Best pathway for Canadian citizen and UK partner living abroad
- Thread starter dfdl1368
- Start date
Hi all,
My wife's application was submitted October 24, 2022.
We completed all the steps, and in mid-May received an email "Please review your mailing address above and advise us of any updates." This asked her to provide 2x passport photos and to complete the appendix A with some personal information.
A copy of the letter and the 2x passport photos were to be sent to VFS Global (which we did).
The appendix and a passport scan were meant to be uploaded to our online account, and not provided physically. We used the IRCC web form to upload these, and received a reply saying something like 'thanks, but we don't understand the nature of your request. So we'd assumed this was the wrong place. There is nowhere on the VFS site to upload these, and we were never able to successfully link her online application to her IRCC secure account (still waiting for a reply about this). We send paper copies of Appendix A and the passport scan to VFS anyway, even though I don't think this was necessary.
My wife received an email today from VFS Global saying:
The decision envelope for your application, tracking ID No.xxxxxxx has been received from the IRCC Office on Tue Jun 06 2023 at the Canada Visa Application Centre, Canada Visa Application Centre, London and is ready for collection.
We don't know exactly what this is, what we are supposed to collect (given that we never sent a physical passport), and if we need to travel to London just to collect this. The application status online has not updated in several weeks, and we are unsure if there is still a step to come involving her passport. I assume because this decision letter was received by VFS Global, we did not make a mistake when providing the Appendix, photos, and passport scan (??), or maybe we did and it's been approved anyway.
The official guidance up to this point has been awful and we wouldn't have made it this far without this forum and some youtube videos. Just wondering if what we're experiencing here is a normal part of the outland application. Wife is from a visa-free country (UK) and all of the guidance seems to be focused on providing a physical passport, which we haven't had to do.
Thanks for any advice.
My wife's application was submitted October 24, 2022.
We completed all the steps, and in mid-May received an email "Please review your mailing address above and advise us of any updates." This asked her to provide 2x passport photos and to complete the appendix A with some personal information.
A copy of the letter and the 2x passport photos were to be sent to VFS Global (which we did).
The appendix and a passport scan were meant to be uploaded to our online account, and not provided physically. We used the IRCC web form to upload these, and received a reply saying something like 'thanks, but we don't understand the nature of your request. So we'd assumed this was the wrong place. There is nowhere on the VFS site to upload these, and we were never able to successfully link her online application to her IRCC secure account (still waiting for a reply about this). We send paper copies of Appendix A and the passport scan to VFS anyway, even though I don't think this was necessary.
My wife received an email today from VFS Global saying:
The decision envelope for your application, tracking ID No.xxxxxxx has been received from the IRCC Office on Tue Jun 06 2023 at the Canada Visa Application Centre, Canada Visa Application Centre, London and is ready for collection.
We don't know exactly what this is, what we are supposed to collect (given that we never sent a physical passport), and if we need to travel to London just to collect this. The application status online has not updated in several weeks, and we are unsure if there is still a step to come involving her passport. I assume because this decision letter was received by VFS Global, we did not make a mistake when providing the Appendix, photos, and passport scan (??), or maybe we did and it's been approved anyway.
The official guidance up to this point has been awful and we wouldn't have made it this far without this forum and some youtube videos. Just wondering if what we're experiencing here is a normal part of the outland application. Wife is from a visa-free country (UK) and all of the guidance seems to be focused on providing a physical passport, which we haven't had to do.
Thanks for any advice.
I meant to add: It's the same VFS location where she did er biomentrics, leading us to believe an additional payment wasn't necessary at this stage.
However, if we did choose to pay for postage now, there is banking info on their website but no actual way to specify what is being paid for. Super weird.
We're just anxious about being 'on the clock' now if we made a mistake and don't know what we're supposed to do. The person on the helpline was not at all helpful.
However, if we did choose to pay for postage now, there is banking info on their website but no actual way to specify what is being paid for. Super weird.
We're just anxious about being 'on the clock' now if we made a mistake and don't know what we're supposed to do. The person on the helpline was not at all helpful.
It is probably the COPR - the document you will present to 'land' - and some other miscellany and instructions. It is a bit funny in that the COPR itself is (or at least was) just a regular printed piece of paper, they don't even stamp or anything special - you could print it yourself, really. It's almost comical, there are some parts of IRCC that they just can't bring themselves to bridge that last gap or step to fully electronic. (I mean, they could use a bar or QR code on a paper you print yourself with WAY more security than their current).
But I don't knwo of any way for you to avoid either going there to get it or paying for the freight.
Note, I'm reading between the lines because the way this is done in the UK and some parts of EU (esp for those with ETA eligible passports) a bit different.
Thanks for the reply, I suspect you're right about this but we'll keep trying to get more info. We have no issue paying for the documents to be sent, but thought we'd already done that based on the guidelines, and if we pay again now (happy to try) we still don't trust VFS to connect the dots in regard to what we're sending them money for. We'll see how it goes.
My wife's application status has updated in the last 20 minutes to 'Closed'. Haha. Why not say approved or denied? Fingers crossed.
