Stolen Passport

Some things are not very clear and make answering difficult.
1. Looking at the fine of $2000 it indicates that you had no visa for nearly a year?
2. Your remark that UK passport office said it's not your passport indicates there was something irregular or wrong with your application?
3. Usually you can get an emergency travel document from the embassy, with that you could have extended your visa. I know it's too late now, just thinking.

If all was and is regular, with no hick-ups, you could ask your embassy to confirm that your passport was stolen then and then and that it took nearly a year to replace it. With that document you can try to convince immigration that you're not guilty of overstaying, but had no passport to put a visa in. Hope they accept it, it depends on do they believe the whole story. Good luck.

Been there and done that i took all the paperwork there.But they claim i can still buy a visa with out passport .But i was unaware of this and i was with passport since last september

sorry to read about your problem.

I also got fined for overstaying as my passport was "stolen" by the UK passport Office in Liverpool. (The renewal process took 15 weeks instead of the stated three weeks) That meant that I overstayed my TRC and my Work Prmit as I could NOT renew them without a passport. The UK Embassy were reluctant to issue an Emergency Travel Document as the holdup was in the UK Passprt Office. All in all the police and the Government here were all very sympathetic that it was NOT my fault BUT it was NOT their fault either and I was made to pay the fine for overstaying apply for and pay for a Bisiness Visa and redo the whole Work Permit and TRC application when I got my new passport. My only consolation is that my fine was quite a bit less than the one that you face.

They state at least 8 weeks after reception of the application....

<Your application will take at least 8 weeks from when it's received by Her Majesty's Passport Office in the UK.>

And for the stolen passport renewal:

<Your application will take at least 12 weeks from when it's received by Her Majesty's Passport Office in the UK.>


With that in mind it would be wise to apply for renewal in time, with a overlap of at least 4 weeks or more. I know it's too late now, but maybe someone else can use the info.

JoeKhmer,

It may state 8 weeks at the moment but in my case it stated three weeks from the old passport application arriving in UK. At that point in time the Liverpool Passport Office were understaffed, over worked OR just plain Bolshie and created a backlog of many thousands of passport issues that caused the time to extend to mare than three months. I do NOT want to recount the number of times people told me that I should have anticipated that the replacement passport might be delayed. I had already allowed for a period of nine weeks which should have been an adequate period to get the new passport and renew my work and resident permits for Vietnam. Of couse hindsight is an exact science!

I'm sorry to hear and I can feel the anger of waiting so long.

However, UK residents are very fortunate (as opposed to Dutch) in that the remaining validity of a passport will be added up, even up until 9 months. So one could apply for renewal up to 9 months before it expires, a quite comfortable situation.

When living in Thailand I had to have 6 months left in my passport, to apply for a year extension of stay. I had only 4 months left, so was forced to get a new one. The new one, applied early April, was stamped April 6, although the old expiration date was August... I lost 4 months.

I hope someone reading this can use it, when applying 8-9 months before expiration all should be well in time and no loss of "left" months in the old passport.

Excuse me. I have a question. Since I have lost my passport as well, I am curious how the "fine" was calculated. I have been looking for my missing passport for two weeks now with no results. I made an informal report to the police in the area. No paper work has been filed. Very curious how they will calculate my "fine". Do you know?

It is based on a daily rate for each day that you have overstayed your visa.

Thanks! Appreciate you quick response. I just had a 1yr visa renewal. Wonder how that will work when I hit the paper mill. I am sure they will get some money from me. Maybe even have to leave and come back. Yikes! I heard rumors that it is $5.00 a day.