Abbylove:
Hi House.

I arrived London last night.

Yep...hubby chucked me on a flight for the very next day.

Thanks for all of your prays & moral support.
Couldn't have survived those 12weeks without you all.

Picked my brp this morning and settling in gradually

Congratulations Abbylove!! I am so pleased for you!
I am preparing to visit my husband in January... I have missed him so much that I don't have the patience to wait any longer... in the meantime I am trying to raise money to apply again for the uk.

Abbylove:
I heard from Sheffield and TLS now.

My heart has officially relocated to my throat.

Sigh....fingers crossed.

Abbylove I pray that you get good news!

Abbylove:
Sorry hun..

Just stay strong.

You would scale through eventually.

Thank you Abbylove

Lexusgs430:


The letter of emotional plea is good, but also dot all the i's + cross the t's, that lead to the original rejection (that combo is sure to knock them for SIX........

I hope so...We were rejected because we didn't provide evidence of communication before our wedding (bad advice from solicitor) so now they are saying they are not convinced we are a genuine couple so I think the only thing we can go is the emotional plea... I have also sent some evidence of our communication but it's almost impossible to prove to someone that you are in a relationship... it's easier to fulfil the financial requirement but how do you prove emotions and intentions?

Abbylove:
Its been a while.

Did u apply for the visit visa as you said you would?

Are u allowed to ask for a review? The refusal was in October

I am pretty sure I am not allowed to ask for a review but I thought: "worst case scenario they don't read it..."
I haven't been able to apply for the visit visa yet because we needed to get the marriage certificate legalised by the Greek embassy first which is taking a while... apparently the Greek embassy has its own lawyer that goes to the registry office to check the books... because of the holidays they said that it is going to be ready after the first week of January

Lexusgs430:


Review your case? Are you reapplying? Appealing? Or you are simply hoping to pull the emotional plea?

We have started the process for the appeal and I am sending this in addition. And yes, I am hoping to pull the emotional plea... anything at this point.... I am missing my husband so much

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well and that you are all soon united with your loved ones. This time I am not posting for advice but for prayers... I am sending a letter to the ECM tomorrow asking them to review our case. I am hoping that I will have something good to write about soon

Abbylove:
@Nkiruka1986 Going to Greece is a good move too.

More evidences in favour of you guys.

Make sure he takes loads of pictures with your family members. It would be helpful.

I wish you and your hubby all of the luck I wish myself&mine
You would be together soon!

Abbylove, I pray that you will not have to wait much longer and that you will be with your husband soon

justwise:


There is still hope if you want to reapply. Though he lost the number you used to call but you can still use the call history from your own end.

Evidence of gifts, money sent, Flight ticket when you visited Nigeria, pics, wedding cards all form part of communication and shows evidence of committed relationship.

Give it a thought

Thank you justwise for the advice, you are all so helpful!

Abbylove:
@Nkiruka1986

I read this over and over again.

I think you should put in an appeal and see if the decision would be over turned at the review stage.

Do a timeline of your relationship on your cover letter.

Ensure you address each and every point raised by the ECO in the refusal. Be honest.

And supply every evidence you can find. New evidences can be supplied as long as its not dated after the refusal.

Use the 1st refusal to your advantage because it is proof that you two did try to be together.
It might seem worrying that you got married the 1st time you met physically but its not their job to Judge how you choose to operate in your relationship.

If you can use your own call history. Your hubby isnt the 1st person to change phone numbers.
State it if you can in your cover letter that he changed his number on xx/xx/201x

State in your letter why you only have chat records for the period you do. Not everyone jumps on the smartphone wagon early.

List every money transfer sent to your hubby through his family in your cover letter. They are his family. State his relationship to the recipient in the letter.

Do this and if the ECM sticks to their initial decision afterwards then apply again.

Nothing can change in the history of your relationship. It is what it is.

And for the record you did appeal clearly addressing everything the ECO used against ur application.
With that and more evidence you are able to gather over time your reapplication should be successful.

You have a right to be with your husband.

@Lexusg430 how you see am

Abbylove, thank you so much for the advice. I was thinking to do the same thing... in the meantime we will try to get a visa for Greece where he can stay with my family so at least the communication will be easier and I will be able to visit regularly. Thank you for not forgetting about me

Lexusgs430:


Was not solely referring to your application. I remember the good old days when spousal visa was free, then 60 GBP, 150GBP, 250 and the price simply kept rising till this astronomical figures + IHS etc etc etc

Yes, it is true... it is a lot of money! And to think that had I not been naturalised as a British citizen we would have been able to apply under the EU spouse category and would have to pay virtually nothing and wait next to no time...

Lexusgs430:


Its too much money to pay for the application, on simply a wing & prayer ......................

But here is where you are wrong... It's not just a wing and a prayer, I now have experience, the advice of a very helpful man and a very supportive community!

Abbylove:
@Nkiruka sorry about your refusal. Do as Mr Lexus adviced. You would definitely get it on your second try

Thank you for your encouraging words Abbylove!

Lexusgs430:


I hope nairaland's been helpful ? The beauty of been bald, no barber bills (I use vaseline on it, but not a vaseline crew)................

