# London Office Processing time suddenly 29 months from 11? (Outland family class)



## clwillia (Jul 27, 2014)

Hi everyone!

So my South African husband (who is currently on a student visa in UK) and I submitted our Outland Family class visa (spouse) on December 2, 2014. As I do every weekend, I check to see if our application has been opened yet (Nope, still on November 10th 2014s). Since we submitted our application, the processing time for the sponsor (me) portion has gone from 65 days to 90 days, which is inconvenient, but not the end of the world.

However, I looked today and the London office ---where my husband's principal applicant portion would be processed ---and the wait time went from 11 months to 29 months!

Does anyone know what happened? Now choosing Pretoria as the processing office with 19 months seems like the best choice (it is never the best choice).

I cannot bear the idea of being apart for 3 years when we were told outland spousal visas (no dependents) were generally processed within a year or so. 

I suppose you cannot push a glacier to make it move faster. :/


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## clwillia (Jul 27, 2014)

I suppose I will partially answer my own question. This is apparently due to the backlog in the Islamabad office:



> What's going on with the Mississauga/Ottawa/London situation for British outland applicants?
> 
> In 2014, applicants applying via Islamabad found their applications were being forwarded directly to London instead of to Islamabad after sponsor approval. In addition, a number of applicants from late 2013 and early 2014 were informed that their applications were transferred from Islamabad to London. This was done to help alleviate the mass backlog experienced in Islamabad (~33 months processing time).
> 
> ...


If anyone knows more than this, I'd love to hear from you.


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## khan_d (Feb 13, 2015)

Perfect. All the files from Pakistan have been moved to London office.


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