Appeal advice

[crmoorhead]

Hi,

My wife received a refusal based on financial grounds, which we are both confused by. The email contains the following:

You have provided a letter from the university confirming your sponsors stipend and bank
statements to confirm it has been paid. The documents provided demonstrate that your
sponsor earns £15,285.00 from this route.

You and your sponsor require £24,287.50 (£16,000 + 2.5 times the shortfall on the
income threshold: £16,000 + £3,315 X 2.5 [£8,287.50] = £24,287.50) in savings in order
to meet the financial requirements. You have provided a bank statement in your name
which shows the lowest balance of £1,950.55 on 27/04/20. You have also provided your
sponsors bank account which shows the lowest balance of £21,689.69 on 27/04/20. You
and your sponsor have £23,640.24 in savings, however this is £647.26 short.

I am a PhD student receiving a stipend. In the Financial Requirements document, page 39, it gives the following worked example.(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... gov-uk.pdf)

Example (a)
The applicant’s partner is in receipt of a tax-free academic stipend of £12,000 a year
and also has post-tax employment income of £4,500 a year. Her combined net
income is £16,500 (£12,000 + £4,500). There are no sponsored children.

The applicant’s partner has an income which is more than the equivalent net amount
(£15,800) needed to meet the gross level of the financial requirement (£18,600).

1. I don't understand why I am being asked to meet the requirement of the (£18,600) rather than the lower amount.
2. I don't understand why I have been judged on the lowest amount on my savings when it has been increasing month on month over the 12 month period I have applied for. On date of submission, I'm certain the most recent balance was around £27k, plus the savings my partner submitted of roughly £2k.
3. My wife also has additional savings in her Bolivian bank accounts which we did not initially declare as it would have required additional translations etc which are not so easy. Is it possible (or indeed necessary if they have made an error) to appeal with these additional documents?
4. Other than this, has everything else cleared OK?

We are both very frustrated at this since we thought we had dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's before submitting. My wife has a master's degree at a UK university and has worked in industry as an engineer for two years.

If we are appealing, what's the process and any idea of my chances?

Many thanks for any help and advice,
Chris

[seagul]

1. Perhaps due to you being receiving quite a little amount of stipend versus income that caused this imbalance making the things fully obfuscated. But still whatever you are inferring based on your understanding is correct.

2.With reference to cash savings, always the lowest balance figure during the last 6 months is considered regardless of these figures keep on ballooning no matter how many times.

3.These should haven't had been left idle.

See the appeal procedure:
https://www.gov.uk/immigration-asylum-t ... hin-the-uk

[crmoorhead]

Aimed at anyone that can provide answers.

1. Perhaps due to you being receiving quite a little amount of stipend versus income that caused this imbalance making the things fully obfuscated. But still whatever you are inferring based on your understanding is correct.

So they should be calculating on the lower amount for tax free income?

2.With reference to cash savings, always the lowest balance figure during the last 6 months is considered regardless of these figures keep on ballooning no matter how many times.

Is this in the guidelines? Obviously by now my savings have been higher than that for more than 6 months.

3.These should haven't had been left idle.

Well, we already did the calculations based on the lower amount. Based on that, we only needed 2.5x£600=£1500 in savings and we have way in excess of that. If we needed to make the amount they are saying, we could have waited a couple of months and easily made up the £600 deficit. We also would have declared the extra savings. The savings are not so much, but they would be enough to cover the difference certainly. They also have appeared to have added the full amount of savings for my partner rather than dividing it by 2.5. The calculations just don't seem right....

See the appeal procedure:
https://www.gov.uk/immigration-asylum-t ... hin-the-uk
[/quote]

I will peruse it. I notice it says there is 14 days to appeal, whereas in information my wife has in Bolivia says 28 days... (?)

Thanks,
Chris

[seagul]

Aimed at anyone that can provide answers.

1. Perhaps due to you being receiving quite a little amount of stipend versus income that caused this imbalance making the things fully obfuscated. But still whatever you are inferring based on your understanding is correct.

So they should be calculating on the lower amount for tax free income?

Nope but I suspect they didn't have considered the stipend.

