Hi Rebeccac,
my husband is in this country on a spouse visa and I have spent quite a bit of time making sure he has enough documents when it comes to applying for his ILR. I disagree with Chess and think you will be able to include your Car Insurance Certificate as evidence of your living at the same address and think a letter from your employer will be of no help.
If you look at the SET (M) application form, section 7 includes a list of acceptable documents, click on the link below:
Form SET(M)
As you will see it says:
You must provide documents of the kind described below as evidence that you and your spouse or partner live together.
Please provide ten items of correspondence of the kind, or from the sources listed below, addressed to you and your spouse or partner jointly during each of the past 2 years if they clearly show that you live together at the same address. At least 5 of these documents should be from different sources. If you have not received any such correspondence that is addressed to you and your spouse or partner jointly, it is acceptable to provide no less than 4 items addressed to one of you and no more than 6
items addressed to the other partner during each of the past 2 years so long as they show the same address.
•telephone bills or statements
•gas bills or statements
•electricity bills or statements
•water rates bills or statements
•council tax bills or statements
•local social services department
•local health authority
•government department or agency (eg Department of Health, Inland Revenue, Department for Work and Pensions, Employment
Service)
•bank or building society statements or passbooks
•credit card statements
•insurance certificates complete with address
•mortgage statements or agreement
•tenancy agreement
As you will see it includes 'insurance certificates complete with address', so I think the car insurance certificate will be fine.
The important thing to remember is that you will need to submit ten documents (at least four from one of you and a maximum of six from the other) and they will need to be from at least five different sources. So for year one (as an example) you could include:
Your NHS card
Your correspondence from DWP
Three bank account statements (from Australia)
Your husband could include:
Car insurance certificate
Two statements from one joint bank account
Two statements from other joint bank account
Then you have submitted 10 items of correspondence (five from each of you) from six different sources. Then you just need to do the same for year two.
Do you have further correspondence from DWP for year two? Does your husband have another car insurance certificate for year two? Eight of your items of correspondence could be statements from both joint bank accounts and your Australian bank account, then you just need two further pieces of correspondence on the list to make up the necessary five different sources. Any credit card statements or letters from the Inland Revenue??
Interestingly there is no mention of a driving licence on the list, I would have thought it would be acceptable though if it was dated within the time frame. Maybe someone else will have an idea about this? Could you apply for a UK licence? I don't think including you as an additional driver on the insurance will make a difference either way.
My husband and I have a similar problem in that our rent is inclusive of council tax and utilities. He had a nightmare trying to open a bank account - only managed to in the end by changing the name on the phone bill to use as proof of address and only did this by threatening to leave NTL for BT (50 phone calls later).
If you are PAYE I think the Inland Revenue send out a notice of coding at the end of the financial year (April), and a P60 (statement of PAYE Tax) also sent in April - both of these would count.
