The client was a Cameroonian national residing in Cameroon. We were instructed by her daughter, a British citizen residing in the UK and the sponsor for her visit visa application. Our client had previously applied for and been granted two 6-month visitor visas and two 2-year visitor visas; however, this was the first time she was seeking to apply for a 5-year visitor visa.

The purpose behind this application was a rather unique one. Our client had three young grandchildren (her daughter’s children) and had visited them numerous times in the past by way of her previous visitor visas. Her most recent visit to the UK had been to assist in caring for her daughter, who was a single parent, during the difficult final stages of her pregnancy with her youngest child, as well as to care for her other grandchildren. Sadly, our client’s youngest grandchild was diagnosed with a rare medical condition at birth, and accordingly required extensive medical treatment and surgical procedures, which doctors confirmed would be ongoing indefinitely. Thus, our client sought to apply for a 5-year visitor visa so that she would be able to travel to the UK to visit, assist, and care for her family whenever necessary.

Visitor visas are notoriously hard to obtain. The most common reason for refusal is that the Home Office is not satisfied, based on the evidence that has been provided, that the applicant will leave the UK by or before the expiry of the visa. Furthermore, although it helped significantly that our client had always complied with her visa conditions in the past, there was a clear pattern of our client increasing the length of the visitor visa every couple of applications. Therefore, it was crucial to provide as much evidence as possible that there were convincing reasons for our client to: (a) apply for a 5-year visitor visa, (b) never remain in the UK for more than 6 months at a time over the course of the visa, and (c) return to Cameroon before the expiry of the visa.

A non-exhaustive list of elements that we used to strengthen the application were the following:

• Evidence to establish the mother-daughter relationship between our client and her daughter;
• Our client resided in Cameroon with her husband, who was not seeking to apply for a visitor visa himself;
• Our client was self-employed with her husband in Cameroon;
• Our client and her husband owned their own home in Cameroon, evidenced by property ownership documents;
• Our client had a bank account which clearly showed she had sufficient savings to cover her own costs during visits to the UK;
• Our client had another daughter and grandchildren living in Cameroon;
• Evidence that our client had complied with previous visitor visa applications, and that the reasons she gave when applying for those visas were true;
• Medical reports, school and social worker letters, and other official documents obtained by our client’s daughter. These confirmed details such as the youngest child’s medical conditions, our client’s previous involvement in caring for her grandchildren, and substantiated the facts and reasons outlined in both the application itself and our detailed cover letter for the application.

Just over two weeks after our client attended her visa application centre appointment in Cameroon, we received notification that her passport was ready for collection. Within it was contained the 5-year visitor visa.

Both our client and her daughter were elated and relieved at the successful outcome. Our client was now comfortably able to travel to and leave the UK whenever needed instead of worrying about having to submit regular applications for new visitor visas. Our client’s daughter was also reassured that she had the option to have her mother support her during desperate times. We were thrilled that we were able to assist this mother and daughter to maintain their heart-warming relationship.