How to appeal a visa D refusal
Unfortunately, Bulgarian authorities are increasingly refusing to grant D visas. Visas for spouses of Bulgarian citizens are also being refused en masse. The huge number of refusals is also due to Bulgaria’s Schengen accession, due to which the Bulgarian authorities have probably made certain commitments that have not been publicly announced. In any case, however, our advice is to appeal the refusal to issue a visa D immediately!
If you have been denied a visa D and do not appeal the decision, this means that you accept the authorities’ arguments. This, in turn, means that any subsequent visa D applications you submit will be viewed with a great deal of skepticism and distrust.
Appeal deadline
If your visa D application is denied, you have 14 days to appeal the decision in court. If you do not do so within this period, the denial becomes final and cannot be reversed. Your only option then is to reapply. However, as we noted above, your next visa D application will be viewed by the authorities with a great deal of prejudice. After all, it is difficult to imagine that there will be an official in Bulgaria who will approve your visa application after it has already been rejected by one of his colleagues.
How to appeal?
To have a realistic chance of successfully overturning your denied visa D, you must appeal the administrative authority’s denial in court. To do so, you will need an experienced immigration attorney who has extensive experience in the field of immigration law. Hiring an attorney who primarily practices in other areas of law is not recommended.
What happens if you win the case in court?
If you win the case, the court will most likely oblige the administrative body to review your application and make a new decision. This means that you are not required to resubmit your documents to the embassy, but only to wait for the new decision in line with the court’s conclusions. In this case, the authorities cannot refuse you for the same reasons as in the initial refusal. This is because these reasons have already been deemed unfounded by the court in the course of the proceedings. In practice, no new reasons for refusal can be put forward because none were given in the initial refusal.
Unfortunately, however, the Bulgarian authorities have “come up with a solution”. It is standard practice for them to disregard the court’s decision and require you to reapply for a visa D. This not only makes things difficult for you, as you have to gather the necessary documents again, go to the embassy once more, and start from scratch. Worse still, when you reapply, your visa may be refused again, on virtually any ground. You can read about a similar case in our article – Shame on you Bulgarian Embassy in New Delhi.
For assistance in case of Visa D refusal
If you or your relative has been denied a visa D, we advise you to contact us immediately. Timing is extremely important, because the 14-day appeal period is very short. If we start in time, our lawyers will take all necessary legal steps to overturn the rejection in court.
Of course, the best outcome is to avoid a refusal altogether. Therefore, it’s always best to contact us for assistance before applying for a the visa D. Our experience and reputation have helped a large number of foreigners obtain the long-awaited visa in the shortest possible time.
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