Advice on Spouse of BC getting family-based visa before move

I'm sure this is a really easy question to answer, but I'm confused by what I've read and want to make sure I don't mess anything up. My wife's parents are both British citizens (by birth) and she has applied for a British passport. We are planning on moving to the UK in July 2016 because she has been granted a fellowship to work at St. Andrews University in Scotland. We were both born in Canada, but are working in the US right now.

Assuming she gets her passport and is considered a citizen (and based on preliminary emails it looks likely) I was going to apply for the 'family of a settled person' visa. However, she doesn't live there yet and I don't know if I can apply for a visa beforehand in that case (the gov.uk website seems pretty clear that the UK resident needs to be permanently settled if I want to apply to join them).

So I'm not sure what to do. Do I show up as a visitor and then apply once we are in the UK and have a place to live? Can I even do that if I'm in the UK as a visitor? I'd much rather get things in order beforehand so that there aren't any surprises when we move, but I'm not sure what the best way is.

Any suggestions/advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much for your help.

DO NOT come as a visitor. You cannot switch to any other visa category as a visitor.

You can apply if you are travelling together after she gets her passport. She does not have to be in the UK for you to apply.

She needs to meet the financial requirement though.

As you are Canadian, do you have British born grandparents by any chance?

Thank you very much for the reply. Ok, the visitor idea is out. Makes sense - I'm sure a lot of people would do that if it was allowed. We should hopefully know within a month whether or not my wife gets her UK passport. I'll apply as soon as I can. She does meet the financial requirements.

My father was Canadian and my mother German when I was born, but we've already looked into that and I don't qualify for German citizenship through her. The German law did change to allow citizenship through the mother, but I missed that by 2 years. Bummer.

One other quick question. We have 3 children, ages 9, 6 and 4. Do we need to apply for them, or can they just come with her? They all have American citizenship.

Unfortunately, her children are not automatically British, unless she's British otherwise than by descent. Was her father in the British Crown Service when she was born?

If she lived in the UK for at least 3 continuous years before her children's birth, then her children are entitled to register under 3(2).

Else, they may apply to settlement visas, with you, to join her. Subsequently, they are entitled to register under 3(5).

m2oswald wrote: Assuming she gets her passport and is considered a citizen (and based on preliminary emails it looks likely) I was going to apply for the 'family of a settled person' visa. However, she doesn't live there yet and I don't know if I can apply for a visa beforehand in that case (the gov.uk website seems pretty clear that the UK resident needs to be permanently settled if I want to apply to join them).

Settlement has a different meaning here. "Settled status" is an immigration status equivalent to a Permanent Resident in most countries. It is acquired by either having Indefinite Leave to Remain (for most non-EEA citizens), Permanent Residence (for EEA citizens and their dependants) or by being an Irish citizen (all Irish citizens are considered settled on arrival in the UK).

So, "family of a settled person" visa can be applied for by families of anybody having settled status or by families of British citizens, who have the "Right of Abode" in the UK.

You can apply for a "family of a settled person" visa provided your wife currently earns more than £27,200 and must also have a confirmed offer of salaried or non-salaried employment earning the same amount in the UK, starting within 3 months of their return.

Read through the guide on financial requirement.

If you have even a single British born grandparent, you are eligible for an Ancestry visa in your own right and that is much easier to get for yourself.

But in either case, the financial requirements will still apply for the children.

RE: German citizenship, if you post more relevant details, some of our more experienced contributors, such as ALKB, could guide you in that field. I presume that you have contacted the German missions in Canada for a definitive answer as that would considerably simplify your move to the UK.

In immigration matters, EU citizens are more privileged than British citizens in the UK. So, for instance, an EU citizen has the undeniable right to not only live in the UK, but also to bring his whole family, no matter how distant. And there is no financial threshold.

Whereas a British citizen must meet the financial requirement before applying and only spouses and minor children (not even non-EEA parents or adult children) can accompany them.

It may be easier if you, your wife and children move and work in another EEA country first, possibly subject to Referendum.

Thanks so much to vinny and simple.simon for all of your help. I really appreciate the thorough explanations.

As far as the children go, we're not looking to get them citizenship (at least, not right now). We just want to make sure that, as minors, there won't be a problem for them to accompany us when we move. Is there separate paperwork we need to fill out for them? Actually, while I'm at it, is there paperwork for my wife? If she has right-of-abode can she just show up at the border?

