Document Reduction Pilot for Appendix FM applications
The Home Office has launched a Document Reduction Pilot to reduce the number of documents provided with applications under Appendix FM: mainly family life with a partner or as a parent and adult relative applications. Thus, the Home Office wishes to not accept the following documents for those applications:
- WhatsApp and other social media chat history
- Money Transfers
- Greeting Cards
- Phone Cards
- Letters from friends
- Call Logs
- Wedding Receipts/Invitations
- USB/DVD’s
- Newspaper Clippings
As a test, a Document Reduction Pilot was run in India for 6 weeks. However, few people participated as this was on a voluntary basis. Moreover, applicants who did participate did not scan their applications in line with the pilot guidance, therefore, they could not be assessed as part of this pilot.
Furthermore, the Document Reduction pilot in the UK has been launched on the 4th February 2020 at the VFS scanning hub in London with the remaining VFS hubs going live shortly afterwards and will be compulsory.
This decision to launch the Document Reduction Pilot Appendix FM on a compulsory basis is concerning. Applications under Appendix FM are applications based on private life thus evidence of the link between the applicant and his sponsor are primordial. This is not always correctly shown by “official” documents and the need of flexibility and more unformal documents such as letters from friends and family, WhatsApp messages or money transfers confirming the relationship can be necessary to allow a family to be reunited under the Appendix FM.
Should you have any questions or require assistance with an application under the Appendix FM, please do not hesitate to contact our professional team of Immigration lawyers at Barar and Associates at barar.london@bararassociates.co.uk or call us at 020 7487 8370. You can access more information about us via https://bararassociates.com/.
