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imranh wrote:Hi Everyone

I just need some quick advise on some issues on my mind with regards to my wife ILR. The Home Office/UKBA website is not too clear.

Just some background info - my wife is Pakistani and is here on a settlement visa. She is not working i.e. is a housewife and I am permanently employed earning about £28k basic salary. My wife arrived in the UK in December 2010 and her visa expiry as appears on the passport is February 2013. She is currently on an ESOL level 1 course and has taken the speaking and listening test. She is currently studying the ESOL level 1 reading and writing course with a test at the end aswell. Before attending the ESOL level 1 course she took a test to gage her level of english and hence she was put on the ESOL level 1 course.

I hope my info above makes sense - now my questions are

1) does she need to attend ESOL level 2 course after passing esol level 1? or is it as i thought just a case of her passing the ESOL level to show she is progressing?

Ans) She doesn't need to attend ESOL level 2 course as its not required for the ILR Application

2) her visa expiry on the passport is March 2013 which is more than 2 years after getting the visa. Is that not strange? I thought it had to be 2 years exactly after getting the visa. Therefore when can she apply for ILR?

Ans) I am here on my WP and they gave me the WP for 6 years firstly I found this strange but later on when I enquired about it from the UKBA they rep to me that I am lucky to have a longer WP but I can surely apply after completing my 5 years or more precisely 4 years and 11 months and the 2 days I think so this doesn't really matter for your wife you can apply for her ILR with in 2 years time period when she arrived in UK.

3) She is pregnant and could get free prescriptions for any medication during this period - is she eligible for free prescriptions or will this invalid her visa as she is not allowed access to public funds? (such as benefits etc)

Ans) Getting free prescriptions is a general rule mate any one can get it that didn't come under the access to the public funds. When you say access to public funds means she's not getting any money directly in to her bank account from the Goverment and she can't get it any ways cause you need to show your British PP or your ILR stamp to get eligible for that when you apply for it.

4) Is the ILR more about proving me and my wife are living togther rather than me financially supporting her? Is my salary stated above enough?

Ans) Well, there's no financial requirements you've to fullfill to apply for your wifes ILR. Yes but you have to have good cohabitation documents to prove that you and your wife live together and share the same accomodations, these docs are like for eg joint bank statement, any utility bill under your wife name, council tax bill these are considered for any ILR application for the dependants as cohab docs.


5) My marriage certificate (nikkah nama) is the same one we used for her settlement visa application. It is in urdu with an english translation. Both are stamped. Will this be needed and be sufficient for ILR application?

Ans) Well, again this isn't a requirement but I would advice you to get register with the Civil Partner ship in UK and get a certificate from them that would be sufficient and you can show your marriage cert (Nikkah Nama) to them as a proof of your wedding. But I dont think so that its a requirement at the time of applying for your wifes ILR.

6) Is there a papersize (i.e. A4) requirement for the ILR application. I ask because my wage slips, Natwest bank statements is smaller than A4 and my urdu marriage certificate is bigger than A4. I ask because for the settlement visa application some of the documents and phototcopies was requested to be A4 sized).

Ans) Natwest statements are never ever A4 size for the whole country I do also get my Natwest bank statements half of the paper size and offcourse most of the companies UK use standard payroll softwares to generate the payslips so payslips can't be A4 size either. Which means that there's no such requirement for an A4 size paper and the things like that you can provide the copies of your wedding certificate by trying to get the photocopy on the A3 size paper just for your wedding certificate.

I know that I have posed alot of questions but I will be eternally grateful if I can get the answers. Please let me know if you need any further clarity.

Many Thanks