VIENNA OFFICE

[schweisy]

@schweisy Yeah it strikes me how different the processes (or what messages are displayed when and where) are for people. I would have thought it's fairly standardized.

We sent the application to Sydney. With the constant changes in forms and addresses where to send that was more of a guess as well... We tried to get it in before the requirements for biometrics kicked in. In hindsight that made everything slower, haha. Stupid.

Ok so AOR is December 18th then, while they received the File on December 4th.

So I lived on and off in Canada in the last couple years. Now I'm just here as a tourist for about a month (I tried to wait for DM to arrive at first but then both of our birthdays came up and it made sense even just to come for a visit).
Since WOW Airlines just went bankrupt last week I also don't have a return flight home anymore. Which should be fine now.
They never requested RCMP data/fingerprints or whatever. In the past you had to supply police certificates for all countries you lived longer than 6 month. Luckily they changed that.

Regarding background checks I found it weird that yours stated "in progress" all the time.
And honestly I would expect @WYWH 's partners check to last longer, depending where exactly they're from since there was an armed struggle not too long ago that (I could imagine) CIC wants to make sure the applicant wasn't part of. Since there were a lot of paramilitaries in that conflict it also wouldn't apply only to people serving in the military. But what to I know.

Let's just hope Vienna finally woke up from a winter slumber and gets on with our files. Pronto.

Aha... if your AOR2 is actually December 18, then I would be interested to see if you get something around April 18.... You definitely seem to be close, which should be of some comfort!

I had thought of trying to get our application in before the biometrics too, but it turns out biometrics are really the least problematic of all the issues for us (they have a VAC here in Berlin and it takes walk-ins). It was actually getting the medical appointment here that was the true nightmare.

I ask about the RCMP fingerprints as I've seen some people in recent threads who have been living in Canada for over 6 months have to do both biometrics AND the RCMP ones. They're super inconsistent about police certificates in any case -- some people are getting requests lately for countries they haven't lived in for years and years. I'm just hoping they don't request a new one from my husband, as his is probably already 9 or 10 months old at this point.

Yeah, there are a lot of people these days for whom it states it's already in process from the beginning. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and if it doesn't mean that we are actually being processed faster, it's something of a disadvantage, because now we have ZERO clues to go by for where we are in the process all the way up until PPR/COPR (unless we get the pre-arrival service email).

I had the same thought about applicants from Balkan countries, but if you think about it, that conflict was already 20-30 years ago now, so there could be a lot of people who are adults applying for PR now who were babies at the time! Either way, I do think it's still probably a shorter path to verify people's backgrounds when they have zero travel history (that was the case for @WYWH's husband) versus someone like yourself who has been in the military and travelled around. Then again, what do I know... we're all just sitting around speculating so we don't go insane while waiting. I noticed on the spreadsheet just now you're also listed as common-law -- who knows if that slows down the relationship eligibility bit too.

Yikes, you had a WOW ticket home?! That's unfortunate. Thank goodness you're not just a regular tourist there. Here's hoping you hear something in the next two weeks! I'll be happy to hear it, for myself just as much as for you!

 

[the-waiting-game]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on this forum though I've been following the Vienna thread closely for a while. So glad to see it come to life recently and thank you to everyone that has been sharing! It encouraged me to finally create an account and share as well.

I'm the sponsor and my husband is the PA. He resides in Germany and our file is in Vienna. File transfer was Dec 4/18 and AOR2 was Dec 18/18! There had been an additional documents request prior to the file being transferred and we submitted those documents on Dec 21/18. On Jan 17/19, our GCKEY went from "We requested additional documents" to "We are reviewing the additional documents you provided, and it has been silent since then. We're approaching 3 months with no update, and our BCG still says not yet started. We haven't recieved PA yet either.

I hope that gives everyone else some insight as well. Hoping that April brings us all some progress! And a hearty congratulations to those that have received DM/PPR, truly very happy for you!!

 

[schweisy]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on this forum though I've been following the Vienna thread closely for a while. So glad to see it come to life recently and thank you to everyone that has been sharing! It encouraged me to finally create an account and share as well.

I'm the sponsor and my husband is the PA. He resides in Germany and our file is in Vienna. File transfer was Dec 4/18 and AOR2 was Dec 18/18! There had been an additional documents request prior to the file being transferred and we submitted those documents on Dec 21/18. On Jan 17/19, our GCKEY went from "We requested additional documents" to "We are reviewing the additional documents you provided, and it has been silent since then. We're approaching 3 months with no update, and our BCG still says not yet started. We haven't recieved PA yet either.

I hope that gives everyone else some insight as well. Hoping that April brings us all some progress! And a hearty congratulations to those that have received DM/PPR, truly very happy for you!!

