Thread for Applications Sent to London

[SadGirl:(]

Hello all, I'm starting this thread specifically for people whow case is being handled at London, England.  As many of you can see from my signature, my husband and I have been waiting for a long time now.  If your case is in London, please stop by and mark your signature here.

Thank you all and best of luck with your applications!

[UK2TO]

hey here is my timeline,

i've just applied 2 weeks back....

[Siouxie]

We received your application for permanent residence on February 16, 2005.
 
We started processing your application on May 16, 2005.
 
We received the requested information on December 15, 2005. Thank you for providing the information.
 
A decision has been made and you will be contacted.
 
We sent you a letter on January 24, 2006 - AIP

(Medicals done - further testing required)

We received the requested information on December 13, 2006. Thank you for providing the information (clearance from further medical tests)

We received the requested information on August 21, 2007. Thank you for providing the information (photo's and police certificate - which they lost!) 

After that there was no contact from Immigration for more than a year and Ecas was not updated.

In September 2008 I wrote to the Minister for Immigration (Canada) office - they requested updates from London, they miraculously found the file and discovered that the police certificate had been lost.  They stated that once they received an updated police certificate and background information they would issue PR within 8-12 weeks). The information was sent to them.

We received the requested information on October 29, 2008. Thank you for providing the information.  (second police certificate and updated background check)

In late January they sent requests in for a 2nd medical as the last one had expired (we were in Canada at the time).  Medicals were performed upon return to the UK.  In April they requested a psychiatric assessment for my son who had admitted to infrequently and ocassionally (socially) smoking marjuana as a teenager. This was done and the report sent to them (no instability, nothing on the report to cause concern what-so-ever). The report was forwarded from the CIC Medical division to the Chief Medical Officer for Immigration 8 weeks ago.  We are still waiting his decision.

The only grounds they can refuse us on is if my son is deemed a threat to public safety or health, which he isn't as verified by 2 doctors and a psychiatrist.

Nothing on Ecas since October 2008. The police certificate expired last month - our medicals will expire in March.

And still we wait.
 

[SadGirl:(]

Siouxie, I'm so sorry that your case has been drawn out for this long.  Sometimes London is on the ball and gets things done quickly and efficently and other times it just seems like they are very careless with the cases that they are handling.  Like in your case, they had misplaced/lost the application and the police certificates were lost.  When my husband took his first medicals I had sent them with the entire package to CIC-Mississauga.  However, after my husband's interview, London was claiming that the medicals were lost as there was nothing on file.  Thankfully, a few days later they had found them.  But see what I mean about being careless!

Siouxie, I will keep you in my prayers.  As much agony as I am going through, it must be a million times worse for you . . . I am so sorry.  I hope everything will come to an end in your case before the end of this year.

[arewethereyet]

As you can see from my 'signature' area below our application outland via London has pretty much reached the end, just got passport returned today with visa and CoPR. Now need to organize shipping and sell my car.

I must admit I did become concerned about paperwork going missing after reading some stories on this forum.
We did have a couple of strange things happen.

The letter sent to my wife/sponsor in Canada confirming she was approved as a sponsor never arrived, it turned out Canada Post had delivered it to someone else's 'superbox', even though the address was correct, and it ended up being returned to CIC Miss.

Then my first request for passport never appeared and I had a copy e-mailed to me when I queried the fact after I noticed my E-cas status had changed to Decision Made under the PR section. This happened around the time of the postal strike and I used that as my excuse for contacting them and consequently got a reply in 2 days.

I consider myself fortunate in the speed that everything has been done and it genuinely upsets me when I see the problems other seem to have because stuff has been lost. I dread to think what might of happened if I wasn't monitoring e-cas and had not realized the passport request had been sent. Miss the 45 day window on the passport and it's back-to-start. Hope everyone that is waiting gets an ultra speedy resolution.

[universalmoe]

Sadgirl, I've seen your postings over the past several months; sorry that you've had to go through such hardship through this process.

Based on forum posts, I think my biggest fear - trumping public speaking and death - has become visa offices losing medicals, police certs, etc! But I'm sure a lot of that is just paranoia and not being privy to the whole visa app. administration process. Imagine what agony applicants had to go through before ECAS was in use..

