Surprising things you learn about visa applications working at the British Consulate for 20 years.

Agnes Butler, Lead Immigration Consultant at Butler and Brewer, worked at British Consulates for over 20 years, mostly in the Los Angeles office, but in other locations as well. 

Seeing thousands of UK Visa and naturalization applications pass across her desk over the years has given her a finely tuned sensibility of what to look for in an application, what is too much information (boxes of CD’s or VHS tapes – really) what is too little (less than the detailed requirements on the UKVI website) and how to achieve her clients goals of a smooth settlement process in the UK without wasting the time of busy visa officials. 

“Perhaps the most surprising thing was the volume of applications that were refused due to lack of preparation on the clients part, some people really had trouble getting the support documentation right. Or they just didn’t provide the documents needed.

I would often see visa applications and the applicant would just send the application form and they should have sent bank documents, and accommodation information or evidence of employment, in the UK and that they were established in the US. 

If you submit an application with incomplete supporting documents you lose your application fee. For UK Settlement visas the cost starts at around US $2057. 

It’s these easy mistakes that I help our clients with, but my gold standard as a UK visa immigration consultant is not submitting an application to the UKVI unless I know it is not going to cause a problem, basically, unless it’s an application I would have liked to see cross my desk when I was there.” 

If you would like a free consultation call about your UK visa situation, please contact us,