Please help!! correspondance issue and worried! Pretoria south africa

[misteraswell]

Hi,

my name is Stephen. My girlfriend is Canadian and is sponsoring me to immigrate to canada. We were living in Cape Town, and had that address as the place where we would be sent correspondance from canadian immigration.

The issue comes in now.. we moved out of our cape town apartment, and were staying with some friends for a while (and didnt have our own residence so to speak). In that time, she was approved as a sponsor, and we were informed that a letter was sent to our cape town address. We had asked our estate agent to ask the new tenants not to throw away any mail for us, but they say apparently they hadnt received anything.

My question is, did the letter that got sent simply state that she has been approved as a sponsor, or does it also have a number for me to be able to look at my status online? Because at the moment we are only able to view things using her surname, date of birth, and her receipt number(IMM 5401).

On her application status it sais application received, and "We received STEPHEN CONWAY THOMAS's application for permanent residence on March 8, 2011."

Will the application status be updated viewing her application status? Or are we meant to find out any new info using a new receipt number and using my surname and date of birth?

Im sorry for rambling, but missing that letter has made me quite worried. If could shed any light on this I would be greatly appreciative!

btw we are applying to the pretoria office in South africa!

[valy79]

First of all  - you really need to give CIC your new address. Second, it would have been good if you had asked the South African Postal Service to forward all your mail to your new address (not sure how it works there, but I would assume there is this type of service everywhere).

As for the sponsorship approval letter (you are talking about the one you get from Mississauga right?) - no, it doesn't give you any new information. You will only get a file number once your application has been forwarded to the embassy where the second part of the application is being processed (in your case Pretoria)

[misteraswell]

thanks for the reply....

I have emailed canadian high commission on pretoria of my address change, but apparently it can take up to 30 days for them to reply to emails...

The forwarding of my mail is a good idea, I will def look into that...

The thing is my application has been received in pretoria, on the 8 march 2011. Thats what is stated when we look at my gf's online status. Should I have my own file number? or maybe they have received my application but havnt started processing it? I wonder if she gets any updates from here on out, or if its all on my online status....

[valy79]

I see....

I am not sure about Pretoria specifically, but many people never get an AOR from their embassy (acknowledgment of receipt). Also, e-cas and actual letters/e-mails seem to be substantially different in many cases (timewise). So yes, an AOR letter would provide you with a file number. If they actually sent one to you or not is a good question..you also might be right and they haven't actually started processing yet. It's just impossible to tell for us...

Moreover - logging into e-cas with your file number as compared to the receipt number doesn't make any difference. You will still see the exact same information (well with the exception that you won't see the information about the sponsorhip decision if you log in under your name and file number).

If I were you I might still e-mail Pretoria and tell them that you are afraid that you might have lost your AOR/ a letter from them. Just because you don't want to miss a letter in which they are asking for additional documentation for example....

As for updates - the only one receiving e-mails/letters from now on will be you, the principal applicant. You should get an AOR, then an IA (initial assessment) and maybe letters requesting additional documentation/an interview. Which ones you will get - nobody knows 

[misteraswell]

I did send them a pretty extensive email explaining our situation, hopefully they will send me the info i need to check my status, if indeed there was some important info in that letter. thanks.... sigh