March 2020
Our client approached Pan Immigration for advice in relation to an application for visit visa for herself and her elder father. The client is a Chinese national from Fujian Province. She wished to accompany her father to visit her little sister who is settled with her young children and husband in Glasgow.
There were two key challenges in this case: firstly, Fujian Province has a history of being a particularly difficult region to be granted UK visas, secondly, the client already had a previous rejection for a UK visit visa. Under Immigration Rules paragraph V 4.2 of Appendix V, to be eligible for applying for UK visitor visa, an applicant needs to satisfy “a genuine visitor” test, i.e. the applicant:
In our experience of assisting Fujian visit visa applications, there are two major aspects we usually focus on. One is “will leave the UK at the end of their visit”, and two is “have sufficient funds to cover all reasonable costs of the trip without working or accessing public funds.” To start this case, we asked for the most recent 6 months bank statements of both the client and her father. Upon receiving the bank statements, we discovered that our client had large sums of deposits in her bank account which required a convincing explanation; on the other hand, her father did not seem to have sufficient fund to cover the costs of the visit. After a lengthy communication with the client, it was decided that for the client, we had to provide a document detailing the sources of income supported with relevant documents; whereas for her father’s application, the sponsor in the UK specifically stated in her invitation letter that she would pay for the return flight tickets, food and accommodation as well as all expenses and costs arising during the father’s visit. To make the case even stronger, we also provided Sponsorship Undertaking Form SU07/12 along with supporting documents.
To satisfy the genuine intention to return to China after the visit, we provided extensive documents including title deeds of properties in China, employer letters, a letter from the church where our client worked as a volunteer, as well as letters from family members in China to support they would definitely return to China after the visit.
Moreover, we also produced a cover letter containing comprehensive and detailed legal representations to strengthen the applications, including an explanation of her last visa refusal background, how she now meets the financial requirement, and how the visa is important for her so that she could accompany her elderly father to visit her little sister’s family in the UK.
In the end, our client and her father obtained visitor visas within 3 weeks of the application date.