spouse visa, do our our children have any rights?

hello!

I am a UK citizen resident in the UK, my wife is Russian resident in Russia and we have 2 kids - dual national UK/Russian aged 1 and 4 with both sets of passports.

The family has been living between Russia and the UK for the last 5+ years due to the visa restrictions and my wife has a UK Family Visit visa (6 months). But we now want to get a Spouse Visa and try and move to the UK now that our eldest is 4 years old and it's time for him to go to school. Also our daughter has a medical condition which required a major operation here in London last year and she needs supervision till she is 21.

We now meet Immigration Rules Appendix FM-SE financial requirements, we have a house that fits the requirements and my wife also passed her "Pearson Edexcel Level 1 Skills for Life" test last year which is an OfQual registered certificate. However, all the OISCs and lawyers say this certificate is not valid due to the changes made in April 2015. The UKVI guidance is very unclear so I called up HGS-UKVI and we now have an email from HGS-UKVI saying it is valid. But the OISCs and the lawyers still say it is not valid!

MY QUESTION - who is right?

In the event that we were to go ahead with our current certificate and are refused a Spouse Visa this would mean a petty technicality will have split up the family.

MY QUESTION:
...do UK children citizens have no rights to a family life - i.e. to be with both parents, for example in the UK?

Sorry if this issue is covered anywhere else, if it has been covered please can someone point me to the post.

Many thanks!

Rob

A test is acceptable if it's on the approved list.

luedmo wrote: ...do UK children citizens have no rights to a family life - i.e. to be with both parents, for example in the UK?

They do but there is no right that it has to be in the UK.

thanks Vinny and Wanderer,

I see now that the April5th changes in the rules cause confusion even amongst the OISC people when it comes to the transitional list.


Rob