Family Visa - Wife and Step Child

[strontiumdog74]

Hi Guys,

I am pretty sure this hasn't been answered already from what I can see, I will tell the full story but I only need help with the step child VISA for UK.

I am a British citizen, UK born and raised. Currently living in Abu Dhabi and about to get married to my Filipina fiancée. She has an 18 month old daughter in the Philippines being brought up by her sister.

The father (Tunisian national) of the child disowned my fiancée at 1 month into being pregnant as soon as he found out the news and has had no contact with my fiancée since that time. He has therefore had no contact with the child either. She was living in Qatar at the time and returned to the Philippines to give birth. No father is listed on the birth certificate.

I am familiar with the requirements for the VISA for sponsoring my wife to be and her child for going to the UK once we become married, my issue is that the recommendations on the UKBA site state that she should prove that she has sole custody of the child or the father of the child should write a legally attested letter stating that she can take the child permanently to the UK.

OK, so as there is no father listed on the birth certificate how do I achieve these requirements? A solicitor recommended a letter from a school stating that only my fiancée had dealt with the child's education requirements but as the child is under 2 this is not possible as no school involvement. Even if we could get contact with the father and he provide such letter there is no actual proof that he is even the father as he is not listed on the birth certificate.

Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks in advance

[member]

Did she marry to the child's father legally?

[CR001]

The father not being named on the birth certificate should suffice to prove sole responsibility, i.e she is a single parent. On the form, she will not need to write the father details and can put 'not known'.

Please answer the question from member on whether your fiance was married to her ex.

[strontiumdog74]

She did not marry the childs father, there were only girlfriend and boyfriend when she got pregnant. They had only been together a couple of months.

[noajthan]

Hi Guys,

I am pretty sure this hasn't been answered already from what I can see, I will tell the full story but I only need help with the step child VISA for UK.

I am a British citizen, UK born and raised. Currently living in Abu Dhabi and about to get married to my Filipina fiancée. She has an 18 month old daughter in the Philippines being brought up by her sister.

...

Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks in advance

Mabuhay!

Unfortunately, based on my own experience, you may still face an upward struggle.

This may involve probing questions, including deeply intrusive questions around proving maternity never mind the question of paternity.
And/or initial denial of validity of birth certificate and/or denial of visa.

I faced all that and spent 8 months fighting HO, including 2 trips back to Philippines to gather evidence, plus an expensive UK immigration lawyer, to fight my corner.
HO took it to the wire - it went as far as a court appeal date before HO threw in the towel and, hey presto, the visa appeared in the post with no word of explanation (and obviously no apology for stress, heartache and expenses incurred).

Another member's experience at hands of HO with his Filipino child - again shows UK attitude to PH documentation:
http://www.immigrationboards.com/britis ... d#p1201461

So be prepared for a potentially bumpy ride. Forewarned is forearmed.

Pro tip: A CENOMAR from fiancee and also fiancee's and child's Baptismal Certificates and any/all affidavits you can possibly organise (eg from family priest, NSWD, Barangay captain, relatives & etc) to support your case will surely help.

[strontiumdog74]

Mabuti,

Can you please tell me more about what happpened with your application, what evidence your provided at the start etc? How much did the solicitor cost etc etc?

Thanks

[noajthan]

Mabuti,

Can you please tell me more about what happpened with your application, what evidence your provided at the start etc? How much did the solicitor cost etc etc?

Thanks

Step-daughter's visa refused; fiancee (now wife)'s visa was approved.
We were told human rights were not violated as wife was free to return and visit daughter back home at any time.

I had provided all the evidence stipulated at the time (as per published guidance) for a fiancee visa plus a dependent child; (this was circa 2008/9 rules).
Admittedly I focused more on fiancee evidence believing (in my innocence/ignorance) that step-daughter was clearly part of the package and an indisputable family member.
I was told we had not adequately proved the dependency of daughter on (single) mother.

