« Plans Delayed | Main | UK Prepaid Cell Service, Plan B »
July 08, 2005
Light at the End of the Bureaucratic Tunnel!
I’ve spent much of this morning and afternoon filling out forms — 3 copies of the visa application to be specific — chasing down the spouse to collect a signature I should have gotten this morning before I left for the office and going to our HR people for clarification on how to answer abstruse questions (e.g., “How much money is available for your visit?”). However, after some perseverance, HR now has in their hands three complete signed forms with, we hope, all the right answers filled in. How odd to be filling out a government form that doesn’t ask for one’s social security number first thing.
The next step, I’m told, is that all of these applications, our new and expired passports, 2 additional passport photos each, official marriage registry copy, official birth certificate copy for the offspring, three months’ bank statements, and three months’ pay stubs all get bundled up and shipped off to the U.K. Consulate in New York for processing. The end result, in some two weeks time, should be a work permit endorsement in my passport and dependent endorsements in the spouse’s and offspring’s passports.
Update: Seems we took a wrong turn in filling out the olde fashioned paper forms sent to us by the firm assisting us with U.K. immigration issues. The preferred, indeed required method now is to complete the forms on line using the e-fastrack system and then ship up the supporting documentation via courier. Fortunately for me, as I’ve already provided HR with all of the required information in the paper forms, they’ve taken on the task of transcribing it to the electronic forms.
Update: Looks good. I’ve received three confirmation e-mails from the e-fastrack system reporting that the applications have been received.
Update (7/11): Received an e-mail update from the visa processing team that the package of supporting documents has been received and that the application should be processed within about five business days (their web site says that it takes ten but I’m not disposed to quibble about it).
Update (7/15): Received an e-mail update from the visa processing team informing me that the visas have been approved and the documents given over to the courier for shipment back down here. That’s four business days for turn-around. Compare this to Uncle Sam’s “that’ll be six weeks unless you slide me another half a C note”.
Filed under Relocating to London.
Posted by eric at July 8, 2005 03:27 PM