[JamesM]

It amazes me how applications and parts of applications can go missing if everything seems so precise and stringent. My biggest concern would be not receiving PPR in time due to post.

[whoopi83]

It amazes me how applications and parts of applications can go missing if everything seems so precise and stringent. My biggest concern would be not receiving PPR in time due to post.

James - lately and even often in the past, London email the PPR providing you gave an email address.  If not send a case specific enquiry through the cic.gc.ca website, and request that communication is also via email.  Good luck, London has been quick lately.

[Cdnshaz]

Our time line is below, was paranoid about losing or misplacing things, it happens every where, we mailed passports in but due to mail strike they allowed us to pick them up. thank goodness we live close to London
My heart goes out to those who have been waiting long periods of time, short of sending emails and being a general thorn in their side, keep at them...

[Prodigy4299]

Uh-oh! Here I was thinking that London was the fast, reliable office. Oh well, all I can do now is just cross my fingers and hope for a quick turnaround for our application.

Best of luck, everyone!

[universalmoe]

Question for all who applied outland via London visa office and completed medicals before submitting your sponsorship application:
When your e-cas PR status changed to "In Process", did it also say "Medicals Received"?

Our update just says "We started processing...xxxxx" but nothing about medical. I'm a little worried about this since we completed medicals in late June, a full 3 months before submitting our application in late Sept.

thks..

[arewethereyet]

Our update just says "We started processing...xxxxx" but nothing about medical. I'm a little worried about this since we completed medicals in late June, a full 3 months before submitting our application in late Sept.

It's a tough one to know exactly what is happening. As you know from my answer on another thread, I had both "We Started processing..." and "Medicals Received" on e-cas. These messages appeared at the same time when the PR status changed to "In Process" rather than say "We Started processing..." first and then a week later "Medicals Received". BTW if it helps any, E-cas in respect of the London office, is updated weekly on a Monday, so I used to check every Monday evening or Tuesday first thing. I don't know what the routing was for your medicals but I had my medical done in Canada (Halifax, NS) as I was visiting and the medical and subsequent application were done within a month of one another. Although time frames may not affect the chances of stuff going missing as I believe from reading other answers on the forum that the 'local office' processing your application requests the medicals from whatever regional medical office your medicals were routed through. Also, if you did your medical in the UK, the RMO is at the same address as the office that would handle actual application. So, maybe in this case, they just don't acknowledge the fact that medicals have been received because they were already at that address, but in a different department.

I found that because it is quite difficult to determine how all the different bits of the process fit together, that makes it difficult to know how or when to chase up any anomalies between E-cas and the perceived reality of 'the system'.

However, be very careful contacting London about case specific stuff where it might result in them having to pull your actual file out as it can slow down the application. The problem is weighing up the effect that a question about your case may have against the possibility that the medicals have not yet married up with the application (if that is what they have done) and the effect that may have. Maybe a general question about E-cas updates may suffice.

Hopefully someone else on the forum may have a more detailed knowledge of what goes on 'inside the box', as most of the time, as an applicant, we all seem to have to determine what might be going on by sort of reverse engineering the process from the available forms and E-cas updates. Unfortunately the only 'appropriate' time to contact a visa office seems to be after the final PR decision has been made or if a certain amount of time has elapsed after an update to E-cas is made and you've not heard/seen anything else - six months I think, in the case of the London office

Unfortunately, my answer may raise more questions that answers. But, having reached the end of the process myself, apart from the landing bit, I know exactly how this uncertainty feels.

[universalmoe]

Thanks for the suggestion re: asking about ecas generally...that is what I will do. If nothing concrete comes out of it, and I don't see any update on ecas within a month, I will submit a case-specific inquiry.

[Siouxie]

I received an e-mail from London CIC this morning requesting an updated police certificate, background info and additioanl family information form for my son - with 30 days to reply.  They state that they must receive the information within 30 days in order for everything to be completed before his medical expires.

Woohoo!!!!

It looks like (providing everything goes well) that I could be landing in January and my son 4 weeks later...

Finally!!!!!

If my son lands in February it will be 5 years since the application went in....

I am bouncing off the walls this morning with happiness!

[JamesM]

Does anyone have the London address that we're to use to forward documents for our application.