I’m livid.
I found out a couple of days ago that I need to extend my wife’s spouse visa due to an immigration error, just so that I we have the privilege of living in the country long enough to apply for permanent residency.
That doesn’t sound like a terrible thing until you consider the current charges for ‘form processing’. To extend her current visa will cost £395. To apply for permanent residency will cost £750. If you add into that the money that we originally paid for her visa (I don’t recall exactly, but it was in the hundreds – let’s say £300), you get a grand total of £1445. Here are some conversions for clarity:
| British Pounds | 1,445 |
| US Dollars | 2,863 |
| Korean Won | 2,708,028 |
| Euros | 2,135 |
Now, for most people – certainly for me – if this isn’t the money I take home after a month’s work, it’s most of it.
But what does this pay for. What am I getting for this?
This money is necessary to process the forms that will allow no action to be take against my wife.
Ultimately, the service I get from the government for a month’s salary is an assurance that the government will not break down my front door in the middle of the night, drag my wife from her bed, put her in a van, drive her to the airport and put her on the first plane to Korea.
There’s a word for this.
Extortion.
Posted in government |