2011-Oct 07: Residence and onshore temporary decline letters

Visa Pak 37- Information about Residence and onshore temporary decline letters and how these should be communicated.

Visa Paks

7 October 2011

Residence and onshore temporary decline letters

 
An appeal has been lodged with the Immigration Protection Tribunal where the application was declined by email. This has raised the question of when the decline notice was deemed to have been served and consequently when the appeal period started.

 An Internal Administration Circular (No 11/03) “Emailing letters to customers” dated 1 April 2011, formalized the position that INZ’s preferred method for sending letters to customers is through email. However there are exceptions as detailed below in points 15 and 16 of the IAC.

Exceptions:
15. There are some instances where physical letters are more appropriate than emailed letters, for example residence decline letters; or when documents are being returned anyway; or if customers have a specific need to show a third party their INZ communication on formal letterhead (eg an employer).
16. Please remember that if a client is using an Immigration Adviser, then the Adviser is the point of contact, even if the client provides an email address and the Adviser does not. In such cases, letters should be physically sent to the Adviser.”

Action
It has been clarified that officers must send a hard copy of all residence and onshore temporary decline letters to the physical address of the applicant or adviser although an email version may also be sent. Officers do not need to provide a hard copy of the IPT appeal forms but must provide the link to the IPT website which is standard text in residence decline letters.

All other forms of communication can be made electronically.

Affected branches and applications
Branches must check that all residence declines in the last 2 working weeks were sent by letter. If any were only sent by email, then hard copy versions of the same letters must be sent immediately.