Settlement visa for Kenyan

[ela27]

Hi,

Looking for any advice, or opinion on the matter....would be greatly appreciated, as trying to find out as much info before we go ahead with anything.

I met my now fiance who is Kenyan in Jan 2007 while I was a volunteer teacher in Mombasa. I returned home in March 2007 and we carried on correspondence through telephone/email/letters etc, and I went back out to Kenya to visit him in October 2007 for 3 weeks. Again we carried on emailing, telephoning etc, and in January 2008 I went back there, until March 2008 and this is when we got engaged.

We were hoping that he could come on a visit visa to the UK but I soon found out this would be impossible for a Kenyan.

So we have been advised that we get married in Kenya and then apply for spouse settlement visa, but am also looking into the possibility of fiance visa. Not really sure how much less likely his chances are with this one? Does anyone know?

My circumstances are that I am a UK citizen, full time primary school teacher, with a regular income, unfortunately not a lot of savings as I have done a lot of voluntary work over the last few years. I am currently living back at home with my parents, but this will be temporary until I have enough money to move out, but at the moment I am saving it to aid the visa process. So I actually have no outgoings - my parents are very understanding and are very nicely letting me live rent free until we can sort this all out. They would also be willing to provide any evidence to backup the visa application if this is possible. I have about 3 months worth of wage slips since I arrived home, and ones for last year (a small gap while in kenya Jan - start of March), I also have bank statements, photos, phone logs, email logs etc. so hopefully could provide some good supporting evidence. As for accommodation, he would initially (but only briefly) come and live at my parents until we got things together and started to rent a place. Our house would not be classed as overcrowded (have checked all this out) There is also a possibility that my sisters friend can help us out by providing employment for him (although not definite at all). He trained in an excellent hotel in nairobi, and has worked as a barman for many years. Unfortunately at the moment he is not at a hotel - he became self employed in March, as his job did not allow him time to do anything at all - and we had to sort a birth cirtificate, passport etc for him.

Please, if anyone has been patient enough to read through this, any help would be greatly appreciated. I really would like to know if we have a good case or not, given that he is African. And what we could do to improve our case!

I also really need to find out procedures of marrying in Kenya, if anyone has been through the same thing - and costs etc, as I am currently looking into travelling back to Kenya in July/August time to marry. But we need to save money (to aid visa application) so it will have to be a fairly low key, straightforward affair (we plan to have a blessing in a church in the UK at a later date) Will this affect the application that it wasn't a big thing with wedding dress, honeymoon etc?

Anyway thanks!

[Kitty]

I am also trying to find out about the spouse visa process in Kenya!

What I would say at the moment is that you should establish your own accommodation and income in the UK. A primary school income should be ok and you can use your fiancé's CV to establish that he has a good chance of getting a job in the UK.

Do try to sort out accommodation asap - you need somewhere that you "occupy exclusively" and while this can be one room in your mum and dad's house I think it looks better to be in your own home.

In terms of the visa itself he will have to go to the Visa Application Centre in Nairobi to get it, including getting biometric fingerscans.

My question is what the procedure is for getting an appointement the VAC and whether the whole process of fingerscans and submission of application can be done in one go.

Search this forum for "Kenya" as well - there is a post setting out the documents submitted with a successful application.