# GWP renwal rejected



## Gifted83 (Jan 29, 2015)

Hello.

I am just after some advice on my current situation that has become very worrying to me. I also have appointments today with specialist.

I have lived in Cape Town for the last three years on a general work permit. My father moved here ten years ago and set up a business (he just got his permanent residency around 6 months ago which might help). I am working for his company in a management role.

My work visa expired on 24th January and i started work on the renewal last august. Due to all the postal strikes i was only able to finally submit my application December 15th much later than intended. Yesterday i received my rejection letter. 

My rejection was due to not obtaining a department of labour certification. This is because my immigration assistant wrongly assumed it was not required for renewal and instead sent to original documentation. Needless to say i am very angry with him. I understand he should of applied for a waiver before we submitted.

I now have 10 days to appeal and i am currently over my existing visa by 5 days and counting.

Obviously I cannot receive the department of labour certificate now as this process can take three months. What would be your recommendation? I'm scared to leave the country as obviously i will be banned, and my wife is in the exact same position with her spouse visa. I cannot afford to leave as now as it will have drastic effects on the business as well as the fact that we now have everything here, even our two dogs.

Is it possible to appeal with a request to allow more time to obtain the department of labour certificate. In the meantime try as hard as possible to get the certificate.

If they come back with another rejection before i manage to get the certificate can i appeal again?

If i continue to stay here with appeals lodged am i making my situation worse?

I see no reason for the application to be refused with the correct paperwork. I had no problems with the original permit and my situation/position has not changed at all since then.

Thanks for any help.


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## LegalMan (Dec 26, 2012)

Sorry to hear about your experience.

Yes, you need to appeal ASAP (ideally with better assistance).


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## Fynbos (Jan 8, 2015)

Hi Gifted

Based on your query, two issues can be identified:
1. The Overstay
2. The Rejection

1. The Overstay needs to be dealt with separately and could possibly be the most worrying aspect, since you would need to provide good reasons for overstaying. Staying in the country while an application for a visa/permit is pending is no longer accepted, since the law changed in May 2014. You would probably need some legal advice and a lawyer to look at the situation with more care in order to negotiate with the Dept. of Home Affairs on your behalf.
You could potentially negotiate for a relative's visa based on your dad's PR, but note that you are not allowed to work on a relative's visa. Although this does not solve your work visa issue, it does solve your problem in terms of first re-obtaining a legal standing again in the country.

2. I agree with Legalman, you need to appeal immediately an ask for time to submit the DOL certificate or to obtain the waiver. This will also depend on what the wording of the rejection letter is. The DOL, as you pointed out, takes about 3 months. The problem lies with the process at Head Office (not necessarily the provincial offices where the applications are handed in) where a massive backlog is frustrating the process. You wouldn't be able to resubmit a new application as you currently have no valid visa/permit to apply from.

These two issues need to be considered in conjunction with each other in order to find the best strategy, as you also cannot have two visa applications pending at the same time.


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## LegalMan (Dec 26, 2012)

Hi Gifted83, 

Right, this is what you have to do:

You need to submit an appeal (before the 10 working day stipulation) with proof that your employer has have applied for the Department of Labour certificate or in the very least, that your employer has placed an advert for your position in the national jobmail and that your employer has begun the Department of Labour Process). 

The appeal should also be accompanied by a_ letter of good cause_ signed by your employer requesting understanding from the Department of Home Affairs. As soon as your employer has received the certificate, it must be scanned through to the appeals section and then a certfied copy couriered to the Head Office with all relevant reference numbers for your application, so they can match it up. 

Good luck!


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## Gifted83 (Jan 29, 2015)

Hi Guys,

I thought I would just write a post with my outcome.

Whilst I was researching It would really annoy me when I found a situation similar to mine but there was no outcome. So if this can help just one other person it will be worth it. 

Ok so I hired a new immigration consultant who recommended similar ways forward after looking through my files.

