Have I been granted the UK spouse visa?

Question

I received the following email from Home Office. Did I get the visa? Your help would highly be appreciated.

I am writing to inform you that I have reviewed the decision made on 00/00/000 to refuse your application.

The original refusal decision has been withdrawn and a recommendation made to the Decision Making Centre where your original application was decided to grant entry clearance.

The reasons for the withdrawal are:

I have considered the documents that you have provided in response to the reasons why your application was refused. I note that Home Office tried to contact your sponsor’s employer on the 00/00/0000 and the number dialed was not in service.

In response I note the evidence from your sponsor’s employer which confirms that the business telephone number was changed on the 00/00/0000. Consequently on the balance of probabilities I accept that the employment is genuine. As a consequence I accept that the financial requirement under appendix FM is now met.

It will only be under rare circumstances that this withdrawal will not result in the grant of entry clearance. Such circumstances would be those that, even in the event of an allowed appeal, would cause the Secretary of State not to grant entry clearance. It is therefore submitted that there is no good reason not to permit the withdrawal. Pursuant to Tribunal Procedure Rule 17(2), the respondent respectfully requests that this appeal be withdrawn.

The Decision Making Centre will contact you in due course with further information about any next steps you need to take.

This letter is being copied to the Tribunal.

Yours sincerely,

Answer 1

The original refusal decision has been withdrawn and a recommendation made to the Decision Making Centre where your original application was decided to grant entry clearance.

Let's break this down; it could use some punctuation, so it is a bit unclear:

• The original refusal decision has been withdrawn
• and a recommendation made
• to the Decision Making Centre where your original application was decided
• to grant entry clearance.

The letter is not telling you that the visa will be granted, only that they have recommended that the visa be granted.

It seems likely that the recommendation would be followed, but the letter avoids saying anything definite. The reason for this is outlined in the last substantial paragraph, which says that there could be cases in which the recommendation would not be followed, but that these cases will be uncommon:

It will only be under rare circumstances that this withdrawal will not result in the grant of entry clearance. Such circumstances would be those that, even in the event of an allowed appeal, would cause the Secretary of State not to grant entry clearance. It is therefore submitted that there is no good reason not to permit the withdrawal. Pursuant to Tribunal Procedure Rule 17(2), the respondent respectfully requests that this appeal be withdrawn. The Decision Making Centre will contact you in due course with further information about any next steps you need to take.

This paragraph also closes with the news that you will (may?) be asked to take further steps before a final decision is made.

Answer 2

It looks 99.9% certain that your application has now been approved and that the correspondence from the Decision Making Centre referred to at the end of the email will shortly confirm this and/or any other steps you need to take.