Visa Company Witholding Passport - Legal Rights?

teemsta

My girlfriend recently attempted to organise a business trip to India. She supplied a third party company to organise her visa, but unfortunately due to reasons unknown it was referred.

This dragged on for a couple of weeks and now the trip has been cancelled. She needs her passport back, but the company is refusing to return it until all owed funds have been paid.

Now I understand this company needs paying for their time and to be honest this is something they and her company need to thrash out, but my question is can they legally withhold her passport? Surely not, but I really want to find out her legal rights.

Hintza

So let's just clarify.

Your GF owes a company and she has decided not to pay and expects them to return her passport?

Might not be strictly legal but what are you going to do about it? Especially when it gets lost.

Why not just pay them?

teemsta

No No, she has been told by her company (who was funding this trip) to say they will not pay. They plan to drag this through a solicitor, which obviously could take ages. She is stuck in the middle.

This is by the by, my question is can they legally withhold her passport and if not what can be done?

Hintza

You could try talking to the passport office. But my point being even if it is not legal they hold the passport and have the power. I'm sure you could take it to court but it might be easier paying and then taking it to court. Put pressure on her company to sort it out one way or the other.

DVardysShadow

She really needs to separate her personal capacity as passport owner from her business capacity as contract contact for the visa deal. And she needs to make this clear to the visa company. They have no right to hold her passport, they have no dispute with her personally.

garth549

If the said company is based in England she could maybe threaten to get a county court injunction if what they are doing is unlawful or grossly unfair

Jinx

If the company will not return her passport, Id apply for a new one and claim it through my company expenses! Cant believe they let her get in a position like this.....

Equaliser123

garth549 wrote: »

If the said company is based in England she could maybe threaten to get a county court injunction if what they are doing is unlawful or grossly unfair

And that will cost an absolute fortune.

Equaliser123

I would be inclined to query their actions with the Police and the Passport Office. It seems unlikely that there is a contractual right to do this over something as sensitive as a passport.

TRRER

i would ring ask for passport back, if refused, straight down the police station report the theft, and who has the passport now, the police go and retrieve passport

Equaliser123

TRRER wrote: »

i would ring ask for passport back, if refused, straight down the police station report the theft, and who has the passport now, the police go and retrieve passport

You have higher confidence in Plod than I do.