Older ielts certificates are accepted.

[Studio5]

Hi there,

Just wanted to let everyone know that older than two years ielts certificates are accepted for the probational marriage visa in the UK. We have just received our successful visa application using a 5 year old certificate. I had many conversations with UKBA and the Brittish Council before submitting the application and here is a brief summary:

- UKBA said they will accept a certificate from a recommended body as long as it does not have an expiry date. The home office do not state anywhere that a certificate has to be within a certain time period.

- British council confirmed that while certificates have a recommended validity date of two years they don't formally expire and that it is down to individual institutions if they accept older.

As a note we did submit an MA certificate from two years ago also so this could have been seen as proof that my wife has continued to improve her English (MA certificates from uk institutions are not accepted for this visa as proof of English, which even the home office admitted was silly).

Hope this is helpful for people, I was seriously stressed looking for information about this!

-

Sections of emails below:

UKBA (in response to me asking if they will accept an old certificate.)

"Dear Sir,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Please be advised when applying for the Further Leave to Remain the UK
Border Agency will accept English test certificates at levels above A1
of the CEFR and those with reading and writing as well as speaking and
listening, as long as they are on our list of acceptable tests and
approved test providers.

You can find our list of acceptable tests and approved test providers
via the English Language Requirement link on the UKBA website page for
partners at: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/partn ... /partners/"

British council (in reply to me asking if they will vouch for the validity of an older certificate, they initially said no but I pointed out to them the wording of their website)

"We can't verify TRFs that are older than 2 years on line or in any
other way but organisations can accept older Test Report Forms if they
want. We can have a look at a Test Report Form to see if it looks
genuine but can't confirm the scores because they are no longer on the
verification system."

[Studio5]

So it seems they stopped this already. The updated list says ielts are only valid for two years...

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... h-language

***** edit ******

That link is for the employers and sponsors points based applications. The family requirements still don't mention a validity period for ielts. Good news!

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... rtners.pdf

[skyscraper101]

I'm confused because on this page it says IELTS is valid '2 Years'

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/polic ... appendixo/