Ankou13

Hi Alexa, I'm in a very similar situation. Has your visa been issued yet? If so how long did it take after submitting the original? Cheers, Jerome

I think they gave me a hard time on the French police certificate mainly because I didn't have the original UK certificate. I'm fairly sure that if I had turned up with the original UK certificate they wouldn't have looked twice at the French certificate. My lawyer was also surprised, and double checked the reciprocity provisions and confirmed it was weird. Also worth noting there's no longer any wet ink or secured paper certificates issued, even when you get the physical copy in the mail. This was confirmed to me by the French issuing authority. Instead, authenticity can be verified with the code on the certificate which matches a time of issue in their database. Long story short, shouldn't be an issue as long as the rest of your docs are fine.

Thank you! Still says refused, but last updated today, so maybe there is some hope for progress soon...

Unfortunately having a bit more of a difficult experience than most applicants at the interview stage, so wanted to share with the community. After being DQ'd end of September, had my interview on 16 November, and was surprised to find out that the original police records (UK and France) I brought along were in fact, copies. That was my mistake, driven mainly by the fact that the French certificate is no longer printed on secured paper so any copy looks like the original. The second part of the interview (interview itself) went well, but I was served with the green notice requiring me to submit the originals. I immediately traced back the originals to my parent's address in France and had them mail the documents with priority/tracked the day of the interview. Unfortunately what followed was Royal Mail losing the letter with the originals for 3 weeks and being unable to tell me where it was or give me an indicative delivery date - it actually only got delivered today. I ended up requesting new originals from the French and UK police on 23 November which took over a week to arrive due to Royal Mail again (strikes didn't help). I eventually sent the originals by courier earlier this week so hoping for a quick turnaround now. It's been really difficult missing Thanksgiving and being stranded in the UK with no sense of when I was going to get home and reunited with my wife. Does anybody have a sense of how quickly the embassy turns the documents around in this situation? It seems that most people have been getting their passports back 2-3 days after being accepted during the interview. Should I expect a similar turnaround time or is the 5-10 business days indicated on the green form more realistic? Also I wasn't able to find out where I can see the status change on CEAC - any help would be appreciated! Anyway, a lesson for everyone - triple check that your originals are indeed your originals, and have all your docs in one place the whole process!