Fiancee Visa - Applying for Settlement?

[Canadian Lovely]

Can anyone tell me about applying to UK as a Canadian fiancee of British citizen? My questions are:

How soon after applying/entering/marriage in UK would I be able to apply for settlement and start looking for work?

What are the costs of applying for settlement from a fiancee visa?


Thanks so much for any advice.

Kitty

[John]

How soon after applying/entering/marriage in UK would I be able to apply for settlement and start looking for work?

You can apply for your 2-year spouse visa as soon as the marriage has happened, and that marriage needs to happen during the 6-month period of validity of the fiancée visa.

Work? You can start looking when you like, but it would be illegal to actually start work until you have your spouse visa, and that will of course be after the marriage has happened.

What are the costs of applying for settlement from a fiancee visa?

The current cost of submitting a form FLR(M) is £335 by post, or £500 in person at a PEO ... Public Enquiry Office. However those fees are likely to change in April, but no indication has yet been given about the new fee levels.

[Canadian Lovely]

Thanks John.

Okay I do have another question: My fiance and I were considering having a civil ceremony this March and then having our marriage celebration (our original wedding date) in May. Our thought was that atleast having our marriage made legal 2 months ahead of time would help move things along in regards to my visa application and getting over to join my husband.

Would this raise any red flags or cause any problems for us in the future - especially when I apply for my visa?

[John]

I'm getting confused here. In which country is the civil marriage ceremony going to happen? And indeed in which country is the religious ceremony going to happen?

[Canadian Lovely]

Both ceremonies, whether we decide to have a separate civil ceremony earlier, will be in Canada.

In fact, I'm not planning to be in England again until I have obtained my visa.

[John]

OK, in which case I have to say that :-

Can anyone tell me about applying to UK as a Canadian fiancee of British citizen?

-: is confusing, because you will not be applying as a fiancee! You will be applying for a 2-year spouse visa, at the BHC in Canada.

Once the legal marriage has happened, that is, you have a marriage certificate confirming that the two of you are legally married, you can apply for your spouse visa. Do appreciate that the processing time in Canada is quite quick and if the religious ceremony is not going to be for a couple of months, you will want to avail yourself of the facility to ask for a deferred start date on the visa .... to ensure that you actually enter the UK for the first time using the spouse visa within 28 days of the printed start date. Otherwise you will encounter a problem 2 years down the road when you apply for convert your 2-year spouse visa into ILR.

So, inventing some fictitiously dates ... say the civil marriage is on 10th March, and the religious wedding on say 12th May, there is nothing to stop you applying for the spouse visa shortly after 10th March ... but do ensure you specifically request a visa start date of say 13th May, or even slightly later than that if you intend to honeymoon outside the UK before journeying here. You can ask to defer the start date up to a maximum of 3 months.

Returning to the subject of work, armed with a spouse visa you can start work as soon as you arrive in the UK.

[Canadian Lovely]

Awesome.

Yes I would be applying for the 2 year spouse settlement visa, the fiancee route was going to be a plan B.

I guess I want to make sure that having strictly a civil ceremony wouldn't cause them to question our marriage if it is two months ahead of our religious ceremony.