Hello and welcome!!! So glad to hear our discussions have been helpful for the lurkers out there, and even more glad that you've decided to join in!

Thanks for posting your timeline. Obviously yours is the same as @K0nsumHure as far as the transfer and AOR2 goes, so it should be interesting to compare your progress. If the pair of you are any indication, it seems the applications from your batch are being processed relatively slowly compared to the two we just saw who were transferred in late January and got PPR last week. I wonder if you and @K0nsumHure have the same officer even. You also didn't have BGC in process from the beginning, unlike those of us who have come slightly later.

By the way, when you say you haven't received PA yet either, you mean the pre-arrival email, right? It's hard to tell whether Vienna is consistent in sending that out... I don't think @gercan ever said she got one. I wonder if you'd also experience some movement as far as that goes if you ordered GCMS notes like @K0nsumHure or sent in a representative form like @WYWH. They both seemed to get the pre-arrival email not long after doing some action that would cause someone to re-open their file. Other random thought: is your husband just a resident of Germany or is he also a citizen? I'm curious only because I wonder if that affects the time to do background checks at all.

Thanks again for posting and we'll be crossing our fingers you're one of the next to hear something!

 

[WYWH]

Wow, you’ve kept this thread very much alive, I am glad to see! Sorry I have been absent. I’ve been so insanely busy both at work and privately, with all of the planning, organizing, gathering documentation and travel info….

@schweisy To answer your question about the biometric document our VAC asked for. It turned out, in fact, that it was that very receipt VAC gave you when biometrics were completed. Apparently, if you submit your passport at the same VAC later on, you must bring this receipt with you. That way, they do not charge the fee for sending of the passport, which in our case is something around 50 euros. My problem with this is – it is not listed anywhere and they claim that they say it to people when they come in to do biometrics. But honestly, how many people remember this? It needs to be on their website, along with the rest of instructions. In reality, they could have accepted my husband’s submission if they took the money he brought for this purpose. We were willing to pay, but they refused to accept his documents. This doesn’t make any sense at all. We had all of the other documents necessary for submission to Vienna. That being said, he had to travel there again the next day and he completed this step as well, so we are now waiting for his passport and COPR to arrive at the end of this week. I hope there will be no more obstacles. ( I do see on GCKey that COPR was issued today, April 8th and the whole thing changed to "Your application was approved, etc.")
Yes, my husband and I have been through hell these past couple of years and I have been worried sick about him because of his long period of recovery, but we can both finally be at peace soon because we can get through anything together. Thank you for your kind words, dear! I am looking forward to you receiving exciting news in the next month or so!

@K0nsumHure Thank you! Like I said before, I am very sorry that you got caught up in the summer backlog. I am pretty sure that had a lot to do with the delay, but also, like @schweisy said, it does take longer for background check if there is a travel history and if there are military records to be obtained. My husband had none of this. He is 32 now and military service was discontinued back in 2010, so he never served it. Also, he was 4 years old when the war started.
As far as the Balkan countries go, BGC takes a very long time only in cases where men were in the military during the conflicts (1991-1995), regardless of which former republic they are from. Yes, there were paramilitary forces at that time, but whoever joined these had a prior mandatory military service. I am sure there are databases with full details of who was involved where and CIC would have access to these through local authorities in that country. Other than that, there is no good reason why someone who served during peaceful times would have to wait months to be checked. Yours should not take very long either. My husband also has no travel history and he’s pretty much lived in the same place all his life. Our application was simple; we had plenty of proof of genuine relationship, so no red flags at all and that helps speed up the process too. Btw. our BGC was showing “in process” from the very start, same as for schweisy, so it is possible that a part of it was done earlier (maybe Police Check, since they haven’t asked for another and ours expired in December)
I see that good things are happening for you too. You will receive your PPR very soon, I am sure.


@the-waiting-game Welcome! It is good that you have decided to join in because I can tell you that this forum has kept me sane many times when I was losing hope and starting to despair about the waiting process and not knowing what, if anything, was going on with our application. It can be really nerve wracking, but there are some really wonderful people here (on this thread, as well as others) who can give you great advice, help relieve your tension and impatience and answer some questions you might have. Good luck to you!

 

[the-waiting-game]

Thank you for the warm welcome!! My husband's a resident of Germany, not a citizen and he's had 2 other countries in which he's lived for 6+ months so we submitted a total of 3 police checks (those were the additional docs requested prior to file transfer). Also, I did order GCMS notes today mainly because I'm curious as to whether the background check truly hasn't started?! I dont know about it triggering movement but our estimated processing time remaining according to the 12 month guideline is 16 weeks, so that cant be right unless our case is going to exceed 12 months? (Based on the fact that I hear background checks take 2 to 4 months). Really hoping to get atleast a Pre-Arrival email soon

 

[ramy22200]

Can someone tell me what kind of documents proofe that someone is a dependent on his father?