Reason for refusal: a rather bedraggled typewritten affidavit detailing various points was deemed an "obvious forgery".
It was not, It was a standard-issue affidavit typed out for us by someone in a Dickensian style law office and it was duly notarised and stamped.
HO/UKBA (as it was then) dismissed it out of hand and would not crosscheck nor verify with the central registry of affidavits.

(Philippine law is apparently based on a Hispanic model and relies heavily on the use of notaries and affidavits for all manner of family and business matters).

Ironically the affidavit was actually clarifying some points about sole responsibility and child support (etc) over and above the stated requirements.
So we were snookered and step-daughter had to be left behind with extended relatives whilst I got back to UK to mount my plan of action.

Immigration advisor cost, as I recall, around £150 per hour.
She helped with advice and told me what to do and eventually formulated the case and filed the appeal.

I went back to Pinas (twice).
I hired a local fixer (a law student), also the Dickensian lawyer (& eventually a notary).
Also hired a minicab and driver (far relative) and took a road trip around the country to gather up evidence of family relationhips and support (etc etc).

Rounded up priest, wife's siblings and other relatives, neighbours, Barangay captain, DSWD officials, biological father, school teachers, headmistress - the lot.

Was in touch back to London advisor every night (UK morning) by VOIP.
Unfortunately between UK law, Philippine law and cultural/language differences I still managed to misunderstand how the affidavits work and had to repeat some as some of the affidavits gathered were flawed. (Time for a second road trip!).

Eventually I amassed a stack of irrefutable evidence from credible witnesses of standing in the community:
around 25 affidavits (in triplicate, duly notarised/stamped), fresh copy of birth certificate from NSO, plus school records and reports, testimonials, baptismal certificate, CENOMAR & etc.
To doubt all of that bundle would have implied a massive conspiracy.

Appeal was filed in London. Up until then we had been attempting to deal via the embassy.
HO was petitioned several times due to lack of any response.
Finally a date for a hearing in London was set and my advisor prepared the case.
Then the visa turned up in the post a few days before the hearing - no letter or any word of explanation was ever received. It was like fighting jelly.

It took about 8 months to do all this.
I did a lot of the researching and legwork as I couldn't afford to pay for too much support. I took the advisor for a certain period then stopped it, then restarted.

Dark days, but we still laugh about those road trips sometimes.

[strontiumdog74]

Salamat po.

Thanks for all the info it really helps a lot.

We were planning on bringing the child here to UAE in October and then all of us going from here next June but I am now having second thoughts. I don't want to disrupt the child's life and have her get used to different guardians only to have to be returned to the Philippines if the application fails.

Although part of me thinks having her here in UAE proves a lot about custody and parenting.

ARGH

[strontiumdog74]

Can you tell me what things you did wrong with the affidavits the first time round? So I can avoid doing it myself.

Thanks

[noajthan]

Can you tell me what things you did wrong with the affidavits the first time round? So I can avoid doing it myself.

Thanks

Nothing was wrong. That's the frustrating thing.
The embassy simply took exception to a typewritten affidavit, which was a little dog-eared.
(Its not easy to preserve paper documents in a non air-conditioned house in a tropical country).

The affidavit was properly drawn up by a local lawyer (a senior member of the Bar council apparently).
It was witnessed, duly notarised, and stamped with official embossed stamp and properly filed in the central registry.

I have no evidence anyone bothered to check the central registry for the official copy nor was anyone interested in the impecable credentials of the lawyer and notary.

So we did nothing 'wrong' yet incurred 8 months in a world of pain.
The only solution I had was to counter the refusal with a mountain of correlated and irrefutable evidence - which is what we did.

Now who knows, you may have an easy ride. But the caution is don't assume you will be waved through.

You will have less paperwork to start with as child is younger, but s/he presumably has been christened so there's a family priest;
there will be hospital and midwife records.

You can even help yourself by generating paper by making child known to the Barangay captain, local NSWD officiale & etc.
Make sure there's a papertrail for any/all medical care, clinic attendance and inoculations.

