Page 23 | thread for those interested in refugee hosting/sponsorship

EezyOozy · 2022-03-13T07:37:54+00:00

I thought I would start a new thread about this as I have just heard on BBC news that they are opening up a web form tomorrow to express interest. Apparently families/households can claim £350 a month (I assume for increased expenses) and refugees will be eligible to claim or benefits and work. We have large a spare room but live rurally so whilst I will express interest I'm not sure we will be taken up on it. I thought I would start a new thread for those who are interested and to follow the progress of the registration procedure/how this pans out in practice. Posted here because it's the only place I know gets plenty traffic, I will probably be asking for this to be moved but don't know where to.

Kendodd · 28/03/2022 10:57

Thank you

Tulipomania · 28/03/2022 18:56

I have an email from a Ukrainian family through the Reset scheme.

My only concern is that they seem to have a Russian email address.

Is this OK?

Original poster

EezyOozy · 28/03/2022 19:36

When you go through the sponsorship forms you need copies of their passports. So you will soon see if they have Ukrainian passports!

OP posts:

ilovebrie8 · 29/03/2022 14:37

I’d imagine they are in Russia/Russian if they have a Russian email address...but you will soon see if they are Ukrainian from the passport

Tulipomania · 29/03/2022 20:01

I had a call with them today. It seems they were visiting friends in Crimea when war broke out and are now stuck there. They are hoping they will be able to get out on a humanitarian passage to Turkey or Poland, but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

They confirmed they have Ukrainian passports.

Anyone know about this?

user3837313202 · 30/03/2022 08:36

@Tulipomania

I had a call with them today. It seems they were visiting friends in Crimea when war broke out and are now stuck there. They are hoping they will be able to get out on a humanitarian passage to Turkey or Poland, but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

They confirmed they have Ukrainian passports.

Anyone know about this?

Have you seen any current proof of address such as an electricity bill? I imagine they've got paperless billing in Ukraine...

Tulipomania · 30/03/2022 10:36

I don't have any reason to doubt their story, we haven't started the sponsorship process yet, and will do more due diligence if we do. I just don't know if they will be able to get out of Crimea, and I don't want to start the process unless we know they can get out of there, as it is controlled by Russia.

LaurelGrove · 30/03/2022 13:48

Signing in to keep up to date on the thread and see how people get on. We've been matched with a woman currently in Poland who made it out last week from eastern Ukraine. She's submitted her visa application and we're waiting to hear.
I gave her my details by email so she could complete the form. My passport has expired so the website form wouldn't accept it, which means so far I've submitted no proof of ID to anyone. Does anyone know what happens next - will the Home Office contact me directly for some kind of ID check? They have my address, DOB etc for (I presume) a DBS check but that usually needs proof of ID.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 30/03/2022 14:30

Our family are still waiting, though when they had their visa centre appointment on 22nd they were told it would be 3 days.
Dh and I have had a letter from the council confirming they have our details and will be contacting us in due course but when he spoke to them this morning it turned out they don’t yet even have plans for how they will be doing the checks, let alone actually starting them.
Meanwhile I am stressing like crazy because a number of people on Twitter have said the home office has told them visas won’t be issued till all checks are completed. This contradicts the government guidance for councils but nonetheless it is making me extremely anxious because it seems there is a risk of people being trapped in an impossible situation where the council won’t do checks till the guests are here but the home office won’t issue the visa until the checks are done.
What an utter fucking mess. The Home Office should be ashamed of themselves.

LaurelGrove · 30/03/2022 16:02

I got a call just now from the council - they are initiating the checks on our home and the DBS check although the visa hasn't been issued, so certainly my local authority isn't waiting. The person I spoke to was really good - I had some confidence that they at least have a plan, even if the Home Office is making it up as they go.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 30/03/2022 16:12

Yes, some councils have definitely got their act together more than others.

Original poster

EezyOozy · 30/03/2022 17:53

Interesting chat on Facebook PM radio4 just now, Starts about halfway through.

OP posts:

Shiloh139 · 30/03/2022 23:27

@LaurelGrove

I got a call just now from the council - they are initiating the checks on our home and the DBS check although the visa hasn't been issued, so certainly my local authority isn't waiting. The person I spoke to was really good - I had some confidence that they at least have a plan, even if the Home Office is making it up as they go.

Wow, that is a good sign that your local council have contacted you so quickly. It will be interesting to start hearing from people who are getting the visas granted with timescales if how long it took.

The lady I've matched with had her visa centre appointment in Turkey today and it was an absolute nightmare. They were insisting that her 9 yr old Ukrainian son also needed to give his Biometrics there (he definitely doesn't) and wouldn't process her application as the son didn't have an application they could locate on their system. I had to screenshot the government website confirming he didn't need an appointment and other info. They eventually agreed to process her application only and we can only hope they've done it correctly.

