relocating to the UK

[scott&ligaya]

We will be relocating the UK soon, I am British citizen, my wife is a Filipina. We were married in Hong Kong in 2005 and are now expecting our 1st child. I will start in January return for our babys birth in late Feb and my wife and baby will join me around Easter all being well. We will have the birth registered by the British Embassy in Manila and get passport issued.

I have some questions

Can the child have dual citizenship

What visa should I use for Ligaya she alrerady has had two visitor visas to the UK issued in her passport one with her former employer and one just after we married where I was the sponsor.

Is it better to process in Hong Kong or Manila as we live there more time than in the Phils (we have homes in Baguio and Palawan).

It was suggested to me that we just get another visitors visa and then apply for change of status six months later but this sounds a bit dodgy


Any one out there with recent direct experience who can help would be greatly appreciated.


best regards and take care everybody

Scott and Ligaya

[kimmi]

hi Scott&Ligaya, welcome to the forum..

[ginapeterb]

Hello Scott, my name is Pete good to have you on board from Sunny Hong Kong, its always nice to have an expat on the forum, and I am sure I can answer your questions.

There is no problem with registering your childs birth at the Embassy, the child is automatically entitled to British Citizenship, since you and your wife are legally married.

You will also be able to obtain a passport no problem for your child, as for your wife's entry to UK, even though she has had visitors visas before, and as your relationship is probably over 4 years, although you married in 2005, which means your marriage is close to 3 years now, your wife just has to apply at the nearest British Embassy, preferably Hong Kong to speed up the process, for an entry clearance visa as your wife, you will find the process is slightly quicker for her than a standard spouse visa.

Your advice received about applying for a visitor visa is extremely bad advice and if you do this, you cannot adjust status in the UK.

So please don't take that advice, its wrong and will cause you problems.

The last thing you want is once your wife is in UK she then has to leave the country and apply in the Philippines, thats a waste of money.

No the correct advice is for you to apply whilst in Hong Kong, that is the quicker route and I hope you take my advice, your entry clearance visa for your wife should be issued no problem at all, and is valid for 24 months, you may then adjust status in UK to permanent resident after 2 years.

Your child is born to a Filipina, so technically the child is entitled to be registered as a Filipino citizen, so that should not be a problem, your child can have dual nationality, and have 2 passports, so go ahead with that if you wish, what you will find is that if your child travels on a British passport on entering the Philippines, your child will also benefit from the balikbayan privilidge of 1 year entrance without let or hindrance.

Good luck Scott and let us know how it goes.

[scott&ligaya]

Wow,
thanks Pete, exactly what I needed to know, just one little wrinkle, Ligaya is at home in Pangasinan right now and plans to give birth in Manila, we have no need to visit our HK flat except for the visa, I am going back to the Phils on Thursday and plan to spend christmas and new year with her family. I am coming back to Hk for a couple of days to kill off the lease here, could I get the right form take it to her and then take it back here to Hk or does she have to apply in person? Alternatively could the Britsh Embassy handle it in Manila as I have to go there to register the birth and sort out the 1st passport. Ligaya plans to come to the UK after our baby is about one month old, is 4 weeks enough time if wait until Manila?


thanks again for your help

As a moderator do you know why our intro has not yet turned up, I placed it yesterday

regards
Scott

[ginapeterb]

Hi Scott once again, glad the advice helps you, I understand your wife is in Philippines right now, it does not represent any inconvenience for you, what I suggest you do in the meantime is download the relevant forms from the British Embassy Website.

You can obtain the forms from the British Embassy Website Philippines, if you head to my website at the bottom of my post, that will take you through to my main page, look for the entry clearance section and that will help you through the process.

You could visit the British Embassy Hong Kong visa section and obtain all the relevant forms from the information desk, every visa section has one, don't go to consular, go to visa information, the British Embassy will handle your application in the Philippines, but its handled by an outsourced company called VFS Global, again the details are on my website, although the information is in the public domain if you search on google.

Your wife is the applicant so yes, she should apply in person, although she can use the courier service, the visa fee is fairly hefty, at around P50,000 which is accepted only by managers check, there is some inconvenience for you I am afraid in organizing everything, plus you have to register your child's birth with consular services, which is a separate issue.

