Table Of Contents:
- What is a UK Family Visa Refusal
- What Should You Do After Your UK Family Visa Refusal
- Making a Fresh Application
- Administrative Review
- Appeal
- Final Thoughts
A UK family visa is for non-UK nationals to unite with their family members who are either British citizens or settled in the UK. Under the UK family visa route, you may apply as a spouse, civil partner, unmarried partner, parent, child, or adult dependent relative, where you can apply to be looked after by your parent, grandchild, brother, sister, son, or daughter. A UK family visa refusal will prevent you from living with your family members in the UK. So, you should be careful when applying for a family visa because it is going to change the course of your entire life.
What is a UK Family Visa Refusal?
UK family visa refusal means the Home Office has turned down your application to join your family member in the UK. The Home Office may reject your visa for various reasons, such as a lack of evidence of a genuine relationship, failure to meet the financial requirement, providing the wrong documents, or incomplete or incorrect application forms, or Part 9—Grounds for Refusals. Part 9—Grounds for refusal includes a variety of reasons. For example, if the Home Office decides that you are or have been involved in a sham marriage or sham civil partnership, it may refuse your family visa for entry clearance.
The Home Office sends you a decision letter or email informing you that your UK family visa application has been refused. If your passport was kept as part of your family visa application, it will be returned. The UK family visa refusal letter will also state the reasons for the refusal and options you can exercise after receiving it.
UK family visa refusal needs a proper understanding of the reasons and options you have after the refusal.
What Should You Do After Your UK Family Visa Refusal?
The first thing you need to do is to read the refusal letter or email in detail to understand what went wrong with your application, due to which the Home Office rejected your application. You should also consult a legal advisor before deciding on your next step. Broadly speaking, after a UK family visa refusal, you can make a fresh application, request an administrative review, or appeal against the decision.
1. Making a Fresh Application
Once you have read the refusal letter carefully and understood the reasons for the refusal, it may
be in your best interest to make a fresh application for the same visa.
- Address the Reasons – When you choose to reapply, it is important to address and rectify the issues and errors that caused the refusal initially in the new application. Do not repeat the same mistakes, and you can also take an immigration expert’s advice to make an error-free application.
- Provide new evidence – You can submit new evidence of a genuine relationship, your sponsor’s financial capability, your knowledge of the English language, availability of adequate accommodations in the UK, etc. If required, provide the missing information in your original application, and so on. If you hide any information, you must reveal it in your fresh application. To make your new application a success, you should consult a legal immigration expert.
Making a fresh application may cost you time and money, but it may still be the best choice for you because fresh applications often move quicker than administrative reviews and appeals, which can drag on for months. If your situation allows, reapplying may help you get a family visa sooner. Many applicants, with the guidance of skilled immigration lawyers, choose to make a fresh application for a faster path to secure their family’s future in the UK.
2. Administrative Review
An administrative review is a formal mechanism to challenge the Home Office’s UK family visa refusal decision. Whether you can request an administrative review depends on whether you have the legal right to it. It will be clearly stated in your refusal letter if you can apply for an administrative review.
- Formal Request to the Home Office – An administrative review is a request to the Home Office to check if there was an error made by their caseworker who assessed your initial application. An error may be that the caseworker team missed a document or did not assess it correctly. This process is not about re-examining a refusal case fully but about highlighting specific mistakes that led to the UK family visa refusal. If you can
point out these errors clearly, it will increase the chance of overturning the decision in your favor. - No New Evidence Allowed – You cannot submit new documents or fresh evidence in this process. You can only highlight the errors in the original decision. The UKVI’s new team will reassess your original application based on the documents and evidence you submit with the application.
- Strict Deadlines – If you are in the UK, you have 14 days to apply for an administrative review from the date of receiving your UK family visa refusal decision. On the other hand, you have 28 days to apply from the date of receiving the decision if you are outside the UK. If you were detained on the date of your visa being cancelled, you must apply for a review within 7 days.
Administrative review may take 12 months until you get a decision. If the Home Office does not come up with a decision on your application within 6 months, it will contact you with an update.
3. Appeal
Appeal is also a formal method to challenge the Home Office’s UK family visa refusal decision. You can only appeal against a decision if you have the legal right to it, which you will be told in your refusal letter. You can apply yourself or through a legal representative.
Unlike an administrative review, an appeal is more complex. You have to send your appeal application to a first-tier tribunal, which is an independent body. A judge in the tribunal first decides, based on facts and evidence you submit, whether your appeal should be allowed, and if they allow it, they will listen to both sides before reaching a decision. You are allowed to submit new evidence in an appeal.
- Appeal with or without a Hearing – You can apply for an appeal with or without a hearing. However, a judge of the tribunal will decide whether to allow a hearing even if you requested it. If your appeal is allowed with a hearing, you will be given a date at which you or your representative will have to attend the hearing. You can also request to join the hearing remotely through a video call. During the hearing, you or your representative will need to produce the evidence and answer questions.
- Ask for an Urgent Hearing – You can ask for an urgent (‘expedited’) hearing of your appeal at any point during the appeal process. You or your legal representative will need to give appropriate reasons to the tribunal as to why your case should be heard urgently and also give them evidence of compassionate or compelling grounds for it. For example, letters from a doctor or hospital for your child in the UK. A judge of the tribunal will review your evidence and decide whether they should hear your appeal application sooner than usual.
- Highlight the Legal Error – Appeals focus strictly on UKVI’s legal errors. You must demonstrate to a judge of the tribunal that the Home Office in its original decision failed to apply the immigration law correctly or misinterpreted your evidence. In an appeal for a UK family visa refusal case, facts are not re-argued, but you or your representative needs to highlight the legal mistakes. Success will depend on answering questions with a well-supported argument based on existing facts.
The tribunal will either decide to
- Allow your appeal— this does not automatically mean the Home Office has to reconsider its decision, and you’ll be able to enter or stay in the UK on a UK family visa.
- Dismiss your appeal and uphold the Home Office’s original UK visa refusal decision.
Within 4 weeks of the hearing, you should get a copy of the tribunal’s decision. If you win your appeal, the Home Office will change or revise its decision and will grant you a UK family visa.
However, if you lose your appeal, you may appeal to the upper tribunal if you believe that the first-tier tribunal made a legal mistake in their decision.
Final Thoughts
A UK family visa refusal may be disheartening because it stops you from joining your family member in the UK. However, you should not lose hope and look for solutions after the refusal. As mentioned in the article, you may reapply, apply for an administrative review, or appeal the
Home Office’s decision. You should seek an immigration expert’s advice before choosing your option, as they will guide you with the pros and cons of each option. You need to understand that you need to be patient and prudent after your UK family visa refusal in order for your fresh application, administrative review, or appeal to be successful.
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