CoA refunds? Are they going to happen?

Great! Please keep us posted!

I sent a letter to my MP but all she's said so far is that she forwarded my letter to Phil Woolas. I'm sure that will be useful. 

Okay, I FINALLY got a response (a few weeks late, but better than never).  It's quite long, so I'll just cut & paste the relevant portions (I can PM the whole thing to anyone interested):

You requested the exact date UKBA will make public its new policy regarding implications of the recent House of Lords judgment on those that have already paid the Certificate of Approval (COA) application fee in previous years (i.e., whether previous applicants will be receiving refunds and the details surrounding that). We are now in a position to provide you with a reply to your request.


With effect from 9 April 2009 the UK Border Agency suspended the fee for COA applications. The fee has been suspended in order to comply with the House of Lords judgment in the case of Baiai v the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The UK Border Agency intends to revise the way we tackle sham marriages in order to address the issues highlighted in the House of Lords judgment. We will publish our proposals, including the refund proposal in July.  Information about who will be eligible to make a refund claim and how to make a claim will be available on the UK Border Agency website. 

I also asked for some documents, which they've exempted under section 35 - I fully expected this, so I'm not really that fussed (I only requested on the chance that they wouldn't give me a date).

So: in summary, expect an announcement before the end of the month!!  Watch this space!

Thanks for posting that aless - another reason to keep an eye on the UKBA website...although for me personally, I feel they won't go back far enough for any benefit - I applied for the CoA back in November of 2006(and paid a lot less than some)...but, I suppose anything's possible!

It just depends on how loosely/tightly their lawyers want to interpret the judgment.  It might be all people, ever or it might just people who have paid since the original court case ruling was handed down - we'll just have to wait and see!  Wish they had given me a specific date in July, but considering it's the Home Office, I'm happy just to have the month!! 

True, even if when they say July they really mean August!   

They said July, but not what YEAR....   

According to VickyS, UKBA is issuing COA refunds! It's the top news item on the UKBA Website at http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2009/july/coa-policy-on-fee-return:

On 9 April 2009 the UK Border Agency suspended the fee for applications to obtain a certificate of approval - a document that is required by many migrants who are subject to immigration control and who want to get married or register a civil partnership in the United Kingdom.

If you applied for a certificate of approval between 1 February 2005 and 8 April 2009, you may now be eligible to have the fee returned to you if you can demonstrate that payment of the fee caused you real financial hardship.

You can find out more about the eligibility criteria and how to request a return of your fee by downloading the request form and advice from the right side of this page.

That's so slimey!! Did anyone else read the guidance notes? It sounds like they're making the criteria as tight as legally possible so they don't have to refund hardly anyone's fees!

Financial hardship criteria

6. We consider that paying the COA fee may have caused you real financial hardship if for the 6 months prior to the date of your application for a COA you and your future spouse/civil partner meet the criteria in either (i) or (ii) below:

(i) you were both reliant on public funds for your support (e.g. both in receipt of benefits, such as income support, job-seekers’ allowance or asylum support under Section 4 or Section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999); or

(ii) averaged over the 6 months prior to your application, you had less than £500 in capital and had a total joint net income per week that was less than:
£210 in 2004-5
£217 in 2005-6
£226 in 2006-7
£236 in 2007-8
£236 in 2008-9

7. If one or both of you/your intended spouse/ civil partner had valid limited leave to enter or remain in the UK at the time of the COA application, and your conditions of leave required that you or your spouse/civil partner were able to support and accommodate yourself without access to public funds , UKBA will assume (in the absence of a satisfactory explanation and evidence to the contrary (see Question 10 on the COA fee return request form)) that paying the COA application fee did not cause you to suffer real financial hardship.  This is because you were required to support and accommodate yourself in the UK and we consider it was reasonable to expect you to pay a COA fee in the event you wished to marry here.

8. If you do not fulfil the above criteria, but consider that paying the COA application fee caused you to suffer real hardship, you should set out at question 10 on the COA fee return request form why this was the case. You will need to provide satisfactory evidence of your and your intended spouse’s/ civil partner’s income at the time of the COA application.   

Emphasis on Point 7 is mine, as it seems to be the one to disqualify most people here!

