Never Received Decision Letter Case is now Closed

[alexal]

I applied for a family sponsorship to sponsor my dependent. The sponsorship was approved in Canada and then the application went to the CIC office in my dependent's country. The CIC web site updated that a decision was made back in Feb 2014 but I never received a final decision letter. I requested the electronic file from CIC with the notes and it states that the application has a status of Closed and that it was a refusal back in Feb 2014. It seems to indicate in the notes a refusal letter was sent but nobody has received the refusal letter. Not me or my dependent or my lawyer representing me at the time. I understand that I should have the right to appeal but how can I appeal without the refusal letter and now the application is closed. I am now writing to the CIC office in my dependent's country to see if I can get the letter but I'm not sure if they can reopen the case and allow me to appeal now. It doesn't seem right that it got closed but I never received the final letter.

 

[Rob_TO]

I applied for a family sponsorship to sponsor my dependent. The sponsorship was approved in Canada and then the application went to the CIC office in my dependent's country. The CIC web site updated that a decision was made back in Feb 2014 but I never received a final decision letter. I requested the electronic file from CIC with the notes and it states that the application has a status of Closed and that it was a refusal back in Feb 2014. It seems to indicate in the notes a refusal letter was sent but nobody has received the refusal letter. Not me or my dependent or my lawyer representing me at the time. I understand that I should have the right to appeal but how can I appeal without the refusal letter and now the application is closed. I am now writing to the CIC office in my dependent's country to see if I can get the letter but I'm not sure if they can reopen the case and allow me to appeal now. It doesn't seem right that it got closed but I never received the final letter.

Your timing seems off... you got DM and refusal 2 years ago, but you're just inquiring now how to appeal?

 

[alexal]

No. The web site indicated DM Feb 2015 (sorry I had the year wrong). I NEVER received a decision letter. I inquired CIC for the electronic notes recently (can't remember what they are called). On December 2015 a few weeks ago I received the electronic notes and the case was stated as close and notes seem to indicate refusal letter was sent in Feb 2015. But I nor my lawyer nor the dependent ever received a decision letter. So we had no chance to appeal

 

[Rob_TO]

Did the notes say what the refusal was for? Sounds like if they had a wrong address on file, they may have sent a request that you didn't get, and since you didn't respond they closed the file.

In this case you can sometimes ask them to re-open the file since you never received the initial request.

Else if the refusal was for some other reason, then you'd have to decide if you wanted to appeal or try to fix the problem and simply re-apply.

 

[alexal]

Thanks I'm writing to them to tell them nobody ever received the refusal letter. We did receive previous correspondence from them but did have some trouble with some other correspondence with them. Not sure what the problem is because they seem to have the right address.

 

[Rob_TO]

The notes should have some indication of exactly why the app was rejected.

 

[alexal]

Yes I know why it was rejected unfortunately appeal is the only option. But we can't appeal without the decision letter and we never received it! Am writing to the CIC office to explain we never received the letter. Thanks so much for you responses. We do have some other options if this doesn't work out.