I had not contacted the German Mission, having read through the German Government website and determined that I did not qualify for citizenship. However, after reading through the link you provided I am not that certain anymore. I will look into this and keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks again for everyone's input.

You will need pay the fee your childrens' settlement visas in addition to yours. From the 18th March the total cost of 4 visas will be £4780 + £2400 NHS surcharge, making a total of £7180.
Are you aware that in order to meet the financial requirement the following is required:
1. Your wife must have been earning the equivalent of at least £27,200 in the US for the 12 month period prior to submitting the application
and
2. Have a confirmed job offer to start within 3 months of arrival in the UK, again with a minimum salary of £27.200
3. Or have substantial savings held in an accessible account for a minimum of 6 months.

Thanks so much for the info Casa. Holy cow, that's a lot of money. I was hoping that somehow we wouldn't have to get visas for the kids if they're minors. I hope they take credit cards. We do meet the financial requirements - the salary part, anyway. No one could look at our savings and say they are 'substantial'.

I mailed my settlement visa documents via UPS courier one week ago. UPS called me 2 days ago to inform me that they had trouble delivering the package and needed a phone number. I gave them the phone number I found on the website: 0300 123 2241. That's from the 'how to contact UKVI from inside the UK' page. It's been stuck there for 4 days now. I've emailed UKVI (both through the web form and using visasheffield@homeoffice.gas.gov.uk) and called the US help line. No response to the emails, and the US help line was completely useless. I'm out of ideas. I'm really worried that the package will be sent back to me as undeliverable and UKVI will cancel the applications because they never received the supporting docs. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Michael

To stop visa documents by Uk Customs seem bit weird. Its documents not electronic stuffs .. i hope they should clear it soon..you can ring custom 0044300 200 3700 and ask them to release it

Did they say why they can't deliver it? I'd be very worried if a courier could not deliver a simple package to the Home Office, it's a huge government department and the building it's going to isn't exactly discreet.

m2oswald wrote:Thanks so much to vinny and simple.simon for all of your help. I really appreciate the thorough explanations.

As far as the children go, we're not looking to get them citizenship (at least, not right now). We just want to make sure that, as minors, there won't be a problem for them to accompany us when we move. Is there separate paperwork we need to fill out for them? Actually, while I'm at it, is there paperwork for my wife? If she has right-of-abode can she just show up at the border?

I had not contacted the German Mission, having read through the German Government website and determined that I did not qualify for citizenship. However, after reading through the link you provided I am not that certain anymore. I will look into this and keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks again for everyone's input.

It's always a good idea to contact your local Embassy or Consulate, worst thing they can say is 'no'.

"If you were born before January 1st, 1975 to parents who were married to each other at the time of the birth, and your mother was a German citizen, you may be able to apply for German Citizenship. German language skills are one of the requirements for this application."

Becoming German/claiming citizenship would do away with the need for a visa for you and you could have brought your children under EU rules (much, much cheaper than UK visa fees).

When you say you have sent off your settlement application, what about your children's' applications?

So it turns out it was all due to my own stupidity (not really a surprise). When I sent the application package out it contained 4 visa applications - my own, and one for each of my 3 children. They asked me at the UPS store about insurance and how much the contents were worth. I reasoned that if the package was lost, it would cost quite a bit to expedite a new set of passports, birth certificates, etc. So I estimated US$400 per application, or $1600 total.

What I did not realize was that any package over $600 GBP is considered an import by UK customs. So UK customs was trying to contact UKVI to ask what exactly they were importing that was worth US$1600. You can imagine how helpful UKVI was being with this request. I found this out by contacting the UPS International Shipments UK office, who was able to find out the exact cause of the problem (that was after spending a good hour calling a number of UKVI and UPS phone numbers that I could find). I then sent them a list of the package contents, and explained that the package was only worth US$600 and I was simply being over-zealous with my insurance. The package was released from UK Customs within an hour and is now on it's way.

This would have been resolved rather quickly if I had simply contacted the UPS UK office immediately, instead of first trying to go through the US contact who only had partial information and didn't really know what was going on. The moral: always go directly to the source when there is a problem. Seems pretty obvious.