Spouse Visa extension (Submission in March 2020)

I received FLRM decision letter via email on 18/06/2020 stating my application has been granted. Looking back the process, it has been quite a journey. Therefore, I am writing to provide all the details of my journey to support those who are in the process of this application. Please note all information here are only my personal experience, hence subject to only my case.

Before I start, a few notes I would like to make here:

– I was fortunate enough to not delay my biometric appointment, therefore, my timeline might be faster than application under lockdown restrict.

– If you have submitted your application and done biometric collection for more than 8 weeks ( like my experience), then you might want to call UKVI as it will possibly accelerate your decision letter. UKVI number: 0300 123 2241 (Mon-Thu, 9:00-16:45; Fri, 9:00-16:30).

– My aim was to over prepared in case any missing documents happened and my original BRP was about to expire on 19 April 2020.

Step 1 – Read the general information and start to fill in your application, via here.

Before you ‘submit’ the application in the final page, you are always allowed going back to previous pages and amend it. However, you have only 30 days to keep all the information filled in the application before submission.

Step 2 – Gathering your documents, scan and upload all the documents to UKVCAS website.

Once you submitted the online application, the website will show you how to register in UKVCAS. Just follow the steps, then you will have your own UKVCAS account which you can login multiple times to upload documents. The deadline of uploading documents will be the day of your biometric collection appointment (This might be slightly different within Covid-19 policy).

When uploading, the size requirement of each document is 6MB, if your document is too big, you can compress it via here.

Timeline: Standard service

6 March – submission

18 March – Biometric collection

27 April – Received email from FLRMvalidate to inform delay decision due to Covid-19

10 June – Called UKVI to address my situation

12 June – Received an email from Home Office to inform visa granted

Q&A

Do I need to provide original bank statement?

I used e-statement for proof of resident, but mostly original statement for proof of income.

What is housing standards?

I live in the flat owns by my husband, so to be safe I should submit a letter from a housing authority or building society. But I didn’t ( I took a risk on this as I didn’t feel safe to have someone visiting under Coronavirus pandanmic). If you are considering meeting the house stardards, please see requirement as below.

What will happen if you call UKVI to request visa update?

They will ask whether you have make this request before. If not, they will ask for your name, date of birth, nationality, mobile number, submission and biometric day, email, reference number (in application form) to put in their computer. Then you will wait for an email to explain what happened. Hopefully followed by a decision letter within 3 working days.

Do I need to write supporting letters for each category?

I recommend to do this as it gives an overview to your case worker to better understand how you meet the financial, accommodation, relationship, and development of partnership requirement.

To receive my checklist

The categories are named in terms of UKVCAS uploading page, please click follow as below so that I can sent you the all document. (p.s. Please feel free to email me if you haven’t received my document after 3 days of subscribtion.)

Good Luck!

Please like, share or make a comment of this article if you find it helpful. Thanks.

This article was first published on 18/06/2020