After a major wrinkle we are nearly back on track

It's been an emotional trip since my last update. The guidelines for our visa documentation said we should apply 3 months before you plan on permanently relocating to the UK. So on the dot, 3 months before we planned to go, we submitted our Visa applications and brought in all of our official documents into the Dublin UK embassy. We provided just about every official document we had (passports, birth certs, marriage certs, bank & investment statements, etc). As we were in the embassy office, I was worried that we didn't prove our finances well enough and didn't use official enough documents for our finances. Regardless of this worry, we submitted our documents, they took our finger prints, took our photos and sent us off to wait for the decision. We paid around 750 pounds to make our applications.

One week later, we got a knock on the door from the postman. Our visas had been rejected! Our visas are only possible because my Grandfather is Scottish. The rejection letter stated that we had not provided long form birth certificates to prove the family line between me, my mother, and my grandfather . We had only provided the wallet sized short form birth certificates which don't state who your parents are. When I went back to the official UK checklist of documents required it simply stated "full birth certificates". I had no idea that Ontario even provided long form birth certificates. My Mom also didn't know that she had access to a long form birth certificate for herself either.

As we kept reading the rejection letter we noticed there was an appeals process which sounded good. We could quickly get the long form birth certs for both myself and my mother and then submit for the appeal. However as we kept reading the information about the appeals process we realized that it would take between 3-6 months to happen. Julie's school started in 3 months from then! It was impossible for us to wait 6 months for an answer.

The was a very stressful period. I had never even heard of "Long form birth certificates" in Ontario. School at Oxford was coming up soon and couldn't be postponed.

The appeals process seemed unworkable because of the massive amount of time it took. The only other option we knew about at the time was to use Julie's Oxford acceptance to get a student visa and then I would latch onto that and work with that. However, with the student visa they kick you out of the country as soon as school is over. That option wasn't ideal because if we were enjoying life in the UK we wouldn't be able to stay.

I took the next day off work to try to find a way out of this mess. We asked the internet to see if people had advice for us. We were also going to start calling lawyers to see what our options were. Luckily the internet came through with the answers we needed. The best solution seemed to be to just avoid the appeals process and pay the 750 pounds again to apply again. If we went the student visa route, it would have been impossible to convert that to an Ancestry visa until the student visa expired. Aren't immigration rules fun?

We decided to pay again and apply again. I couldn't help but feel a bit extorted by the UK government. They were using their power over us to extort more money out of us. Anyhow, we rush ordered new Long form birth certificates from Manitoba (Mom) and Ontario (me). Both of these came in amazingly fast (Go Canada!). One week later we had both long form birth certificates.

However, I still had an uneasy feeling that while we may have been rejected the first time because of not enough proof of family line... We still may have been rejected for other reasons (like insufficient finances). I was still worried that we didn't prove we had enough money. I was worried if we apply a second time they may reject us this time on financial reasons. We do have lots of money but how much is enough? It's really not clear. Should I get an appraisal on our house in Canada to show how much equity we have there? How far do I take this? How much documentation do they need? Is my documentation "official" enough? Will they think it's fake even when it's not? Is there anything else I can provide that might hep my case? These were the questions that ran through my mind for weeks!

I didn't get the appraisal on the house, but I did add many new documents to the second submission. We paid again, got our finger prints and photos take again, then waited...

One week later, we got the visas!

I actually received an email days before saying that they were approved but I was feeling so burned from the first rejection that I wasn't happy until they were in my very own hands. Now they are :)

We are both feeling much better now. We are now moving on to other final tasks. The big one for me is to get a job in the UK (ideally before leaving Ireland). Getting a job is now my top priority. I am using 2 recruiters in London now and have already had a few interviews. I think it took about 24 interviews before I got my current job at Microsoft so I will be patient and expect that I won't be a good fit for most companies. I do know there are many companies who would love me to work there... I just need to find them. The mac team at Microsoft is happy with me so I'm sure others will be too. That being said, I have already had 2 interviews and I didn't get the spot for either of them. I hope to fail my way to success! The good thing is lots of places are hiring and I am confident in my many talents. I just need to find a good match.

Also, we are starting to sell off our possessions so that we can fit it into planes and/or ferries when we move. We are also throwing out anything we don't need. It feels nice to be able to slim our lives down to a few suitcases.

Julie is working hard to try to find a place in Oxford city. She didn't get a place in the campus dorms but things are looking good that she will get a place with flatmates in a house off campus. Right now, I'm not too worried about finding a place in London. I'll get the job first and then worry about a house. In London, at any given moment there are 100's of places I could move into so I can take my time with that.

At the end of August, Julie will be off to Germany to do a month of intensive German language training. Depending on our finances and how big my bonus is from Microsoft this year, I may join her for the last week (not to study though).

We plan to take the ferry to the UK permanently on October 1st. We will then rent a car and drive it to Oxford with all of our stuff. We need to take the ferry rather than the plane because Julie has about 100 pounds of books that she wants. I'm happy enough with this though. It will be nice to drive across the UK before settling down in Oxford.

Anyhow, after a few extremely stressful weeks where the fate of our futures rested with an immigration officer, I think our lives are finally back on stable grounds and moving forwards nicely again.