 

[WYWH]

Can someone tell me what kind of documents proofe that someone is a dependent on his father?

I would say a birth certificate for sure, if it is a biological father. Birth certificate lists both our parents' names, their places of birth and occupations.
I believe dependents for the immigration purposes are children up to 22 years of age. (as long as they don't have a spouse or common-law partner) The only exception to the age limit is if they are unable to financially support themselves because of a mental or physical condition.

 

[WYWH]

Thank you for the warm welcome!! My husband's a resident of Germany, not a citizen and he's had 2 other countries in which he's lived for 6+ months so we submitted a total of 3 police checks (those were the additional docs requested prior to file transfer). Also, I did order GCMS notes today mainly because I'm curious as to whether the background check truly hasn't started?! I dont know about it triggering movement but our estimated processing time remaining according to the 12 month guideline is 16 weeks, so that cant be right unless our case is going to exceed 12 months? (Based on the fact that I hear background checks take 2 to 4 months). Really hoping to get atleast a Pre-Arrival email soon

Has your husband completed medicals and biometrics? When did you actually submit your application to Sydney? I assume around August?
I see your file was transferred just before Christmas, so that may not be a very good time because nobody probably even looked at it until sometime in January. If they are satisfied with your proof of relationship, they will pass PA's eligibility and send you Pre-arrival e-mail. (recently they've been good with sending these, but there are also some who don't get this letter until the very end) Next step and the very last stage would be BGC, which does not necessarily have to take 2-4 months. Many applicants have this step completed within a couple of weeks, like we did. If there are more agencies they need to contact to verify your husband's info, it may take a bit more time. I say, don't expect too much, but hope for the best. It's what I have done and I was pleasantly surprised that we got it fairly early. (7 months total processing time) Good luck to you, once again!

 

[the-waiting-game]

Has your husband completed medicals and biometrics? When did you actually submit your application to Sydney? I assume around August?
I see your file was transferred just before Christmas, so that may not be a very good time because nobody probably even looked at it until sometime in January. If they are satisfied with your proof of relationship, they will pass PA's eligibility and send you Pre-arrival e-mail. (recently they've been good with sending these, but there are also some who don't get this letter until the very end) Next step and the very last stage would be BGC, which does not necessarily have to take 2-4 months. Many applicants have this step completed within a couple of weeks, like we did. If there are more agencies they need to contact to verify your husband's info, it may take a bit more time. I say, don't expect too much, but hope for the best. It's what I have done and I was pleasantly surprised that we got it fairly early. (7 months total processing time) Good luck to you, once again!

Yes the medical was passed in November about a week before the file transfer and yes, our application was recieved on July 25/2018 so this is month # 9 of 12 for us now! I'm hoping the GCMS notes give us some answers in terms of the background check progress. I think you're right about the holiday delay, and we were also a part of the summer backlog as AOR took 4 months but at this point, I just pray that it doesnt exceed a total 12 months of processing!! Thank you for your warm wishes, I hope everything goes smoothly for you in terms of the transition

 

[schweisy]

I will be back later to respond to other posts at more length, but for now just a quick update that we had a ghost update on our GCKey today. I find it a little surprising/odd, since it seems clear that even by Vienna's improved timelines this is still way too soon to be hearing anything, but we'll see if anything happens. I've asked my husband to check if maybe he gets pre-arrival at least, so we'll see I guess!

 

[WYWH]

@the-waiting-game Thank you! I am pretty sure you will be hearing from Vienna soon, as you are in the same batch as K0nsumHure. Just hang in there for a bit longer. It will not go past 12 months. That is only for exceptional cases when there is missing documentation or extensive security checks are involved.

@schweisy They are indeed looking at your application. Wonderful! I am excited to hear about what happens next. Keep us posted.

As for us, we are officially done today. My husband picked up his passport and his COPR from our VAC. I am booking his ticket for Easter Sunday, which is 10 days away. I can't even begin to describe how excited and grateful I am for everything. It's a stressful period for sure, but at least this is a positive kind of stressful.
Good luck, friends! I am cheering for all of you!

 

[the-waiting-game]

@the-waiting-game Thank you! I am pretty sure you will be hearing from Vienna soon, as you are in the same batch as K0nsumHure. Just hang in there for a bit longer. It will not go past 12 months. That is only for exceptional cases when there is missing documentation or extensive security checks are involved.

@schweisy They are indeed looking at your application. Wonderful! I am excited to hear about what happens next. Keep us posted.

