Single mother faces removal from UK over eVisa and admin errors

Persistent data issues with eVisas

On 31 December 2024, the paper-based immigration documents of millions of people living in the UK expired when the Home Office replaced them with a real-time, online-only immigration status.

Instead, people are now required to use a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) digital account to generate “share codes”, which they must use to prove their immigration status when dealing with a range of third parties, including employers and letting agencies.

Despite persistent data quality and integrity issues plaguing the system since its inception, which have left people unable to reliably prove their immigration status when needed, the current Home Office policy means the eVisa system is the only way people can evidence their lawful residence in the UK, as well as their associated rights and entitlements.

Unlike the old physical documents, the Home Office’s eVisa system does not provide a stable record of an individual’s immigration status. Instead, the system generates the status in real time every time someone needs to prove it, which is determined by trawling dozens of disparate databases to source the relevant information.

Given that millions of people are now required to prove their immigration status via the system, even a 1% error rate would mean tens of thousands of people are affected at the very least.

Speaking with people directly affected by eVisa technical failings, Computer Weekly has previously been told that not being able to reliably prove their immigration status is an “anxiety-inducing” experience.

Each also explained how the “inordinate amount of stress” associated with the process was made worse by a lack of responsiveness and help from the Home Office, which they accused of essentially leaving them in the lurch.

Digital Kafkaism

In this case, Von der Osten said she initially submitted a fee waiver application as a first step towards applying for the Family Route visa, knowing she had limited savings and would be unable to work for up to a year once her visa application was submitted.

This waiver application was made ahead of her previous Skilled Worker visa ending on 3 October 2025.

Because the fee waiver application was outstanding when the previous visa ended, Von der Osten was moved onto Section 3C leave, meaning her legal immigration status was being maintained while she awaited a decision from the Home Office.

While that waiver application was pending, Von der Osten began exploring the Global Talent visa route, understanding that it would allow her to return to work sooner and support her young child.

Part of this route required Von der Osten to be preliminarily endorsed by Arts Council England as an artist, which she applied for on 22 November 2025. This endorsement, if successful, would be a professional assessment of her work, not an application for immigration permission.

“Because I could not know whether I would receive the endorsement, I pursued the Family Route in parallel and never withdrew my fee waiver application, fully intending to rely on the Family Route if the endorsement was not approved,” she said.

Following this, Von der Osten received an email from the Home Office on 23 December 2025, telling her that it would “not consider” her fee waiver because its records indicated that a paid application was made on 22 November 2025.

That was the date Von der Osten applied for the Arts Council endorsement.

“You will be contacted regarding your paid application in due course,” the Home Office told her.

The department did not tell Von der Osten at this point that it considered her Section 3C leave to have ended, nor did it include the usual instructions explaining what she needed to do to preserve her immigration status. Her official UKVI digital status also confirmed: “You can stay in the UK until you receive a decision on your application.”

A successful endorsement from the Arts Council in late February 2026 then allowed Von der Osten to submit a Global Talent visa application on 11 March 2026.

But by the end of April, the Home Office was telling Von der Osten that she had submitted the Global Talent application “out-of-time”, informing her for the first time that it considered her fee waiver application to have been formally “rejected” on 23 December 2025 and her Section 3C leave to have ended on the same date.

In the same correspondence, despite previously taking Von der Osten’s Global Talent endorsement as a visa application, the Home Office noted itself that “an endorsement application is not a visa application”.

During this entire process, Von der Osten’s digital immigration status on her UKVI account continued showing that she had a right to remain, noting: “You can stay in the UK until you receive a decision on your application.”

Computer Weekly can confirm this remained in Von der Osten’s UKVI record through to 29 June 2026.

After the Home Office’s April 2026 correspondence, Von der Osten responded by immediately submitting a “comprehensive response with complete evidence”, including screenshots of her active UKVI status and the Home Office’s own communications.

This allowed the department to consider the discrepancy and reconsider its position before making a formal decision on her visa.

Nevertheless, the Home Office refused Von der Osten’s Global Talent application on 3 July 2026 because it considered her to have been an overstayer since December 2025.

My case asks what happens when the Home Office’s own digital records and case working processes contradict one another, and the individual bears the consequences

“Despite that evidence, the Home Office refused the application without adequately engaging with the material evidence and relevant considerations I had submitted, and I was told we no longer had permission to be in the UK,” she said.

Legal argument

According to Von der Osten’s legal team, the Home Office made a “critical legal error” in December 2025 when it mistook her Global Talent endorsement application for a visa application, which it then used as the basis to “not consider” her outstanding fee waiver for the Family Route visa.  

Their position is therefore that the Home Office’s 23 December communication did not amount to a lawful decision on the fee waiver application.

They will argue that, because the fee waiver therefore remained outstanding, Von der Osten’s Section 3C leave continued, meaning she was not an overstayer when the Global Talent application was submitted on 11 March 2026.

Von der Osten added that she was never given the opportunity to correct the department’s assumption that she was abandoning the Family Route, nor notified by the Home Office that it considered her lawful residence to have ended.

“Had I been made aware, I would have taken immediate steps to protect our lawful status. Instead, my official UKVI online account continued to show my immigration status as active and lawful. I relied on that official information in good faith,” she said.

According to Turpin, it is clear that, in mistaking her Global Talent endorsement submission as an actual visa application, the Home Office was wrong to “not consider” her outstanding fee waiver.

“They said ‘this supersedes your fee waiver application, so we’re not going to consider it’, but our legal challenge is essentially that the Home Office received the waiver application. It then failed to be granted or refused, with the Home Office simply saying it would not consider’,” he told Computer Weekly.

“If that’s right, then the waiver application is still pending, and she’s lawfully here. The plan is now to seek a judicial review.”

Turpin noted that while reasonable alternative remedies generally need to be exhausted before a judicial review can proceed, Von der Osten would not get a decision for another 12 months if she followed the Home Office’s administrative review route.

“We’ll have to argue that leaving her in this position for 12 months or more is not a reasonable alternative remedy, particularly when we keep in mind the hostile environment, which is designed to make life intolerable for people without status,” he said.

For Von der Osten, the practical consequence of the unresolved status dispute is that she has been unable to work after nearly 19 months, and is now depending on crowdfunding for living costs after exhausting her savings and her ability to take out further loans from friends and family.

The Home Office maintained its position following a formal Pre-Action Protocol challenge by Von der Osten’s legal team, and Judicial Review proceedings are now being prepared.

“What makes the case potentially significant beyond my own circumstances is the systems question it raises,” she said. 

“The government increasingly requires people to understand and prove their immigration position digitally. My case asks what happens when the Home Office’s own digital records and case working processes contradict one another, and the individual bears the consequences.”