Withdrawing support on tourist visa

[marshmellow]

Hi - I need some help here. My parents-in-law forced me to sponsor their tourist visa when I was separated from my husband. My husband at the time was ill and couldnt send the documents so I did on his behalf. The parents stayed with their son and helped him recover from his illness.
Now that I am filing for divorce, they are claiming that I should pay for their living costs as I sent the support letter for their tourist despite their son causing the breakdown of marriage. Am I liable for this? Also, can I inform the home office that I have withdrawn support and who do I inform?

[MPH80]

The key questions here:

1) What's your immigration status
2) Did you write a letter/document to UKBA saying you (not your husband) WOULD pay for their living costs?

The reasons for those questions:

Starting with the second question - if you wrote a letter to UKBA saying you (not your husband) would pay, then that's (arguably) a contract and could be produced during the divorce to say that you owe your husband that money if he's covered the bills instead. Outside of the divorce - any document would have to involve a trip to court to get anything - so in that circumstance you don't really have to pay anything as they are unlikely to invoke courts.

The former question is arguably more important:

If you are an immigrant yourself (or intend to make future applications), and DID write a letter saying you'd pay, but had no intention - or made false claims ("I'm living with my husband" when you weren't) - then that could reflect badly on you. If you then tried to say 'ah - well - when I applied I was with my husband, but now not' and then make a mistake later and give the actual date of separation that might all be tied up together and proven you're unreliable and affect that application.

It might also mean that their application gets marked as having fraudulent documents associated with it and they get tarred with the same brush.

OTOH if you made no such false claims - then go ahead and contact them.

The most likely outcome though? UKBA receive the information, ignore it or simply record it on their file, and move on.

On the other hand if all the document said was 'I (the husband) will be paying the living expenses of my parents' and you sent it on for him - then that's nothing to worry about on either count and you have no need to inform UKBA of anything.

M.

[marshmellow]

Thanks - that's really helpful. I am no longer an immigrant so that wont cause any issues for me.

Unfortunately, I did say that I will provide as I was signing the document and there was no time to get my husband at the time to do it as he was in hospital. We were separated at that time but not formally. My husband had moved out of the matrimonial home and was living outside already when his parents arrived. So he had separate rental expenses anyway before his parents arrived.

When you provide the letter of support, am I not allowed to withdraw support if I decide that I no longer want to support the visitor especially in such cases?

[MPH80]

You can, of course, withdraw support. You can simply contact UKBA with a letter and say 'I have now withdrawn support for the visitors X and Y who applied in Z on date A'.

Whether anything happens off the back of it is the following question and the answer is that it's not likely.

Thinking about my earlier point about this being used in the divorce - I'm not so sure it can be.

You have (effectively) an agreement with your husband's parents to cover their living costs while in the UK - not with your husband. So in theory the 'debt' you have is with them. As such - it's not your debt to him and thus shouldn't form part of a settlement. However, I think you need to read into this that this divorce is going to get very very very messy and I might humbly suggest you wait to go any further for his parents to leave so they cannot directly interfere in his thought process.

M.