Unmarried Partner questions - Please advise!

[ritfor]

Hello,

Wow, what a minefield!

I'm British and my girlfriend is (yeah that's right)

I have sooooo many questions and I must apologise in advance for my ignorance if any of these have been previously answered on this forum.

If anyone can help with any of our questions it would be much appreciated.

We live together in Bangkok. We have lived together for nearly 3 years.

We have lived in 3 different apartments!! One tenancy agreement was solely in my girlfriends name and the other two were solely in mine.

We have no joint agreement, no joint bank account etc.

From the previous two places, we don't have any bills, as back than we didn't think we would need them.

We only have letters from my mother in England, addressed to me individually, my girlfriend individually and to us jointly, birthday and christmas cards etc spanning the whole period, going to the same addresses.

We intend to approach our current landlord and our previous two, to write letters to confirm that we lived there together. Do these need to be authenticated by a lawyer here in Thailand?

We have thousands of photos over the whole period. The two of us, us with my family, us with her family. I have only been to the Philippines once.

We shall also get our parents to write letters stating that we have been in a relationship akin to marriage for over two years.

Can anyone see a problem here or offer any tips / advice?

I will have approximately 4000 pounds in the bank and a UK job offer which will leave sufficient funds after deductions to maintain ourselves in UK.

I work in Thailand and I shouldn't! I transfer money from my Thai bank account to my English account every month. Should I provide a 6 month bank statement? Or just a final balance letter form my UK bank?
If my means of income are going to be different once we return to UK, why might they require 6 months of statements, and if not and I supply a final balance letter only, what's to stop me just putting a big lump sum in from somewhere?

Will they care where the money has come from (wages)?

Will they care if I was eligible to work in Thailand?

I mean the job I do in Thailand is not going to be how I will support us in UK.

Therefore on the application form under "sponsor", should I detail my Thai employment, which is irrelevant to what I will be doing in UK, or leave it blank, or detail the employment I will have in the future?

Do I need to provide more than just the photo page of my passport?

She doesn't have a bank account in Philippines. Is this ok?

We will have an apartment ready in time for us arriving in UK but the Embassy needs to know where we intend to live, 3 months before we will arrive, so we're going to use my parents place. 2 bed terraced house.

We're going to supply a letter from them saying we will stay there. A copy of the deeds and a mortgage statement, bills, council tax receipts etc all authenticated by a UK lawyer, together with the dimensions and photographs of our room.

Any issues here or advice?

Can we apply in Bangkok or should it be done in Manila?

If she gets the visa issued in Manila, is there any problem in her leaving to the UK from Bangkok?

Do we need evidence that we haven't been married before?

Can she do the English language test in BKK and apply in Manila?

On the application form should she put her residential address as our current address in Bangkok or as her parents address in Philippines, where she will be staying as the application is processed?
Also, should the sponsors home address be here in Bangkok or my parents address, where we will stay in UK?

Only other documents we intend to provide are birth certificates really. Anything else we need?

We're both incredilbly worried and excited at the same time so if anyone can help us with our questions or offer some advice, that would be great.

Again, apologies for all these questions.

Many thanks,

Ritfor.

[Terpe]

Welcome here to the forum.

You have raised a number of issues and I would strongly suggest you review the UKBA requirements first then come back with any specific points that you need further clarification with.

Sorry, but I've set quite a bit of reading for you.

As a first step take a look here for Unmarried Partner details' from the UKBA website.


The internal guidance used by entry clearance staff on the handling of settlement visa applications made outside the UK can be found here. It's well worth reviewing this page as it sets out the criteria that the ECO will follow in deciding you application.

The actual immigration rules can be found here.

For detailed information on the areas of maintenance and accomodation please take a look here as the actual financial and accomodation requirements will be essentially the same

Hopefully you will find the answers to most of your questions.

[ritfor]

Thanks for a quick reply.

I always thought the visa was for 24 months.

(a) in the case of a person who meets the requirements of paragraph 295A(i)(a)(i), and one of the requirements of paragraph 295A(i)(a)(ii)-(vi) be admitted for an initial period not exceeding 27 months,

Will she be given a 24 month or 27 month visa?

Also,

(viii) there will be adequate accommodation for the parties and any dependants without recourse to public funds in accommodation which they own or occupy exclusively;

I don't own a property. And by "exclusively" do they mean that they will only allow the two of us to live in the property?