BULL.  That does not comply with the Lords ruling IN THE SLIGHTEST. 

Grrrrrrrrr...

Aless, that was exactly my thought as well, as I was reading through this.

I suggest the following action ..... claim anyway ... if claim rejected, give them 14 days to repay, otherwise say you will initiate proceedings in the Small Claims Court ... and indeed do, if they don't pay.

JohnL - I was going to have a long hard look at things today (only found the statement last night), but was wondering...a) would it prejudice my future chances when applying for ILR/etc. if I get really persistent with this issue? b) is something initiating proceedings in Small Claims expensive? - because to me while there is a principle in hand, it also has to be practical financially.  No point in spending £1000 for a £300 refund!

I was definitely going to claim anyway and I would advise anyone with balls enough to do the same.  Going to sift through the actual Lords judgment today so I can write a very watertight letter that I am claiming under the terms set down under the JUDGMENT not their pathetic little 'criteria'.  Will post more once I've done some research.

A couple of points :-

• Have a look at this webpage which details the fees, so just £30 if paper forms submitted, or just £25 if done online, to start the legal action. On the action being successful you would recover that Court Fee.
• This may well be wishful thinking on my part, I acknowledge that, but the mere threat of Court Action may lead them to settle within the 14 day period that you will be giving to them. I suspect they have already discussed what to do if someone threatens to sue, and accordingly 14 days is sufficient for them to respond.

Thanks for that John.

Slimey, indeed!  And they must've slipped that news item in there after hours last night, as I've been watching their news items really closely lately!

So, even though I was a student at the time and my DH has just finished being a student and was just starting full-time work during the months that we applied and I had absolutely no income, I had the capital required to have received a student visa in the first place.  What a way to get around the ruling. 

Aless, I too will read more closely and see what I can come up with.  I've just received ILR, so I'm not worried about any prejudice.  Will let you know what I come up with in my own research, although it will probably be sometime in the week before I've managed to find the time to sift through it...

Thanks, John.

Basically the way I see it is that even though the Baiai judgment made a point about the fee being prejudiced (under ECHR) against those with lesser financial means, the Baroness Hale made a more general statement in that the fee served as a deterrent against those wishing to enter into a legitimate marriage in the UK.

Everyone subject to immigration control who does not fall within those two exceptions cannot marry without the written permission of the Secretary of State to marry in the United Kingdom (s. 19(3)(b)). Application must be made in writing accompanied by the fee prescribed in the 2005 Regulations, which is now £295. If both parties require permission, therefore, they must pay £590 to apply for it. There is no power in the regulations to waive or reduce the fee no matter how meritorious the case. This is on top of the much more modest fees for the actual marriage, of £30 for each notice to marry, £40 for the ceremony, and £3.50 for the marriage certificate, making a total of £103.50. It must be a positive disincentive to couples whose desire to marry is deep and sincere and has nothing to do with their immigration status or where they intend to live once married.

Lord Bingham said this:

It is plain that a fee fixed at a level which a needy applicant cannot afford may impair the essence of the right to marry which is in issue. A fee of £295 (£590 for a couple both subject to immigration control) could be expected to have that effect.

Which is obviously where the Home Office drew its new "criteria".

Personally, and I don't know if this has legal standing, I think the argument is much more general in that: the CoA was illegal at the time of application, therefore all CoA applications made before the rules changed should be deemed invalid and all fees returned.

In summary, I can see where they've interpreted the ruling on the fee in the narrowest possible manner.  However, they've totally failed to follow the spirit of the ruling in that the very fact that we had to apply for the CoA the way did & paying that level of fee, is the part the House of Lords took issue with.  I don't think their criteria in the slightest complies with the ruling, since actually we shouldn't receive a refund on the fact that the FEE was unfair (barely addressed in the ruling), but that the whole CoA PROCESS at the time was unfair/illegal.

I hope this makes sense.  Not sure how I'd put it in a letter/application yet.  My thoughts would be there is little point in trying to dig up documents for a 'financial hardship' case if I'm not going to apply under that route, eh?  Also application is going to wait until I can get a provisional driving license as there's no way in the world I'm giving up my passport to the Home Office for the duration of this battle!!

Can any one write down a perfect reason that why HO have to refund our own money back !!!!