK is a "finger print scan" Not what I thought, its something to do with a check on if she has complied with her previous visa visits to the UK. It had not been returned to the embassy and they have had to send off the request again. My wife has had 5 UK visiting visas. Anybody know more about this?

She did apologise but this cuts little ice with me as its now into 20 week and I think this is disgraceful.

My first reaction is to feel positive about this as I'm guessing they will have settled all other matters, and if your wife had no contraventions to previous visas then it sounds like a formality. The downside, of course, is that you're now in the hands of yet another bunch of bureaucrats whose numbers could be decimated by swine flu.

Hang in there Chewy, it doesn't sound half as bad as it could have!!

The Fiend has not posted anyone receiving a settlement visa for a while now. Can I ask is that likely because people havent come online to tell him or they still waiting and does that mean that the delay is regularly increasing over 12 weeks?

Cheers

Mark

Yes I think the average time is now getting close to 15 weeks rather than 12. I sent my fax and email from the MPs office today both with a cover note from him. Will see what happens next.

Best of luck Chewy. You sound pretty level with it all, but it must be a drain for you both.

No one loves M.P.'s at the moment, right? Bet you'll invite him to the party if he helps pull this one off though!

Excellent news Mr & Mrs Pingit, I bet 'relieved' is an understatement. Congratulations to you both and er... mines a Guinness and hers a mineral water.

fesantplucka can you tell me.... did you check the vfs website after your wife called you to see if had changed already or is there any delay??????????? its just my wife didnt have her money with her when she went in the room to hand her application in so we did not pay for the call/sms?????????

I was with her at the time, I checked the tracking system and that was also updated so they are working together no difference in notifiying in my case, also later in the day after we had the visa picked up the sms service sent her a message saying the visa had been collected, again the tracking system was updated at the same time, and the same message appeared, Good luck for today AndyJoy,

just checked on line with jamaician website and it still says "ARRIVED AT THE VISA SECTION" we got our answer week last tuesday.that sums up the british embassies world wide.

WISHING EVERYBODY GOOD LUCK THIS WEEK.

COULD ANYBODY TELL ME WHAT THE NEXT SET IS WHEN WIFE ARRIVES IN UK, MEANING MEANING N.I. NUMBER DOCTORS ETC..... MANY THANKS TO OUR BROTHERHOOD

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I think you can get an N.I. no. once you're married in U.K. and the visa regularised, assuming you haven't been wed yet. For a g.p., you just walk in and register, no question asked (apart from the usual form).

got some news to share, got a sms this morning to say the visa application was ready to pick up

I used an Agent so I called her to tell her, she went to pick the apllication up after 3pm, recieved a phone call from her about 4pm congratulating us on getting the visa granted. and to think yesterday I had given up, just goes to show although you feel down there is still hope left & this Forum, busy now not much time to organise things for Thursday, Good Luck Chewy, Andyjoy, & Kate, dont give up it will happen.

In the words of the song..."What a difference a day makes"

Great news fp, congrats to both of you. You must both be so relieved with that deadline looming. Best of luck with packing and journey, and let's hope this foul weather improves a bit for you both!

We didn't use an agent. Again, just follow all the instructions and double-check the check lists they provide, fasten safety belts and enter the rollercoaster.

We had loads of photos from our village wedding the year before, and I got a letter from my boss saying how I'd been bending everyones ear about my wife in Thailand for so long would they please just give me a visa and let everyone get some work done (or words to that effect).

Excellent news Marc - about time we had something positive here!

Best of luck with the second run at it fluidf.

Yeah, good luck ff.

I keep checking back here to see what's happening with you guys.

Excellent news for you and Mrs mrburb - journey starts here. Best of luck fp!

Best to all of you Sumrit - so pleased for you.

Can't believe that March's apps are still hanging around here.

Excellent news Borodave & Mrs, congratulations!

I see the tracking is down again, could this be when they update the system - really don't know

I seem to remember reading somewhere that they update daily at 1.00pm, as I got in the habit of only checking at 8.00am BST (for some reason I was checkingpostitis immune).

Brilliant news TickTock, am so relieved for you and have been looking out for your news.

This kind of situation would make Stephen Hawking pray!!! Speaking of which, well played KennKate.

I have just been through the most agonising 24 hours of my life.

