Hi,

I hope if you can provide us some insight here, despite the fact that I am not of Philipinnes origin

The situation is as follows:

Parent: British Citizen, has a child from first marriage. The child has always lived in India, since her birth, with her grandparents. The parent has been visiting, calling and financially helping the full upbringing of her child. The parent even has UK 'Residence Order'.

Applicant: 6 year old child (daughter), who is an Indian Citizen. She is being cared for by her grandparents.

Application: In October 2013, an application was made by the daughter to apply for Entry-Clearance to UK.
ECO Decision : Last week, the ECO refused the entry-clearance, stating that the Parent/Sponsor doesn't meet the required £18,600 'Finance Requirement'.

We think that the ECO has applied wrong rule; the generic rule where £18,600 needs to be proven in case of Spouses, etc. Rule 297 (which I believe this application falls under) doesn't mention anything about £18,600 financial requirement. Only 'adequate accomodation' needs to be proven and we had already submitted relevant documents for that. We are extremely frustrated because of this.

(1) We have been consistently told my various people/forums/lawyers that the appeal route would favour us but it WILL take anytime between 3 months to 9 months.

We are NOT prepared to wait that long. We need to bring over the daughter asap, since the grandparents' health is rapidly deteriorating. We need to assess whether to APPEAL or RE-APPLY with stronger documents to nullify the refusal-reasons. So, we are leaning towards Re-application because its much quicker and we are willing to supply extra documentation towards financial requirements (despite us thinking that it's wrong rule).

** What is your advice in this matter? Appeal or Re-Apply?

(2) The parent can still not satisfy £18,600 income rule. but to mitigate the risk of the ECO refusing the Re-Applicaton (again), on the basis of finances....
** do you think that adding a second Sponsor (The Stepfather) will help?
** Is co-sponsor/joint-sponsorship allowed in such cases?

Help appreciated.
Kind Regards
Mpat