Thread for Outland LONDON, UK Applications!

[TGR]

*** hears a letter land on the doormat, pushes the almost empty chinese take-away containers under the sofa, and stumbles to the door as a result of enjoying too much of the Chilean Merlot ***

At last! A request for passport!!!  

Came with a note stating that the request was originally sent via e-mail on 30th Aug. Don't know what address they used! Anyway it's here. It took an email enquiry from us and a letter from our MP to the High Comissionier, and just in time too as the 60 days were almost up.

Thanks for support, Merlot, and advice (especially pinklady )

Things are in a whirlwind at the moment - moving house, shipping coming on Friday, booking flights, but will keep you up to date, including landing.

Congratulations!

[Louise86]

Just checked the tracking service for our application - it was received by 'David' at the CPC-M Courier address 15 minutes ago! How exciting! 

And so the waiting begins...

[JenB]

Yay jonpollard!! Congratulations!! Glad to see people are moving in London, fingers crossed the rest of the sofa crew get some news soon too!!

[mittens]

*rouses self from drunken stupor*

*ouchies* merlot hurts my head...
*blinks rapidly*
*johnpollard?!!!! woooooooo hoooooooo

sorry i better whisper...

congratulations!!!! i am so so chuffed for you
brilliant news indeed

*doin'a happy dance*

got to be me and chrischris next
still worried that similar may have happened to mine...
what happens if the 60 days are up???
agggghhhhh
how do i find this out?
aggggggggh

pass the wine....

[AnnaMcG]

Just checked the tracking service for our application - it was received by 'David' at the CPC-M Courier address 15 minutes ago! How exciting! 

And so the waiting begins...

did you check that with them direct? or how did you find that out? Interested to know, I sent mine Royal Mail but it says "proof of delivery cannot be given" but the next line says delivered in Canada on 24th October....so still not 100% sure that it arrived....lol this is so silly!

[Louise86]

did you check that with them direct? or how did you find that out? Interested to know, I sent mine Royal Mail but it says "proof of delivery cannot be given" but the next line says delivered in Canada on 24th October....so still not 100% sure that it arrived....lol this is so silly!

Hi Anna,

Just realised how I worded my previous post, we sent the application by FedEx International Priority so we could check it's progress the entire way - and we did - by the hour! The package was signed for by 'David' from the 'Mailroom' at 10:41am.

Sorry I couldn't give you better news; I can imagine it must be extremely frustrating not having any definitive proof that it got there OK. Although it certainly sounds as though yours was delivered just fine on the 24th, so try not to worry (easier said than done I know!)

When did you send the application off originally?

[Canooknic]

did you check that with them direct? or how did you find that out? Interested to know, I sent mine Royal Mail but it says "proof of delivery cannot be given" but the next line says delivered in Canada on 24th October....so still not 100% sure that it arrived....lol this is so silly!

I had the same issue when I sent my package (it's seems a lifetime ago that I did!) Royal Mail told me the best way to send it and it turned out that it was only tracked until it left England!! Not useful. 
Keep an eye on what date is being processed and try Ecas once the 24th is being done, it sucks but it will hopefully save you from getting as stressed out as I did!!
Hope you get an update soon 

[Aperture]

We're currently waiting for PPR (if things move with the same speed as they're going now, we're expecting it sometime in the last week or two of November--fingers crossed!) and living in Canada.  How long is it currently taking to get passports back from London after sending them from Canada?  If we get the request at the end of November and send it off right away, could we expect to have the passport back in December?  January?  (I imagine Christmas slows things down a bit.)

Also, just so we can prepare financially, will we need to include a prepaid envelope for London to return the passport?  Does anyone know what kind of postage they'll require (e.g., express signed-for or something different; Canada Post or FedEx or UPS)?

Thanks everyone!

[ghausia50]

Hello everyone... does anyone know what kind of questions to expect from CIC london when they request for interview? can someone please help?

[chrischris]

Hi all, following johnpollard's recent experience I have emailed the VO, but haven't yet received an automated response.  Can anyone confirm whether the address I sent it to was the correct one?

I sent it to

re-london-im-enquiry @ international.gc.ca

which I only got from one of pinklady's old posts; I couldn't find it online anywhere.

Cheers
Chris

[pinklady]

We're currently waiting for PPR (if things move with the same speed as they're going now, we're expecting it sometime in the last week or two of November--fingers crossed!) and living in Canada.  How long is it currently taking to get passports back from London after sending them from Canada?  If we get the request at the end of November and send it off right away, could we expect to have the passport back in December?  January?  (I imagine Christmas slows things down a bit.)

Also, just so we can prepare financially, will we need to include a prepaid envelope for London to return the passport?  Does anyone know what kind of postage they'll require (e.g., express signed-for or something different; Canada Post or FedEx or UPS)?

Thanks everyone!

Hi Aperture,
You don't need to include a prepaid envelope. I sent mine over with Fedex and inluded a padded addressed envelope for the return of my passport. London covers the cost of the return. All the instructions will be given with the PPR itself.
One word of advice, if you use a courier to send your passport to London, do not put a value on it. I did and it caused a delay when london contacted me and told me I had to pay a customs fee before they would continue processing my visa.
It says in the letter to expect to be without your passport for 6 weeks. Mine took 5.5 weeks to coeme back to me in canada. Others have taken less time. I would expect 3-4 weeks at least.
Good luck, hope you get PPR soon!

[Aperture]

Hi Aperture,
You don't need to include a prepaid envelope. I sent mine over with Fedex and inluded a padded addressed envelope for the return of my passport. London covers the cost of the return. All the instructions will be given with the PPR itself.
One word of advice, if you use a courier to send your passport to London, do not put a value on it. I did and it caused a delay when london contacted me and told me I had to pay a customs fee before they would continue processing my visa.
It says in the letter to expect to be without your passport for 6 weeks. Mine took 5.5 weeks to coeme back to me in canada. Others have taken less time. I would expect 3-4 weeks at least.
Good luck, hope you get PPR soon!

Thank you!  That's all very useful information.  I'll be sure to mark the customs form as "documents only, no commercial value".

I think we can handle six weeks.  If we get PPR at the end of November, we could expect the passport back by mid-January--well in advance of our international travel planned for the end of February.  (I hate to cut it too close, but that could be okay.)

[TGR]

My husband just got his photos taken to get his PR visa and it only cost his 7 pounds for 8 photos!! It sounds like such a good deal I had to share. Apparently the place is a bit tricky to fine (underground Charring Cross station). Anyway, here's the website of the place for anyone looking to get photos taken in central London:
http://www.idphotoshop.co.uk/

[pinklady]

re-london-im-enquiry  @  international.gc.ca

Hi chrischris,
Thats the email address they used to email me. Its not shown on the website, but if you look at some other embassies, it gives the address using the same format as above.
Its definately the right address, or you can choose to send a case specific enquiry.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/offices/missions/london.asp

[chrischris]

Thanks PL.  I just hope they don't "punish" me for emailing them at an address that they clearly don't particularly want to advertise, but based on JP's experience there's a very real danger that they've emailed my PPR (and mittens') to the wrong address many weeks ago, and the 60 days is ticking away.  So what have I got to lose?

We have ordered the CAIPS notes to see if that sheds some light on things, but they seem to be taking the full 28 days to deal with that, but I think that ought to come before 60 days from when they *might* have emailed my PPR.

What a nuisance this is turning out to be - it was supposed to be nice and simple.  My colleagues are slowly learning that they shouldn't keep asking me every day if I've got it yet.  I have pointed out that it is possible that I may mention it when I get it and I'm unlikely to keep it under my hat.