Nairaland (and especially you) has been very helpful, Sir! Thank you!

Lexusgs430:


Simply because, you would learn from your initial application and make a better job of it, the second time around.........
[b]Second chances are not given to make things right. But are given to prove that we could better after an initial fall and emotional torture....[/b]

Spoken like a truly bald man! You are right, thank you

Lexusgs430:


And how did you know I was very bald?

Hahahahaha! Given your wise answers I would expect a certain level of baldness!

Lexusgs430:


Your rejection should give you more leverage for your Reapplication.
Start keeping and all the keepable's, and start sending emails, chats, whatsapp messages, whatsapp calls, BBM messages, in short whatever you can do to proof, DO..........

May I ask, why do you say that the rejection will give us more leverage? Is it because only a real couple would persevere...? To be honest this experience has been so draining that I would not choose to go through it again for any person that I don't expect to spend the rest of my life with...

Lexusgs430:


Yes, it says 28 days from the day you receive decision. It takes almost a year to receive an appeal hearing date.
Its best to simply reapply. Organize all and use priority application............

Thank you for your replies This has been a great first experience on a forum! If only I had asked these questions before submitting but don't they say that experience is a comb that nature gives us when we are bald...?

Lexusgs430:


My advice, simply go on reverse application resubmittion.
Set a feasible timeline, gather all required and relevant documentations, ensure all the prerequisites are meet and submit a priority application.
I know it's already cost you lots of £'s and would cost you more (hubby as loads of overtime to do, from the moment he arrives)..........

I am also thinking of applying again as I know that appeals take a long time but I am worried that they are still going to turn us down due to the lack of evidence prior to our wedding and the history of this refused application.
As for the cost, he is definitely worth it... (although that overtime you were taking about might not be such a bad idea...LOL)

Lexusgs430:



I could not put your observations any better....... You have 28 days from the date of rejection, to put an appeal in. Today been the 2nd of November 2016, I think you have already missed the appeal window.

I was under the impression that it was 28 days from the day we were informed of the decision, not from the day the decision was made. Is this not correct?

Lexusgs430:


Welcome to another state in Nigeria, called nairaland...... Sorry about your spousal visa refusal, if only you had known this thread prior to your application, you guys would have sent a water-tight package.
When was your application refused?

Thank you for the warm welcome
The decision was made on 29th September 2016 but we were only informed of the decision on 27th October 2016. My husband collected the decision from the VAC. I thought that by going to a lawyer I would avoid any mistakes but it is clear to me now that this forum might have been a much better option...(and I could have used the lawyer's fee to visit my husband instead...)

.

Hi All,

This is the first time I am ever posting on a forum so not sure exactly how this works... If I break any rules rest assured that it will be unintentionally so please let me know.

I am a British/Greek citizen (dual nationality) who recently got married to a Nigerian. I have been living in the UK for the past 11 years and my husband lives in Nigeria. We have been friends for a few years now and officially became a couple 2 years ago, on my birthday
A few months after we got married we applied for a spouse visa and were refused.
The reason for refusal is that they don't believe that our relationship is genuine and to be honest, looking at it from their point of view I can see why...
Following bad advice from my solicitor I only provided evidence of our relationship from our wedding onwards but nothing before that. Things are actually made even worse by the fact that we got married on the first day we physically met. When I arrived in Nigeria we already knew we wanted to get married so we went to the registry office to find out what we needed to do where we were told that for an extra fee we could get married on that same day! We decided to go ahead and do it thinking that the sooner we did it the sooner we would be together...
The truth is that the evidence of communication we have before that is very limited as my husband did not have a passport so any money I sent was to his parents and as he didn't have a smartphone or computer until my visit we don't have emails or messages before our wedding. Due to the high cost of calls our communication was not very frequent and as he had a different number then (which he no longer has) there is an itemised bill of calls to a number that can no longer be verified along with calls to other members of his family (when the call to his number could not go through or when his phone had no battery).
The only other evidence I have is the receipt for a watch I bought him as a gift for our first Christmas as a couple (back in 2014) which has a picture of the watch on it and he can be seen wearing on our wedding day.
I also have the itemised bill I mentioned above which unfortunately only goes back to September 2015 as Lycamobile only keep records for 1 year, a log of western union money transfers going back to 2013, an undated letter that I wrote him where I do not refer to him by name, cards from friends about our wedding (undated and not stamped), and some undated Christmas cards I sent him with the watch...
Is it worth me lodging an appeal in your opinion? Any chance that the decision may be overturned by the ECM on this new evidence? If I reapply I understand that we may get turned down based on the fact that we have already been turned down before.
My biggest fear is that we will never be able to get a uk visa as the reason they are refusing is not something we can fix... unless someone knows to collect evidence from the beginning then there is no second chance... can this be fixed? If we apply again in a year's time with evidence that we are still together (communication, visits to Nigeria) do you think that they will still turn us down based on the fact that we have no evidence from before the wedding?
I apologise for the long post and I look forward to any advice you can give me.

A (heartbroken) Nigerwife