Settlement visa for UK Queries

[paulbramwell]

Hello all, thanks for any help/comments anyone would be able to post as we are in the dark about a few things...so again thanks.

Background being, I ( British citizen) have lived in Bogota, Colombia for 9 years now, and with my wife ( who is Colombian) and two kids ( who have dual nationality and UK passports ) are planning to relocate back to the UK. In July of this year applied for the Spouse settlement visa and after a month or so of waiting and a huge amount of money were refused the visa on a number of grounds, having only meet the relationship requirements ( we have been married for 7 years) from what i can see from the decision we failed quite impressively and in three areas. This i guess was due to my thinking that being married and the kids etc would be plently to support the application, and, having done no research or "homework" before we applied. So, we failed on three areas.
1) English requirement for my wife ( she has since taken the IELTS exam and passed with flying colours for the requirement the applications states) so we are fine in that area.
2) Financial Requirements - we have in Bogota have our own successful business for the last 8 and a half years, we submitted all financial docs from the company but were given the reply that those incomes etc do not apply for us living in the UK, as everything is based here in Bogota, understandable. The rule is that an income of 18.600 pounds needs to be proved. Having lived outside of the Uk for so long I have no proof of work when we return, however my wife has a solid job offer from Lloyds insurance London, but no contract can be drawn up as we have no possible idea of the start date ( as everything depends on the visa) i have also learnt that previous pay slips etc need to be submitted thus proving the income is genuine , again we would not have any as the job would be new in all aspects. So my question here regarding our financial requirement are...
a) can my wife be the person whos income is submitted as the financial requirement ? her salary would be over the 18 or so grand needed and what supporting docs would we need to submit to make the embassy happy of this?

our second failing was of the the residency and accommodation.
I had declared in the application that our residency would be that of my parents and no more ( no supporting docs etc ) again my fault as since i have learnt that it was very naive of me !! so in regards to this what would be your advice to us ? Our plan is to stay with my parents ( who live in Cambridge) as relocation after so my years us not having (in this moment) any other residence to go. I have been in touch with my parents and they are putting together what we believe would be the relevant docs, these being, letter of invitation to the address, house plans showing size is suitable for us to be there with them, bank letter showing no monies are owned on the house. My help here is .. will those documents suffice ? what more could we submit from my parents in regards to our living status ? would somehow a letter from them stating they take all responsibility for us financially help ?

We feel alittle in the dark here, ( as i imagine many of you do as well) i tired calling the embassy to make an appointment and to no avail, here in Bogota there is a "middle man"company that deals with your "process" so speaking to them has no use - they are basically a courier service.

I understand that rules are rules but with our relocation plans may of our plans are at this moment not known, my work, our final fixed address etc.

Any thought of the above or any experiences / advice to our dilemma would be gratefully received.
One final thought, we have been to the Uk many times over the years ( my wife had a 5 year tourist visa ) is it worth going through the whole settlement visa process from here in Bogota or is there another visa we could apply for ? which would make things easier in terms of getting us to the UK and then doing the application from there ? (although the end hope of us is that she will have residency and from what i understand with some visas a change of is complicated)

again any help/ advice/ wisdom / tales / solutions would be read with the greatest appreciation ,

cheers
Paul

[omarinbox]

Hi

I'm no expert but my first thought looking at your case is that it is only your wife who needs to apply for entry with a work permit.

Hopefully someone else can enlighten us but it appears you and your children all have passports so a work permit for the wife and the supporting case is all that needs to be applied for.

Here's a link about work permits:

http://www.workpermit.com/uk/work_permit/obtaining.htm

I wouldn't take my response as the most experienced here though.

[Wanderer]

Do you have any savings?

[Casa]

Wanderer has asked an important question. If you have £62,500 in savings (held in an account for more than 6 months) evidence of this can be submitted in place of earnings. If savings are from the sale of a property you don't need to have held them in an account.
To answer your questions. Your wife's job offer won't be taken into consideration. You, as the sponsor need to meet the financial condition. Your parents should also submit a copy of the property deeds to prove ownership. They are unable to support you financially.
If you have a confirmed job offer to start within 3 months of arrival meeting the £18.600 minimum and can show that you have been earning the equivalent of £18,600 per annum in Columbia for the last 6 months you would qualify.
If not, your only option would be to return to the UK ahead of your wife and after 6 months of employment earning the required salary of £18,600 per annum you could then apply. Alternatively, you could see if your wife qualifies for a work permit.