UK Spousal Visa Documents

My fiancee and I are in the beginning stages of readying the documents needed in order to apply for the spousal visa. We cannot do this for at least a few months until I've met the financial requirement and of course, marry each other. However we're beginning to acquire the documents now.

In support of her application, we plan on submitting about 5-6 pictures together from different times, plane tickets back and forth, approximately 10 text messages from 2 years ago with the last 4-5 messages being within the last year until the present date.

We'll be submitting six of my payslips showing at least 18,600 per year.

I do not own a home or apartment and my parents will be allowing us both to stay in their home with the plan to move out within two months. The plan was to submit a written letter from my parents confirming they allow us to reside with them along with a mortgage statement to prove they reside in the home legally. What other documents regarding accommodation would be sufficient, if anything else?

The rest of the documents are things like biometrics, passports, receipt of paid fee for the application etc.

My fiancee is a U.S citizen and I am a British citizen.

Many thanks for your guys' help,

Regards,

TomacBlue wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:22 am

I do not own a home or apartment and my parents will be allowing us both to stay in their home with the plan to move out within two months. The plan was to submit a written letter from my parents confirming they allow us to reside with them along with a mortgage statement to prove they reside in the home legally. What other documents regarding accommodation would be sufficient, if anything else?

A copy of the property deed would also be helpful to prove ownership of the property. I would suggest more pictures and text messages than you have proposed would also be beneficial to prove a genuine and subsisting relationship. Others here probably have a better suggestion of recommended numbers as I haven't dealt with that specific issue personally but it's probably going to be at least double what you have now.

geoeng wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:18 am

TomacBlue wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:22 am

I do not own a home or apartment and my parents will be allowing us both to stay in their home with the plan to move out within two months. The plan was to submit a written letter from my parents confirming they allow us to reside with them along with a mortgage statement to prove they reside in the home legally. What other documents regarding accommodation would be sufficient, if anything else?

A copy of the property deed would also be helpful to prove ownership of the property. I would suggest more pictures and text messages than you have proposed would also be beneficial to prove a genuine and subsisting relationship. Others here probably have a better suggestion of recommended numbers as I haven't dealt with that specific issue personally but it's probably going to be at least double what you have now.

Ok, we should be able to get the property deed.

I'll wait around for somebody who could suggest a number of how many pictures/texts etc. to provide but should be able to provide a lot more.

Do you know if they'd want to just see snippets of our texts, or anything further? For example, would it be best to just take a screenshot of our texts, then move on and screenshot another part of a different conversation, and do it like that? I'm slightly confused on how best to compile these pictures, ha.

I've lots of pictures on my phone, Instagram, Snapchat etc. which I will have to figure out how to print them off and include them in the application.

In addition, I plan on writing a small letter addressing how my fiancee and I met, how often we communicate and visit each other, and what we have done in the 3+ years of being together to maintain our relationship. Mostly that includes visits to the UK/USA, texting, video calling etc.

Hi,

I can speak from experience. I am also British, and my wife is Vietnamese, and we have just received our visa after a long struggle with the HO. Regarding pictures, as many as you can is my advice. If you have an idiot-phone, use the date stamp feature, so the ECO can see when they were taken.
Provide all your history of travelling and meeting, so every passport stamp you have showing when you came and went to US or she came to the UK etc.

We provided our complete whatsapp and skype chat. Downloaded it and printed whole lot, and it was a lot. It included all the personal stuff too, but we could not leave it to chance.

Get letters done by family and other people you know who can attest to the fact that you are in a real relationship, get them to sign the letter and then print it with their passport on the bottom, so the HO know they are real.

Despite all of our evidence, financial proof etc etc we provided, we still got a refusal as I did not submit a document (I am self employed and so need to provide unaudited accounts) which the IR do not require me to do. So, perhaps it might be a good idea (my strong suggestion) to get everything together and then have a lawyer take a look and let you know if you have missed anything at all. If I had done that, it would have saved me a lot of time and potentially a few hundred quid putting right the mistake.
Make sure every document to do with financials is within its age limit. The HO are out to stop anyone they can, however they can. Good luck.

THO wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:09 am

Hi,

I can speak from experience. I am also British, and my wife is Vietnamese, and we have just received our visa after a long struggle with the HO. Regarding pictures, as many as you can is my advice. If you have an idiot-phone, use the date stamp feature, so the ECO can see when they were taken.
Provide all your history of travelling and meeting, so every passport stamp you have showing when you came and went to US or she came to the UK etc.

