Hello,
Let me be the first one to tell my story. Hope others join in!
My husband and I are currently going through the Outland Spouse Sponsorship application process. We are both Bulgarians and he is sponsoring me (he is also a Canadian citizen).
Our application was received in the Mississauga CIC office on February 25th, 2014.
He was approved as a sponsor on March 26th, 2014. We received the official letter by post on April 2nd.
The CIC On-Line Services website currently says:
Sponsorship status: "Decision made"
Permanent Residence status: "Application received"; when you click on it it says " The application was received on February 25th, 2014. Medical results have been received.".
Today (2 weeks later) I was contacted by the Bucharest office with a request to send them a notarized translation and a copy of the original of my birth certificate within 60 days. I am already working on getting this ready and hopefully it will be with them in a few days. The email from them said that they will not confirm back the receipt of these additional documents, but will only contact me again should they need any further information.
So far they seem to be working quite efficiently. I suppose once the Bucharest office receives the application from Mississauga, they go through the checklist of all the required documents and request anything missing. In my case - the birth certificate. Apparently I have misread the Immigration Guide, thinking that I should send copies of either my birth certificate or my national ID card, so I only sent the latter. They need both!
I have read in previous posts that the waiting in line to get your application considered is the longest. So now after sending my birth certificate, I can only keep checking the application status in the online system and hope to see "processing" soon. I have heard from a friend and also read in this forum from a 2012/2013 thread that it typically takes 3-6 months for the Bucharest office to make a decision. Their website currently says 14 months processing time, which is a lot more.
Is anyone else going through the application process right now or has been through it recently? Please share your timeline and experience.
