I’m a BC and my wife is on her first spouse visa due to expire in Sept 2022. We have committed to a couple of trips to Europe in July and Sept. On looking to apply for a Schengen visa for her the requirement is that her U.K. visa has to be valid for at least 3 months after leaving the Schengen area so doesn’t work for either trip.
We have therefore rushed to apply for her spouse visa extension and have the biometric appointment next Tuesday 21/06/2022. While I was on a tier 2 sponsored visa myself prior to becoming a BC, renewals always had the unexpired portion of the expiring visa added e.g. if I needed to apply for a 3 year tier 2 visa in 2 months time but instead applied now then my new visa would be granted for the 3 years plus the extra 2 months I had on my old visa. I assumed spouse visa worker the same but on reading the spouse visa guidance further this morning it appears that the spouse route doesn’t do this i.e. if my wife was granted her new spouse visa today then her new visa will be valid for 2.5 years from today and she would lose the portion between now and September that is left on her current visa.
My question after all this context is how will this affect her 5 year timeline when applying for ILR as it may come up slightly short given she could lose 1-2.5 months of her current visa?
Follows-ups:
I anticipate her new visa will be 2-3wks short of 5 years when it expires.
Can we apply for another extension at a later point or is the limit 2 spouse visa terms? Is there an alternate visa to fill the 2-3 week gap?
Should we be thinking of withdrawing and postponing our spouse visa application and sacrificing the Europe trips and committed expenses? If we did then would we get a refund for the spouse visa and IHS fees (c£2700) already paid?
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