When we put together the application I made a couple of errors - entered 1 wrong digit on the wifes mobile number and included bank statements that were printed off the internet, rather than proper bona fide statements. This meant that if they needed to contact us for the "proper" bank statements, or call her in for an interview we were in big trouble.....

Well, yesterday morning I checked the tracking page and it was showing passport ready for collection........

Phoned Mrs Fiend and told her...... OK..... books bus ticket and heads off to Bangkok overnight.... and I start worrying!!!!

I could hardly sleep last night....... then at 13.45 Thai time I get the following SMS

"We lucky I can live UK have visa"

YIPPEE!!!!!!!!

It's been the longest 13 weeks of my life, but the wait is now over......

So here is the updated list! TickTock updated as well!

tlusername 04/3 granted 15/5 - 10weeks 2 days

AnyaDharu 09/3 granted 19/5 - 10weeks 1 day

Tango7 10/3 granted 12/5 - 9weeks

Johnson83 11/3 granted 22/5 10 weeks 2 days

chanthas 12/3 granted 25/5 10 weeks 4 days

Gypsymoth 13/3 granted 25/5 10 weeks 3 days

Friend Boo ILE 16/3 granted 18/06 13 weeks 3 days

Kennkate 17/3 granted16/06 13 weeks 1 day

Chewy 18/3

TheFiend 20/3 granted 18/6 12 weeks 6 days

Sumrit 24/3 (RTD 10/4)

Merangue 25/3 Granted 03/06 10 weeks

fluidfusion 27/3 (RTD 8/4)

TickTock 30/3 (RTD 23/5) ????? 19/6 11 weeks 4 days

George & Dragon 30/03

Delboy 30/3 (RTD 25/4 ?)

Borodave 01/4

JasonThai 02/4 (RTD 5/6)

Mrburb 03/4

feasantplukka 03/4 (RTD 16/6)

Muaylaosfalang 03/4 (RTD 02/5)

Kate46 (son) 08/4 (RTD 14/6)

AndyJoy 08/4 (RTD 1/5)

Marcjaiyenyen 08/4 Applied in Jamaica (RTD 30/5)

scotland 22/4

CinnamonRoll 29/4 (RTD 24/5)

Rolypies 29/4 (RTD 14/5) - Granted 10/06/09 6 weeks

Castor83 (RTD 01/7)

nelson111 04/5

alanr 07/5

true blue 14/5 (RTD 01/7)

spot 15/5

ajsp9 02/6

Happy happy joy joy!!!

Congratulations to you both. oh, and TickTock and Mrs + PeterHThai and Mrs (hadn't read all the posts) I bet you never could imagine that ***** tracker saying anything different, eh? Then there's the wait for the final result - but it's over, and real life is just begining.

The problem with these figures is that they only show the 'performance' the Embassy achieved over the previous month, they don't give anybody any idea whether the 'pile' of applications is growing, or how far down the pile they are, or how long it will take them to get to the top.

As one or two of us from 'March' will know I have been looking at these figures and the APET reference number we've all been given to see if we can get any idea how long we'll all have to wait. I was going to wait until those of us from March had heard to see if I could get a reasonable way of working out roughly how long everybody might have to wait, but Mays figures suggest we'll have to wait a day or two more than I first thought. And if what Boo says is right and that each ECO is given the applications THIRTY TWO at a time then that further complicates things.

So here's what I've been looking at, and if anybody else has any more information they can throw into the pot we might be able to at least give ourselves a rough idea of how long we'll have to wait.

First of all these are decisions for May not applications. looking at the total decisions since February it looks like they do roughly 1000 per working week (5 days), or about 200 per day, maximum (of all types of visa). They also seem to give more priority to non settlement visas so if those applications increase our settlement visa times suffer, as I think they did a little for Aprils Figures and certainly seem to have done for May's. In February/March they made decisions on 8-9 settlement visas per working day, April was almost 8, but May's is down to 6.5 per working day.

