Visit visa for parents approved! Timeline and journey
Sharing our journey as we were discouraged initially after first rejection.
I’m British citizen and was applying for my in laws visit visa from India. My husband didn’t want to sponsor as he had just moved his money to stocks and bonds. FIL also had enough money to cover the trip for both him and MIL.
They never traveled outside of India.
What we didn’t realize was that his current account was a mess. Unfortunately he often makes big transfers to family to help them with events/property acquisition and they would then return them in huge amounts around 5lakh each time. Also, his FD matured the same day he took a statement so he reinvested that to a new FD. To top that, SBI operates a sweep functionality that moves excess balance to his FD so his closing balance was always low.
First application was rejected due to this and the ever so complex bank statement of SBI. It needed proper decoding.
I asked for help here and was very much discouraged by people saying we should just wait a year or make them travel elsewhere first but we decided to try again and hope for the best.
This time I created a Financial Explanation file detailing why he has money, why he has big transactions + FD certificates old and new, current statement + Pension certificates.
Other docs submitted: ITR, proof of property ownership, daughter residing in India’s passport. Our UK proof of property ownership, husband’s 3 month payslip, our joint acct statement, utility bills + passports ofcourse and an invitation letter from us.
Timeline (VFS Chandigarh)
1st application: 13th march 1st application biometrics: 18th march Rejection email: 31st March
2nd application: 18th April 2nd application biometrics: 24 April SBI local branch received an email from UKVI to confirm account is genuine: 8th May - bank responded immediately Approval email: 11th May
Don’t lose hope 😊