2.With reference to cash savings, always the lowest balance figure during the last 6 months is considered regardless of these figures keep on ballooning no matter how many times.

Is this in the guidelines? Obviously by now my savings have been higher than that for more than 6 months.

[/quote]

If the total
savings figure fluctuates over the period of 6 months prior to the date of the
application, decision makers should use the lowest figure evidenced for that period.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... gov-uk.pdf

[seagul]

I will peruse it. I notice it says there is 14 days to appeal, whereas in information my wife has in Bolivia says 28 days... (?)

Thanks,
Chris

Yes 28 days from outside of UK.
https://www.gov.uk/immigration-asylum-t ... ide-the-uk

[crmoorhead]

Nope but I suspect they didn't have considered the stipend.

Sorry, I need this clarified. Nope, as in they don't need to consider the £15,800 amount as quoted on page 39 of with the worked example in the link, or yes they should have considered the stipend?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... gov-uk.pdf

[crmoorhead]

As a follow up, I got the information for more complicated income through:
https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/proof-income
Then:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... gov-uk.pdf
Which seems the most obvious way to find out financial requirements for my situation. The refusal letter doesn't mention any other grounds to be refused and specifically that we were accepted on relationship and English requirements. My wife has a masters degree in engineering from a UK university, so we used this as the latter requirement. This is fairly recent (2017) and she has been working for the state in industry since then.

I previously asked about this (one year ago today, as it happens) with regard to fiancee visa vs spouse visa and was led to believe that the tax-free stipend changed the figures.

immigration-for-family-members/fiancee- ... d#p1853919

Has this changed or am I incorrect in my assumptions?

Our application after getting married was delayed by 6 months already as I have only just arrived back in the UK. I was forced to stay a lot longer due to the pandemic and the UK visa office there was closed for a long time. My wife is earning a salary in her country, but if she needs to stay longer at her job (which is on a contract basis) then she needs to have some expectation of how realistic appeal chances or if we need to start the whole process over again, paying an extra £1500 plus document costs (ironically more than the 2.5 times the amount they claim we are in deficit). Both of us also have greater savings now as our expenses are less than our income in both cases.

From my PoV, we did the maths correctly to begin with. Am I crazy?

[seagul]

Nope but I suspect they didn't have considered the stipend.

Sorry, I need this clarified. Nope, as in they don't need to consider the £15,800 amount as quoted on page 39 of with the worked example in the link, or yes they should have considered the stipend?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... gov-uk.pdf

Means that they should have considered the stipend which most likely they haven't. Probably appealing the decision would be more effectual where even you can demonstrate your cash savings which must have been matured by now to fulfill the shortfall.

[crmoorhead]

After receiving a refusal for a first-time spousal visa based on the financial requirement, we got some legal advice and it seems certain that the home office have made a calculation error. The advice we sought can do the appeal process, but are seeking a large amount of money for it. They did, however, give us some written advice with what should be the correct calculation. What routes should we go given we have 14 days remaining to appeal? Preferably we could do this ourselves. The website seems confusing to see which kind of appeal we should apply for. The advisor said we are unlikely to need a hearing as it's a clear error on their part.

Many thanks for any advice,
Chris

[TODMATT]

After receiving a refusal for a first-time spousal visa based on the financial requirement, we got some legal advice and it seems certain that the home office have made a calculation error. The advice we sought can do the appeal process, but are seeking a large amount of money for it. They did, however, give us some written advice with what should be the correct calculation. What routes should we go given we have 14 days remaining to appeal? Preferably we could do this ourselves. The website seems confusing to see which kind of appeal we should apply for. The advisor said we are unlikely to need a hearing as it's a clear error on their part.

Many thanks for any advice,
Chris

Appeal is a such a lengthy process which can sometimes take about 1 year.

if you think the HO made a mistake, I will suggest you go to your MP to help escalate this issue by writing to the caseworker to review the decision and also write a complaint letter by explaining how the refusal was wrong. Using both of this option will hopefully yield to something within couple of weeks and if it doesn't before you appeal date is over then i suggest an appeal.

I have helped my cousin to appeal his case and it was a nightmare although not saying it is not possible to get it overturn but in his case, he was put on floating list twice!!