Spouse visa - when to leave for UK?

I am a UK national and my wife has successfully applied for a Spouse Visa. She just got it a few weeks ago, but is worried about when to leave for the UK. She needs to sort out work stuff etc, so is estimating that she'll get here around Jan/Feb 2015. Is this too late? We were looking online to see how long you can leave the UK for, and the consensus seems to be that you can leave the UK for short periods of time for holidays and so on. However, we're worried that if she remains in her home country for too long before coming here, then she won't meet the requirements (33 months) to move on to the next level.

We were going through the official documents but couldn't find anything. If anyone could point me to an official source that is clear on this issue, then that would be very helpful. Thanks in advance.

Ideally, she should arrive in the UK within 3 months otherwise she is going to be short for her 5 years residence qualifying time and will have to make an additional extension to cover the shortfall, which will then be 2 extension instead of just 1 before she can qualify for ILR.

I had the same question a couple of days ago. The initial visa is valid for 33 months from the date of issue. Before moving on to the next stage of the 5-year the process for residency the system requires that the person be settled in the UK for an initial probationary period of 2.5 years/30 months, hence the reason why the initial approval is for 33 months to give a small grace period. At the end of the 2.5 year probationary period the visa can be extended to cover the remaining 2.5 years, giving a total of 5 years. Therefore in order that the initial visa does not have to be extended (each time at cost to you) twice instead of once in order to complete the total 5 year period it is advisable, but not mandatory, that she makes her first entry into the UK within 3 months of the date the visa was originally issued.

You can see from my thread that my situation is very similar to the one you find yourself in, albeit for slightly different reasons.

Also don't get confused with "first entry into the UK" and leaving the UK for vacations or any other reason, also a subject touched on in my thread.

http://www.immigrationboards.com/immigr ... 76191.html

Did she ask for her visa's effective date to be deferred for up to three months?

Thanks for the help everyone.

Vinny, no she didn't. Perhaps she should, but we were so wrapped up in preparing the evidence that we didn't think about it. I'm guessing it's something that has to be done before application.

My wife is planning to visit me and my family over Christmas. Do any of you think it's worth her staying a bit longer so it counts towards her time here? She would need to go back briefly afterwards, but when she came back the second time it would be for good.

Ahhh, you didn't mention that in your first post. If she is arriving in December for a 'holiday' with her spouse visa, she should be fine then as it should be considered her date of entry for the residential qualifying period.