You could organize everything in Manila, not sure if 4 weeks will be enough, its hard to say, some visa's are issued quickly, others take longer, I would assume from what you tell me, that your wife's visa will be issued fairly quickly, and as you married in 2005, your case should sail through the system, it maybe that your visa can be done without an interview.

Interview's slow down the process, but just be aware that although you are a British citizen, I want to bring something to your attention that you need to be fully aware of before Ligaya applies.

Just because you are a British Citizen, it does not automatically entitle your wife to come to Uk and settle, hence the application, the other matter is one of your residency in UK, if you have been out of UK for say over 2 years, you will have to establish as your wife's sponsor that you are presently settled in the UK, this can often be established by the fact you are actually working in Hong Kong for a British company, or other company that makes it a requirement you work in Hong Kong.

You will also need to demonstrate as your wife's sponsor that you can support her in the UK without recourse to public funds, I am sure you will be able to do that without any trouble, you will need to show that you have somewhere to live in the UK, and your wife can live with you.

Provided you meet these main conditions, Ligaya should receive a visa no problem at all, just remember, that entry clearance is for persons who can prove they are presently settled and living in the UK.

That can in certain circumstances be a problem for British passport holders who have not lived and worked in the UK for over 2 years, in other words they have been an expat.

I should not think in your situation this will apply, just flagging a concern for you, and hoping this does not apply to you.

I am not sure about your intro and why this has not shown up, if that is what you mean, I will look into it.

Any other questions please fire away, glad to help a fellow Brit overseas,


Best wishes.

[KeithD]

What Intro? Do we send one? Probably in your spambox if we do!

[scott&ligaya]

Thanks again,
I originally working here for a UK company but on a HK contract arranged through their group office in HK. I have been working for the past year and a half for a UK based consultancy but for their Asia Pacific Office. I will joining a UK company in mid Jan and plan to rent a house immediately so by the time Ligaya and our baby come over in say beginning of April I can show I have a permanent role and housing in the UK. The problem is when she applies I will only have been working in the UK for a month or so with no history for three and half years before. Any thoughts on this issue?

[silver13]

hello to both of you, probably my future neighbour here I came from Pangasinan also, same province as ur wife

[ginapeterb]

Thanks again,
I originally working here for a UK company but on a HK contract arranged through their group office in HK. I have been working for the past year and a half for a UK based consultancy but for their Asia Pacific Office. I will joining a UK company in mid Jan and plan to rent a house immediately so by the time Ligaya and our baby come over in say beginning of April I can show I have a permanent role and housing in the UK. The problem is when she applies I will only have been working in the UK for a month or so with no history for three and half years before. Any thoughts on this issue?

Scott,

It could be a problem for you, but you say only 1 year half out of the country, is that a temporary posting by your UK company, then it shouldn't make any difference, you would need to have a house, and a stable income in UK, and links with UK for your wife to qualify.

The only issue I see is that if the entry clearance officer decides to get picky about your status in the UK, the rules are very clear, you must be presently settled in the UK, I,m sure you qualify on that score, I am just maybe flagging a concern for you, but less than 2 years should be ok.

Sometimes if you have been out of the UK but your marriage is more than 3 years old, or your relationship, as marriage is not the overriding factor in Gordon Browns Politically correct society, BTW I said, your wife may just be issued with a returning residents visa, this may may mean that she might not have to qualify for the 24 months temporary resident status, she may be able to proceed straight to indefinite live to remain.

I must say though that you need to show your last 6 months bank statements and must not in any circumstances be in the red, you must also show your last 3 months payslips or salary credits.

I assume you have been reading my website information, and that is a must if you want to be fully clear on what you must do.

Any breaks in your employment status must be explained, my advice is to draft a covering letter to the ECO and include the letter in your wife's application explaining your move back to UK, and your permanent job situation, also perhaps its good advice to draft an excel document of your income and outgoings, in this you can explain that you have enough residual income from your excel work sheet to more than take care of your wife and child in the UK.

I'm not saying you have to do all this, but very often a break down of your income and expenditure may have a positive effect on your wife's application, the onus here is to meet the rules.

The rules are clear and are interpreted by entry clearance officers, as long as you meet the rules and can comply with them, your wife should have no difficulty in obtaining full entry clearance.