We provided our complete whatsapp and skype chat. Downloaded it and printed whole lot, and it was a lot. It included all the personal stuff too, but we could not leave it to chance.

Get letters done by family and other people you know who can attest to the fact that you are in a real relationship, get them to sign the letter and then print it with their passport on the bottom, so the HO know they are real.

Despite all of our evidence, financial proof etc etc we provided, we still got a refusal as I did not submit a document (I am self employed and so need to provide unaudited accounts) which the IR do not require me to do. So, perhaps it might be a good idea (my strong suggestion) to get everything together and then have a lawyer take a look and let you know if you have missed anything at all. If I had done that, it would have saved me a lot of time and potentially a few hundred quid putting right the mistake.
Make sure every document to do with financials is within its age limit. The HO are out to stop anyone they can, however they can. Good luck.

I'm not so sure about letters from family that prove a relationship is genuine, I think that's the purpose of the pictures and texts as anybody could write a letter it doesn't prove much.

It's doubtful we'll be hiring a lawyer as I think all the documents required on on the UK government website, I just wanted to get the opinion of those who have had experience with this sort of thing when it comes to pictures/texts etc.

I'm really glad you guys got your visa in the end. Did you have to resubmit a new application or was the original refusal overturned?

Got the decision overturned on appeal. Took 12 weeks total. The ECO was satisfied the relationship was genuine and even said you more than qualify financially, but I can't give it to you because you did not send the unaudited accounts.

Obviously, it's your application so submit what you like, but I can tell you from other previous visa attempts for her to come here and to get married, if they have the slightest opportunity to say that the relationship is not real, they will. It might be a bit different for you as she is from USA. We have been turned down previously because of no date stamps on the pictures, when they had my passport visa stamps and pictures of us together in corresponding places, so when did they think they were taken?

We were turned down on another occasion for not proving the relationship was on-going, despite overwhelming evidence. That is why I suggest both your families write and say they will be / were at the wedding, get them to back up when you met etc. And then put their passports so the ECO can see they are your relatives.

You will kick yourself if you f this up, for the sake of taking some legal advice, it is easy to make a mistake with this stuff and then so frustrating and time consuming and more expensive to fix it.

Let us know how you get on though. Good luck.

Oh, and that is not all the documents you need on the govt web site, it's some.... I am fairly sure there are lots of people on here who failed because they only provided what they saw on the web site.

When we applied for the fiance visa we did an A4 sheet with a kind of relationship timeline, which just did like the date we met, started dating, first holiday, met family, moved in together, engaged etc - We referenced any relevant evidence like tenancy agreement, plane tickets, passport stamps etc. Then we did about 10-15 photos over that 2 year period in order, about 3 pictures per A4 printed with a short description & date of the picture & location/any family etc. Then about 10 pages of skype/whatsapp screenshots over the 2 years, we just basically divided the time by 10 then did a screenshot for each time period, we didn't worry about it too much just picked stuff that shows our relationship. I wouldn't worry too much about the number, no point printing out 100 pages of your whatsapp, they'll never read it all so just do a sensible selection. (We spent an evening where I scrolled to the beginning of our conversation & worked backwards & he worked from the current date & we met in the middle, was quite fun to reminisce, we took a few screenshots around the rough dates we'd decided on & then narrowed it down later)

We also stayed with my parents - you should include a letter saying they'll let you & fiance stay there + the title deeds as proof they own the house, mortgage statement is a good additional. We sent photo copies of their passport bio pages. How big is the house? Is there obviously plenty of space? Sometimes you need a property inspection report to show it's not overcrowded.

Make sure for financial requirement you also include the employers letter & bank statements showing deposit of your salary (not just the payslips - btw if payslips are electronic don't forget to get them authenticated).

I agree with your assessment that letters from family/friends hold little weight and are probably a waste of time and wouldn't actually be considered proof.

Most people don't need a lawyer to check their documents or help with the application. You can always post your documents list on the forums to be checked over but it seems like you're quite confident. Just make sure you read all the FMSE appendix, especially for the financial requirement.

Some people have had bad experiences but most peoples applications are actually quite straight forward.

TomacBlue wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:22 am

We'll be submitting six of my payslips showing at least 18,600 per year.

,

Make sure these shouldn't be just 6 in numbers rather should cover the last 6 months assuming you will be applying under category A.