Hi,

My pregant Laos girlfriend applied for a Fiancee Visa for the UK on 23rd July and obviously as part of the application the Embassy hold onto her passport for the application process.

The problem we have is that my girlfriend only has permission to stay in Thailand until 11th August. She cannot return to Laos without her passport and at the same time it would not be good for her to overstay in Thailand.

Does anyone know what the Embassy normally does in these circumstances, can they take a copy of her passport and give it back to her while they make their decision or is there a document they can provide so she can get back into Laos while she waits?

When she made the application she was promised a call back regarding this by the lady who took her application at the VFS office.

When she got the visit visa this wasn't an issue because she applied on 23rd December and her application was completed on 8th January, pretty quick considering it was a holiday period. I'm hoping the Fiancee Visa can be dealt with just as quickly and sucessfully because she is 14 weeks pregnant already.

Thanks

I do know that if making an application in the UK, e.g. for ILR, then if one requests one's passport back then the application is treated as withdrawn. I can only assume that the same applies in posts, but could easily be wrong.

Unless someone else can give you a definite answer, all I can suggest is that you try and contact them.

Embassy contact page

Just to let everybody know, I contacted the British Embassy and my girlfriend is free to collect her passport from them before her visa for Thailand expires. She can then return to Laos pending the decision on her application.

Just to let everybody know, I contacted the British Embassy and my girlfriend is free to collect her passport from them before her visa for Thailand expires. She can then return to Laos pending the decision on her application.

Good news. Also nice to see commmon sence previaling (as it's not always the case).

Indeed.

Though one should remember that this is a special case. I still believe that in most circumstances they will not return the passport until the application has been processed.

In special cases they will do this we have just asked for a settlement application to be processed quickly due to the ill health, and they contacted us within 48 hours excellent service.