We decided to negotiate for a switch to a relatives visa and demonstrate that in the meantime I was making every effort to obtain my department of labour certificate including filling all the forms and advertising my position in a national paper. They had a case in JHB which was nearly identical when I looked through the file and it was successful with this approach. 

8 Weeks later my result was in and I went to Cape town only to receive ANOTHER REJECTION! – they simply refused on the bases that I had already overstayed by 17 days… and now as I had been waiting for the result it was an overstay of 60 days.

My only options then was to try and legalise my overstay, or return to the UK and overturn an overstay ban. After research and advice, the legalization can be very difficult and still not guaranteed so I decided to just start again in the UK.

I prepared the overstay appeals for both myself and my wife who had not yet received her rejection letter (but it was obviously coming) and we also prepared two full relatives applications ready to submit to South Africa house in London the moment the bans got lifted – Thankfully my immigration consultant did all of this for free as they couldn’t believe the original appeal was not successful. 

When we left at Cape Town airport I laid everything out on the poor passport control officers desk and explained the situation. Amazingly he chose not to issue me with a ban on the basis that I left within 10 days of my rejection letter. This was a shock as my immigration guys said they had never had anyone manage to do this, plus my letter clearly stated I was refused because I was already overstaying!

The frustrating thing was that they still insisted on giving my wife an overstay ban as she did not have a rejection letter yet, and only an application number – A lesson there for someone, if she waited for her rejection letter she would have also got through without a ban.

We submitted the overstay appeal for my wife the very next morning. Which was unfortunately just before easter weekend with all of the public holidays. We chased the appeal constantly but they refused to say anything other than – ‘Your appeal has been received and your outcome will be emailed to you when it has been finalized’. After three weeks we started to panic and thought it might never come through, so I decided I would hire a lawyer the next day to fight it. The following morning at 8am my iPad pinged with an email and letter that simply said all restrictions had been lifted. Relief!

Straight to London to submit our new relatives applications. (A tip for anyone going to SA house… get there at 8am sharp. They are religious about shutting at 11am, and by 9am opening there is already a huge line down the street. We didn’t get seen until 10:30). They gave us a collection date of 22nd May, exactly 1 month later.

Purely by coincidence our original return flight was two days later as we had hoped to resolve the whole thing in one month (not two!) – As they gave us our passports back I specifically asked for permission to return to SA for a month on a relatives visa, and would it in any way affect my application. They said it would be fine, provided we both returned in person on the 22nd for collection. 

So that’s exactly what we did.. I immediately booked another return flight (thankfully flights are really cheap at the moment) we spent 1 month back in Cape Town living our normal lives, and then we went to London for a long weekend just to collect our visas without any problems.

We now both have valid status and our permanent residency applications should be submitted in the next two weeks which should come through long before our current visa’s expire. 

Obviously the whole thing was 1 – VERY stressfull and 2 – very expensive. But at least we have a positive outcome and it was sorted relatively quickly…. Much quicker than sitting here trying to fight more appeals or legalisation - which in all likelihood would have been unsuccessful and put us in a much worse position being WAY overstayed. 

If the above helps anyone else out then great.

Good Luck


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## Gifted83 (Jan 29, 2015)

Just a correction above..... we returned to South Africa whilst we waited for our application to be completed on a standard 90 days visitors visa.. not 'relatives' obviously!


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## bridgit (Jan 15, 2015)

Phew! that was a long write up Gifted thank you very much and I believe one day it will surely help someone. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to pack up and walk away for a while, it seems impossible but when all is said and done you will realise it was the easiest path after all. Sometimes the fight just isn't worth it especially where the law itself is not clear cut. I also had to leave the country this year with an 18 month old in tow before our permits expired as we were waiting for hubby's renewal first. We went home for about 3 weeks and it ended up being a nice holiday especially for the baby and to cut a long story short tomorrow we are picking up our application outcomes(with about 60 days still left on our entry visas), fingers crossed they were approved. If we had forcefully stayed perhaps we would be in a worse situation now.


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