Shiloh139 · 30/03/2022 23:32

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

Shiloh139 - my prospective guests had to go to the visa centre because the mum is Uzbek and although both her Uzbek passport and her UA permanent residence card have biometrics this apparently doesn’t count so she had to give it again, and also because their 3 children under 5 don’t have passports. I think they had to do biometrics as well

They haven’t yet heard afaik even though it is more than the 3 days.

I didn’t really help much with the forms in the end as I started and got to the end of the first bit which was our information, and emailed the Ukrainians to ask for theirs, and we decided between us it was simpler to give them our information and them do the forms, though we phoned the helpline to clarify about the visa centre. The husband speaks reasonable English.
The helpline was good and was answered quickly so definitely call if you are having trouble.

Thanks. It's good to hear a positive about the call centre. I'm going to try them in the morning. I eventually got all the documents uploaded for the lady and child I've matched with but on logging in today to check progress, the documents have disappeared and it looks like they've never been uploaded. Some research has shown that lots of people are experiencing this issue, some of them have resubmitted the documents 3-4 times and they keep disappearing. The i online paper reported that the government said this is correct but I've not got much faith in that!

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 31/03/2022 07:48

The tv art historian Bendor Grosvenor, who has talked on Twitter about his problems applying, mentioned the disappearing document problem too.

DesdamonasHandkerchief · 31/03/2022 10:37

We are sponsoring 3 Ukrainian women (all friends) I submitted their visa applications from here on the Friday afternoon that the website went live. One of them received their U.K. visa two days ago, the other two are still to hear. Hopefully today.
We've jumped through all the hoops set out by the local council and filled in all the forms, had a home visit, video calls and dbs checks (even though my husband and I already hold current dbs certificates 🙄)
The whole thing seems to go on and on, we were hoping they'd be in the U.K. on the 25th March now another week has gone by. Hopefully next week, the fact that one of them has been issued a visa is at least heartening.

Original poster

EezyOozy · 31/03/2022 11:18

That is heartening @DesdamonasHandkerchief . We applied last Thursday and we are hoping they could be here this weekend…… It seems that people that applied around the same time are getting visas through, slowly but surely. I hope your remaining lady gets her approval soon.

OP posts:

Bonelesschuck · 31/03/2022 11:23

@LaurelGrove

I got a call just now from the council - they are initiating the checks on our home and the DBS check although the visa hasn't been issued, so certainly my local authority isn't waiting. The person I spoke to was really good - I had some confidence that they at least have a plan, even if the Home Office is making it up as they go.

Which department of the council was it? I missed a call from the council now a week ago and no calls since (it's impossible to have my phone at my side every second of the day). I was hoping I could call them but unless i know the department the switchboard is useless.

DesdamonasHandkerchief · 31/03/2022 11:26

BonelessChuck our home visit was done by the environmental health department of the council, although the rest of the paperwork and video calls were dealt with by a different person in a different department.

Original poster

EezyOozy · 31/03/2022 12:56

I contacted Scottish Borders Council to check if they wanted to do some checks prior to my guests visas being issued. Their response was very long way of saying "we don't yet know what we are supposed to be doing, who exactly is going to do it, or when it is supposed to happen… But any of the checks we need to do won't hold up your guests travel".

OP posts:

Firefliess · 31/03/2022 17:34

I've had a letter from my county council saying that the city/district council will be doing checks. But they've not got in touch about them yet. Someone on a local FB group who applied for her person's visa at the same time as me got the same letter and called the council to try to arrange the home visit but they didn't know anything about them. But as it doesn't look at if they'll hold up visas for councils being slow I guess it doesn't matter too much

ilovebrie8 · 31/03/2022 19:57

Is it only Ukrainians that can come on this scheme? Sorry I’m confused a poster is talking about a woman who is Uzbek applying to come with this scheme? How is that possible am guessing she/family were living in Ukraine? It’s not straight forward ...

Original poster

EezyOozy · 31/03/2022 20:00

they need to have a Ukrainian passport. I had a Turkish friend who had been living in Kyiv for around six years and he had to go back to Turkey, he couldn't apply to come here under the sponsorship scheme.

OP posts:

ilovebrie8 · 31/03/2022 20:11

Ah right I did wonder ...so they have to hold a Ukrainian passport to be eligible under this scheme? The home office is a shambles believe me they are useless...you couldn’t make up their incompetence

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 31/03/2022 20:53

No, you don’t need a Ukrainian passport to be eligible under the scheme, you need to have been resident in Ukraine for a certain time. However, if you don’t have a Ukrainian international passport you need to go to a VAC to submit biometric information as well as filling in the forms.
The family coming to us (touch wood) is a Ukrainian father married to an Uzbek woman. She has a Ukrainian permanent resident card but her passport is Uzbek hence the need for the VAC visit.