Character waiver timescale

[chasingfearne]

Hi all!
So our CO has been in touch re my partner's residency visa application, advising that the only thing left outstanding is the character waiver assessment which needs to be carried out (my OH has a bit of a criminal history). She has advised that, due to the fact that the nature of the crime was relatively minor, it is unlikely that the waiver request will be rejected. My question is, how long does it take for the assessment to be completed?
My OH's application was submitted on December 13th. I don't really want to pester our CO (she isn't the one carrying out the CW assessment anyway - her manager is). But does anyone have any experience with this? We have submitted all the necessary letters of support, etc - literally nothing else is required of us.
Any help would be appreciated!

[G-Mo]

It's my understanding there is no set timescale... It could be a couple of weeks (common) to a couple of months.

[theduke]

For my character waiver I sent the further details (character references etc) on 15/11/2012 and was given an answer on 24/12/2012. I hope all goes well with your application.

[chasingfearne]

Thank you both for your replies. I believe that the manager would have received the application documents on 17th December, which will be four weeks on Sunday. Hopefully that means we will have feedback at some point over the next couple weeks. If (fc) the waiver is approved, what is the next step in the process?

[Manks]

Do remember that the Xmas hols were in the middle and that may have created a bit of a backlog of work for the manager.

Fingers crossed for a speedy (and successful) decision.

[chasingfearne]

Very true. Think I might have to try and distract myself from thinking about it; time lags the more you do...

[JandM]

If (fc) the waiver is approved, what is the next step in the process?

You can't tell. The CO has to check out character, health, and partnership proof, and might do that in any order. Unless, of course, you'd already been told the Character Waiver was the last thing. Anyway, when all the checks are done, your CO will have to have the file second-person checked before letting you know the decision - that just means that another official looks everything over, checking for errors, and as a guard against the possibility of corruption. There can be a wait for the 2nd-person stage, as with all the INZ office processes, depending on volume of work, or at other times, it can go through within a day or two.

[chasingfearne]

You can't tell. The CO has to check out character, health, and partnership proof, and might do that in any order. Unless, of course, you'd already been told the Character Waiver was the last thing. Anyway, when all the checks are done, your CO will have to have the file second-person checked before letting you know the decision - that just means that another official looks everything over, checking for errors, and as a guard against the possibility of corruption. There can be a wait for the 2nd-person stage, as with all the INZ office processes, depending on volume of work, or at other times, it can go through within a day or two.

Thank you :-)
I was told that the character waiver was the last thing that needed to be carried out, so hopefully it will thereafter be handed to someone for double checking...provided the CW is approved of course.

[suryasun]

Hello Chasingfearne, I hope you must have received your CW by now. If YES, i just want to know what exactly the process was and how much time did it take? Our case officer informed us that he has initiated the CW process on jan 26th 2013. We did not hear anything yet.