I hope this helps.

[scott&ligaya]

Thanks again Pete, I may need to work the six months in the UK and show the reugular income, as a consultant I get paid irregularly and am treated as a contractor rather than an employee although I do have an employment contract with a nominal salary for work visa purposes in Hong Kong. If Ligaya just wants to come over in April so we can be in the same place she would need to return to Manila after we have all our ducks in a row and then apply form there, wait 8 weeks or so and then re -enter on entry clearance - provided it was issued, am I right? This may not be an issue for us as we intended to spend at least one month at our home in Palawan in the summer anyway and then should would have about another 4 weeks if all goes well.

As you mentioned our relationship goes back to 2003 so maybe the officials will go down the route you suggested. Either way I am not sure I can show nice income patterns from my HK accounts as I just keep maintaining balances there and have most of my payments made to our filipino accounts as we try to live there in Palawan as much as possible so I guess I might need to do the six months. As I suspected this is more complex than one might think.

Hello to Anilyn and Paul, Ligaya will be pleased to hear that.

[scott&ligaya]

Hi guys, news from Hong Kong. having looked at the various websites and taken note of possible concerns raised by Pete here on this Forum(thanks again) we decided that we should complete a visitors visa application for Ligaya to come over in April with our baby and then return to Hong Kong in Jly once I satisfied the six mionth residency and financial hostory requirements and then she would apply for the spouse settlement visa. The consular official asked to see us and advised that as it was clear that I was going to settle in the UK and that Ligaya wanted to accompany me, he said that once I got to the UK (this weekend) just rent a large double room in a house share to provide an address and as I had significant savings in Hong Kong he was happy I could support Ligaya HE SAW NO REASON why she should not withdraw our visitor application(duly refunded) and complete the spouse visa which he would happy to process and issue!!!!. He even stated that we did not have to drag back the now heavily pregnant Ligaya as she had already given her bio metric data he could keep the file live on the system until I submitted the new forms. Talk about helpful, we were very much taken aback and delighted. Apart from the minor panic over a bomb threat during the interview(turned out to be a drill) bit Ligya nearly had the baby there and then, we were done in 1 hour. The only provisio he made was that Ligaya should have our baby here in Hong Kong which fortunately was our plan anyway as we heard horror stories from a couple of Brit/Filipina couples about the time and money it took to get birth certs and endorsements in Manila. So I am in sunny Birmingham from Saturday, returning to HK on Feb 17 for the planned elective c section date of 19th and Ligaya and baby should be over sometime in April.

Paul and Analin, I will be in touch

Scott

[ginapeterb]

Glad that happened for you Scott, my advice is always to err on the side of caution, but there is no substitute for actually being in the right place at the right time and in front of the right official.

Hong Kong always seems to be more helpful than Manila.

Congratulations.

Pete

[kimmi]

Congratulation Scott and Ligaya, I am very pleased to hear the good news and finally u find a way so u can be with Ligaya and ur baby soon..

[scott&ligaya]

Thanks guys,
Pete you are of course right nothing beats the six P"S Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Perfromance and alo right that if you get the right official it makes all the difference. I would advise any one trying to deal with any immigration issue to do your homework and when your done, do it again. Now begins the challenge of finding somewhere to live in the longer term (rigtmove is great) and settling in to a new job, ahhh I like being busy!!!!

[scott&ligaya]

Well I am here in Bham one week already, got started in new job, got car,got rented room and just spent this weekend house hunting(boy have some parts of Bham gone downhill) nearly every district I look at has nothing but fast food joints,hairdressers and charity shops. I am heading out to Hagley, Romsley and Belbroughton area next week end to see if they have fared any better. I struck gold at work when leaving the other night and bumped into our security guard who is from Batangas with a wife here at QE who is from Asingan which is close to Ligaya's place. He informed me that one of the machine assembly guys Marlo is the president of FAB or Filipino assoc of Bham and yet another Illocano. So it looks like I will soon be surrounded by "wen" "imas" and other such utterances.

Question

It appears that Ligaya will be issued with her spouse visa. Are there govt bodies UK or Phil that she needs to register with upon arrival and can I do anything in advance?

thanks in advance

Scott,

ps I have updated my email to a UK yahoo one until settled.