What these figures don't tell us is the total number of applications made, but we have that information ourselves if we want to share it. If you look at the 'APET' number we've been given then the SECOND six digit number is a sequential count of the total number of visa applications made. So by comparing those numbers and the dates we applied we can work out exactly how many APPLICATIONS were made each day/week/month. Firstly that number will tell us if the pile is growing, shrinking or staying the same. I've been in contact with some posters from March and they've told me their six digit number. For example the difference between kennkate and ourselves is 1206 so there were over (they weren't the first and we weren't the last each day) 206 more applications made in that week than the ECO's would process on average. Between us and 30/3 (four working days) there were over 1100, so in those 9 days alone there were over 500 more than they would process in 9days. The settlement visas they appear to be working on at the moment are from that time period so this could explain why the waiting time is increasing. I've seen figures (but I can't remember from where) that said, on average, 8-9% of all visa applications are for settlement visas so,assuming this is right, again we can 'guess' that for every 100 total applications made about 8/9 are for settlement visas, just over one days worth of 'settlement visa decisions' (averaged over the last four months). So again from the APET numbers we could guess roughly how many (working) days/weeks we might have to wait.

Now I realize that a lot of what I've said is just 'average figures' but the APET number does give us an accurate count of the number of applications made so people will at least be able to see how far down the pile they are and whether the pile is shrinking or not, and using that info along with the 'averages' we might be able to give people in April, May, June a rough guide as to how long it might take.

It's up to everybody here if you want to give it a try I'm willing to collate everything...............................or if you think I'm talking rubbish just tell me and I'll shut up.

Have PM'd you with details.

Hi All

My wife will be applying for ILR in about 1 months time,

The only thing that concerns me is the ability to show that I have enough money to support her without recourse to public funds, reason being is that in the last 2 years I have been the only real wage earner, mainly due to the fact that we have a 11 month old child, and have moved house, we are spending considerable more that I earn, which will show up on the bank statements etc. I earn a reasonable UK salary (£30,000) but my stateable savings will run out sometime later this year, my wife is actively trying to find work when we should be in a break even position, however she may not find it prior to the ILR application. Longer term I have other money that I can call on, however this is tied up and can't really be shown on a current bank statement. I also have an Insurance policy I can cash in if I really realy have to (however I dont want to be artificially forced into do this at this time)

question is even though i am reasonably solvent, am employed. own our house and earn a 'good' salary, how can I convince the authorities that I/we have enough money to support ourselves after the ILR without recourse to public funds, as my bank statements over the last couple of years show that I/we have been spending considerably more money than I/we earn, any advice or similar experiences would be appreciated

Up to now everything has been done by the book (and i intend to keep it that way) and we have not had any problems with visa's and had no recourtse to public funds)

When we applied we had only about £3k in savings, and me sailing v close to the wind on current a/c, + salary not much more than half of yours, yet we've just squeaked through.

I'd been told previously by someone who claimed to know that we'd need minimum £10k to start - patently wrong. I made a strong, personable application, and (luvvy - duvvy) photos of village wedding probably helped too.

Be positive and go for it aubutie - good luck both!

Congrats kenkate!!

The journey through imigration was a breeze took 30 seconds mind you we were lucky there were no ques!!

After all the waiting we get some breaks. Coming back there were big queues for us, but in BKK the guy on the Thai passport only stand stamped me out, and at Heathrow the UK only guy stamped us both in, so hardly any waiting after all. One tip though, have TB cert handy cos they will want to see that to go through the quick UK passports barrier.

Just got back From chang Mai. Visa's Granted and Flight Booked for Tue 23rd ALL On board For The UK.

Everybody Happy. Now we have to get sorted and packed up

Good Luck To All. No Refusals Thats good. It seems like a year since my first post Every week = 1 month

Thanks again To The OP Thusername.

Looks like this thread could run forever. It was a great comfort to know we were not Alone during the WAIT

Come on Chewy it should be your BIG Day.

Bye For now will look in and keep checking on progress.

Have a good trip and smooth re-entry - we're really chuffed for you!

Yeeepee News News News. Processed Aplication Returned to Courier Text message Recived @ 11.49

Courier in Chang Mai have just told us to ring @ 13.00

Will post Result ASAP Things ARE moving 13 weeks Today for me Fried of Boo ? Sumrit Next

Wife Happy Happy Happy 90% 10% worry it's a refusal.

Excellent news kennkate, this could be the hole in the dam this week.

Sounds, as in our case, that VFS don't always update/SMS as soon as they have the papers returned.

Keep the faith guys, some of you veterans have got to hear something this week.

come on you 12 weekers!

Indeed. I'm going to send the Mrs a photo, 'this is me now' to avoid any potential confusion at Heathrow.

Nice one TT, bet your visibly ageing by the second if I was anything to go by!