As for us, we are officially done today. My husband picked up his passport and his COPR from our VAC. I am booking his ticket for Easter Sunday, which is 10 days away. I can't even begin to describe how excited and grateful I am for everything. It's a stressful period for sure, but at least this is a positive kind of stressful.
Good luck, friends! I am cheering for all of you!

I'm sooooo excited for you! 10 days! That sounds amazing and I hope the landing and arrival all go very smoothly

I GOT AN UPDATE TODAY! On GCKEY, it now says that we are processing your background check! No pre-arrival but SO grateful for an update after almost 4 months of silence! Now we await the final steps: pre-arrival, DM and PPR.

Praying for all of us!!

 

[WYWH]

I'm sooooo excited for you! 10 days! That sounds amazing and I hope the landing and arrival all go very smoothly

I GOT AN UPDATE TODAY! On GCKEY, it now says that we are processing your background check! No pre-arrival but SO grateful for an update after almost 4 months of silence! Now we await the final steps: pre-arrival, DM and PPR.

Praying for all of us!!

There you go!! I had a feeling that you would have some movement this week for sure!! Pre-arrival should come in the next days too, but if they forget to send it, you will just receive it together with COPR. Either way, PPR is not that far away now.

Thank you for all the warm wishes!!

 

[schweisy]

So, @WYWH and @the-waiting-game, I think you already know this because of the WhatsApp group , but for anyone else who may be checking here, we got the pre-arrival email today (YAY!), so that definitely explains the ghost update yesterday. I am crossing my fingers that we follow something similar to @WYWH's timeline from here and get DM within a couple weeks. Either way I'm super happy about even the possibility that I might not have to keep preparing all these documents to try to get my husband's uni to confirm he pays domestic tuition so that we can apply for the student permit, etc... I really have enough on my plate these days, so I'm pretty content with the idea now that I might be able to just abandon all of that paperwork and worry!

@WYWH, that's crazy about the stupid biometrics receipt! I mean, I'm glad it all worked out in the end, but seriously, I went and looked at my husband's receipt, which he had left it in his wallet all this time, and it's basically gone transparent and almost illegible. If we had to provide that we'd be screwed! And you're right, it's nuts for them to not list that anywhere but ALSO refuse someone who wants to pay with cash. What would happen if he had actually lost the receipt??? In any case, I'm so happy to hear everything has worked out now and he's got COPR in hand. All the waiting is truly over (well, except for getting him onto Canadian soil!). Very happy for you that you will be reunited so soon -- I can only imagine how busy (and giddy!) you must be getting everything ready. Did you manage to find a way to get him on a flight with your friend?

@K0nsumHure, I just realized you said you only did military service -- so I'm assuming you just mean the regular one-year Militärdienst and you weren't actually a professional member of the military. In that case, yeah, your background check will probably go quite quickly. Hopefully we all get our DMs together!

@the-waiting-game, I'm so happy to hear you've got some movement at last! I really am curious now whether the GCMS notes had anything to do with it, or whether it's just an effect of the sudden burst of activity at Vienna (although I guess I don't know how fast GCMS requests actually get communicated). Either way, it's definitely excellent news! As @WYWH said above, I'm actually starting to think that the whole BGC-in-process-from-the-beginning phenomenon isn't just totally meaningless after all; it would explain why some of the people who got to Vienna after you and @K0nsumHure have been processed faster. It seems like this BGC-from-beginning trend started for people with AOR1s from mid-late fall, which means you summer folk kinda got doubly screwed over, between the backlog for AOR1 and then not starting BGC earlier. That said, although I imagine your husband's BGC will take longer than someone like @WYWH's husband's because of his travel history, I honestly doubt it's going to take months longer. I have some stats written down from the past, from before this new BGC stuff, that I will try to take a look at for you later. Truly, it does seem like Vienna is really making up for lost time lately, so I'm very optimistic for you!

EDIT: Forgot to say thanks @WYWH for updating your timeline! It's so helpful for people who are just starting out on this process to have others who update the whole way through.

 

[WYWH]

@schweisy I am such a dummy! I just realized who you are on whatsapp, haha! I didn't get a chance to peek in there and see messages, but saw them just now when you mentioned.
I just knew you were going to get good news really soon!!! Same as you had a feeling for me, I got that really positive feeling that both you and @the-waiting-game would see some progress within a couple of weeks. So glad to hear such great news. Makes my day even better!!
I am waiting for my husband to send me some photos today. As soon as I see a visa in his passport and a COPR document, then I will believe that this is really happening! I've made a reservation and will most likely complete this booking today, so yes, he has a spot on the same 2 flights as my friend. So glad that worked out!
And it will all work out for you. Not having to do a student visa as well is a much better deal!! Luckily for your husband, he will not need to submit his passport, so you will have no hassle with any receipts. Keep us updated!