Applied for two year UK Standard Visitor visa - granted six months with no explanation

Question

I'm a British Citizen and my wife is Filipino. We live in Spain, and we'd like to visit the UK fairly regularly to see my family. My wife applied for a two year Standard Visitor visa so that we can visit regularly without needing to get a new visa each time.

The passport was returned today but the visa is only valid for six months. They haven't included awny letter or explanation of why the duration of the visa granted is less than what we applied for. The 'Document checklist' returned clearly says that the application is for 2 years.

Is it normal that they might only grant a six month visa when she applied for 2 years? If they were going to do that I'd expect that they'd at least include some explanation. We provided evidence of our marriage and my family in the UK so I don't think there should be any doubt that she has a reasonable reason to seek a 2 year visa over six months.

Does anybody if it's expected that this might happen without explanation? Is there any right of appeal? We've paid a lot of extra money to apply for the two year visa instead of six months and they've just granted six months without any explanation at all, which is frustrating.

Answer 1

There are several possibilities: either your wife has deliberately been granted 6 months instead of 2 years, or your wife has mistakenly been granted 6 months instead of 2 years, or your wife has been granted 2 years but the wrong vignette has been applied.

It is possible for a shorter duration to be granted than was applied for:

You can issue a shorter duration visa if the applicant meets the Visitor rules relevant to their visit, but you have concerns about issuing a long-term visit visa. Entry Clearance officers must obtain the authority of the Entry Clearance Manager before issuing a visit visa of shorter duration than that applied for.

You must provide clear reasons for the decision to grant a visa for a shorter period than that applied for in a covering letter when the passport is returned.

In such cases no refund (full or partial) is available.

Whatever has happened, it would be clear from the decision letter, which it seems you haven't been issued. In the first instance I would get in touch with your VAC, and ask if they wrong vignette has been applied, and mention you haven't got a decision letter. If the wrong vignette has been applied then they should be able to correct this.

Additionally, I would recommend you immediately make a 'specific' subject access request to the Home Office for the decision letter.

If the smaller grant of validity has been given, either deliberately or mistakenly, then there won't be a way to correct this short of applying for a new visa, and there is no right of appeal, nor way to get a refund. If a mistake has been made you might wish to make a complaint.