Because we will claim to intend to share an owned property with my parents. This is most confusing as I believe a lot of couples will share a property.

I think I will have a lot more questions after these two.

Many Thanks,

Ritfor

[Terpe]

..............Will she be given a 24 month or 27 month visa?......

A spouse visa from outside UK will normally be valid for 27 months. This allows time for arranging flights etc and also for the qualifying period of 24 months living in UK as Spouse before application for ILR.

............I don't own a property. And by "exclusively" do they mean that they will only allow the two of us to live in the property?.......

You do not need to own a property.
You can rent accommodation or you can share a property with friends/family etc.

To "occupy exclusively" in the context of UKBA suitability for granting a visa, means that you will not be sharing a bedroom with any others.

So you will be perfectly OK to share a property with your family.
Just read the links I sent you be sure that you comply with all requirements (including overcrowding when sharing a property)

[Terpe]

..............I think I will have a lot more questions after these two.

Just review the links I sent you and everything will make more sense.

[ritfor]

Terpe,

Thanks for the links and your answer on accommodation. I have read the links and re-read them and yes, some things are clearer now.

I can't find answers to a lot of my questions though so I hope you don't mind if I try and pick your brains further.

I also find a lot of what all this information says quite vague, confusing and open to subjective interpretation.

For example this is clear as day:

SET5.13 What types of evidence might demonstrate living together and a relationship akin to marriage / civil partnership?

The applicant must provide six pieces of correspondence addressed to him / her and their partner at the same address as evidence that they have been living together during the past 2 years. The items of correspondence should be addressed to them jointly or in both their names. If they do not have enough items in their joint names, they may also provide items addressed to each of other individually if they show the same address for both of them. The documents provided must be originals and should be spread over the whole 2 years; they should also be from at least 3 different sources. Examples of what documentation the applicant could provide are listed below:

Joint commitments, (such as joint bank accounts, investments, rent agreements, mortgage, life insurance policy naming the other partner as beneficiary etc);
Birth certificates or records of any children of the relationship, showing both partners as parents;
Any official correspondence linking both partners to the same address, for example Council Tax, utility bills, Doctors records;

but the last sentence of this rule is:

Any other evidence that adequately demonstrates the couple's long-term commitment to each other.

Now, we've got bags of the last sentence but not much of the others. Will we be ok or is it down to simple trial and error!
We're planning on submitting 3 tenancy agreements (not joint ones) along with joint letters to us from my mother over the period. (Does this qualify as the 3 sources)
I guess no one can say if that is ok or not!

You sent us a link for applying for a spouse visa. We're applying for an unmarried partner visa and I know it's all relevant but is an unmarried partner visa still valid for 27 months, as a spouse one is?

Can anyone shed any light on this too?:

Therefore on the application form under "sponsor", should I detail my Thai employment, which is irrelevant to what I will be doing in UK, or leave it blank, or detail the employment I will have in the future?

Many thanks for taking the time to respond to my various queries. Maybe I'm looking a little too deep.

Oh by the way, she isn't legally resident in Bangkok so she will have to apply in Manila.

Getting there

All the best,

Ritfor

[ritfor]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply and for clearing up my accommodation query.

We are applying for an unmarried partner visa, not a spouse visa but I realise the majority of the requirements are the same. However, is an unmarried partner visa valid for 27 months too?

I have thoroughly read those links and yes thanks, it all does make a lot more sense.

A lot of what the UKBA site says though is very confusing, vague and open to subjective interpretation.

For example, it details the evidence that should be supplied to prove you have been living together for 2 years. But then the last line says "or any other evidence that links you to the same address". So I wonder what we should make of that. We don't have a lot of the evidence it states. We do have loads of "other" evidence however. If anyone took a look at it, it would be obvious we have been living together for over 2 years. Is it really just a suck it and see situation because I doubt anyone really knows the answer!

Another question now:

On the application form under "sponsor", should this detail the sponsor's Thai employment, which is irrelevant to what I will be doing in UK, or leave it blank, or detail the employment I will have in the future?

On the application form should the applicant put her residential address as our current address in Bangkok or as her parents address in Philippines, where she will be staying as the application is processed?

Also, should the sponsors home address be here in Bangkok or my parents address, where we will stay in UK?

Many thanks for putting up with all my questions by the way!

Ritfor