After being contacted by veterans and families having problems proving their settled status, the AFF F&C team realised that instead of the status on the eVisa saying ‘settled’ it was stating ‘armed forces’.
One spouse was being denied a mortgage application and two veterans were being told they didn’t qualify for social housing.
The issue was raised to the Home Office who agreed to arrange for these individual cases to be changed in the short term. A permanent update to the system will take longer to implement but anybody experiencing a similar problem should contact fcsupport@aff.org.uk
A number of spouses also contacted AFF saying they couldn’t access their eVisa or that the dates of expiry were incorrect. As a result some of them were unable to work and one spouse had been charged for NHS treatment.
We identified that they had had a correction made to their initial grant of leave but the corrections had not transferred to the eVisa.
After trying to raise this through the usual contacts, the team contacted the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. ILPA was able to raise the issue and a week later all of the cases were resolved. If you are having issues with your eVisa, please contact us.