Certificate of Approval.... we need URGENT Help!!!!

[Carolina]

Since July2005 we have been dealing with an enquiry that we started after we found out that the home office made a mistake with the visa they gave me. I'm argentinian and my partner is british. We decided to get married a while ago but the home office suggested not to make any applications until the enquiry was sorted.

In october they decided they did make a mistake, amended my passport and we applied instantly for the Certificate. We talked to the immigration officer at the time and they said that the 3 1/2 months remain they were giving me (until January) in my visa was more than enough time to apply for it and get married.

We are now at the end of November and we have a whole wedding organised for the end of december. But... we don't have the Certificate so we can't get married. So (as we understand) we need it at least 15 days before my visa expires to be able to go through the waiting period at the registry and my leave to remain cannot be extended.

We have called the home office plenty of times but they said it has been allocated to a caseworker and that they don't know when it is going to be ready.

We are absolutely desperate as we don't know if we should cancel everything or keep waiting!

1- Does anyone have experience in how long it takes them to deal with Certificates of approval?
2- If we don't get it before 15 days to my visa to expire. Does anyone know how long it takes to get our passports back?! (they say they cannot warranty we get them back however my visa will expire!)
3- We just want to have a normal wedding and we don't know what else to do. Is there anything to be done or everything is about waiting?!!!

Hope someone have been through it and can provide us with some information. At the moment everything is so unstable that we don't know where we are standing or what we are going to do if we cannot get married!

[John]

Carolina, can I ask, when did the application for the CoA get submitted ... when in October? That is, how long have the Home Office had to look at it?

Once you have the CoA you can go to a designated Register Office immediately and hopefully it will all work out as planned. But clearly a worrying time.

Finally, when in January does the current visa expire?

[Carolina]

John,

We applied for the CoA the 12th October. My current visa expires the 31st January, but we are going to Argentina on the 15th January.

We got a letter from immigration the 14th October saying that they got all the papers and the payment. And.... as far as we could find out, the application has been allocated to a case worker the 11th November and there are no enquiries for further information. The only thing they say by the phone is that it may take up to 14 weeks... for when.... my visa will expired and the wedding bookins will be in the past!!!

We don't know how to take it....because if it took a month to be allocated... who knows how long it is going to take to have it done?!!!