advice required on cohabitation requirement SET(o)

Hello members,

I am on Tier-1 (General) visa and my ILR is due end of next year.
I have just come across this cohabitation requirement in the SET(O) form below.

If you have a spouse or civil partner listed in section 2 of this application form who is applying at the same time as you, please provide documentary evidence of cohabitation since you were last granted leave (up to a maximum of two years). Evidence provided should cover the whole period and be in the form of official letters or documents, addressed to yourself and your spouse.

My wife does not work and she stays home taking care of our child. To cut the story short we do not have documents in joint name because I am taking care of all the bills and rent etc. I never felt need of having joint names on the accounts and all the previous visas were renewed by only looking at the marriage certificate. We moved home last year so this current contract has both our names and the council tax bill is in our joint names but my last visa was issued in 2009.
My wife has a bank account, learner driving license and the addresses on those are identical to my address, is it not sufficient to prove cohabitation?
Can the members suggest what can be done to rectify the problem as I still have slightly more than a year left?

Thanks in advance for your help

you are worrying too early.

Dig through your files. I am sure you will find few more documents.

?GP registration document

?Hospital appointment letters

? tenacy agreement

etc.

mfl wrote:you are worrying too early.

Dig through your files. I am sure you will find few more documents.

?GP registration document

?Hospital appointment letters

? tenacy agreement

etc.

Thanks mfl

They are asking for these cohabitation documents since last visa was renewed and if i dont have them now then i will not have them next year.

GP Registration does not have our joint names. We have different medical card for each of us.

There are no hospital letters even if they exist they will be in patient's name not joint names.

I have the latest tenancy agreement in our joint name but it only started in May, 2010 and my last visa was renewed in 2009.

I have evidence on identical address but not in joint names.

Can anyone else help me out on this

The documents don't need to be in joint name. They can be in separate names as well. In my case only our bank statement was in joint name rest of the documents were in separate names and they were accepted.

Open up a joint savings account. This is the easiest way to have a document in joint name. Put internet/TV license etc in your wife name. This way you'll have the documents in her name as well. You still have a lot of time. so dont panic and just gather documents which ever you can.

umb wrote:The documents don't need to be in joint name. They can be in separate names as well. In my case only our bank statement was in joint name rest of the documents were in separate names and they were accepted.

Open up a joint savings account. This is the easiest way to have a document in joint name. Put internet/TV license etc in your wife name. This way you'll have the documents in her name as well. You still have a lot of time. so dont panic and just gather documents which ever you can.

Thanks for your reply umb.

I have documents in our individual names going back 4 years but the quote from the form i posted above says "official letters or documents, addressed to yourself and your spouse"

I am going to change all the bills today in our joint names but i am only worried about the past. I can't fix things going back, going forward i can fix now.

Other thing is surely they can't reject wife's visa just because we dont have documents in our joint names. Why they have given my previous visas by just looking at the marriage certificates then?

Can somebody confirm that the documents don't need to be in joint names. Is there any official documents on this.

Thanks

you don,t need documents with both of you names on it.

You only need to prove that you were living at same address.

doen,t matter whether you have a joint letter or individual letters as long as address is same.

imran22 wrote:

umb wrote:The documents don't need to be in joint name. They can be in separate names as well. In my case only our bank statement was in joint name rest of the documents were in separate names and they were accepted.

Open up a joint savings account. This is the easiest way to have a document in joint name. Put internet/TV license etc in your wife name. This way you'll have the documents in her name as well. You still have a lot of time. so dont panic and just gather documents which ever you can.

Thanks for your reply umb.

I have documents in our individual names going back 4 years but the quote from the form i posted above says "official letters or documents, addressed to yourself and your spouse"

I am going to change all the bills today in our joint names but i am only worried about the past. I can't fix things going back, going forward i can fix now.

Other thing is surely they can't reject wife's visa just because we dont have documents in our joint names. Why they have given my previous visas by just looking at the marriage certificates then?

Can somebody confirm that the documents don't need to be in joint names. Is there any official documents on this.

Thanks

An you don't need documents for all 5 years. Its only two years back from the date on which you are applying.