Also document any/all family (financial) support and expenses you as parents incur.
And do check for any little glitches, wrong spellings or dates & etc in any local documents.

On the later road trip some of the affidavits I collected were not witnessed in the correct way. But the notary spotted that, refused to notarise them and made us do them again.

Good luck.

[strontiumdog74]

Sorry to hi-jack the thread but CR001 mentioned something that I am going face as an issue.

I read the guidance:

A sponsoring parent (see SET7.2) must be able to show that he/she has been solely responsible for exercising parental care over the child for a substantial period.If the sponsoring parent and child are separated, the child will normally be expected to have been in the care of the sponsoring parent’s relatives rather than the relatives of the other parent. An application should normally be refused if the child has been in the care of the other parent’s relatives and the other parent lives nearby and takes an active interest in the child’s welfare.

The following factors should be considered in assessing sole responsibility:
•Are the parents married / in a civil partnership?
•If the parents’ marriage / civil partnership is dissolved, which parent was awarded legal custody, which includes assumption of responsibility for the child?
•Where there is a custody order the ECO should take care to ensure that the issue of a settlement entry clearance to the child will not contravene the terms of the custody order. See list for countries whose custody orders can be recognised as valid in UK (copy is available on this guidance page).
•Does the marriage / civil partnership subsist, but the parents do not live together?
•If the sponsoring parent migrated to the UK, how long has the sponsoring parent been separated from the child?
•If the sponsoring parent migrated to the UK, what were the arrangements for the care of the child before and after the sponsoring parent migrated?
•If the sponsoring parent migrated to the UK, what has been / what is the sponsoring parent’s relationship with the child?
•Has the sponsoring parent consistently supported the child, either by:direct personal care; or by regular and substantial financial remittances?
•By whom, and in what proportions, is the cost of the child’s maintenance borne?
•Who takes the important decisions about the child’s upbringing, for example where the child lives, the choice of school, religious practice etc?

My Filipina wife got pregnant by her ex bf when she was working in a Middle East country, he wanted nothing to do with her or the child and she returned to the Philippines to give birth. No father is listed on the birth certificate and her daughter is now only 18 months old so there is no school etc. Her daughter currently lives with her sister.

The father has never been in the picture since 1 month into the pregnancy. He is not listed on birth certificate.

How do I prove that my wife has sole custody, what should I get to demonstrate this as I have heard that the absence of the father's name on the certificate is not enough?

Any advise greatly received.

@Mods if you want to move this to it's own topic please do so I just thought as it had been discussed here I would carry on rather than generating lots of threads.

[vinny]

M

[noajthan]

Sorry to hi-jack the thread but CR001 mentioned something that I am going face as an issue.

I read the guidance:

...

My Filipina wife got pregnant by her ex bf when she was working in a Middle East country, he wanted nothing to do with her or the child and she returned to the Philippines to give birth. No father is listed on the birth certificate and her daughter is now only 18 months old so there is no school etc. Her daughter currently lives with her sister.

The father has never been in the picture since 1 month into the pregnancy. He is not listed on birth certificate.

How do I prove that my wife has sole custody, what should I get to demonstrate this as I have heard that the absence of the father's name on the certificate is not enough?

Any advise greatly received.

@Mods if you want to move this to it's own topic please do so I just thought as it had been discussed here I would carry on rather than generating lots of threads.

In such circumstances, (single mother), mother has sole custody under PH family law.
In a cover letter you can state that for the benefit and education of British officials, quoting relevant extract of PH family code.

These days you may have to get DNA test evidence too; (from approved provider).
(I didn't have to do that, 7 or so years ago).

You need to gather as much additional supporting evidence as possible to show sole parental responsibility & sole custody;
Eg as I did:

• NSO bc (ofcourse);
  CENOMAR;
  baptismal certificate;
  hospital/medical/clinic/vaccination records;
  doctor's records;
  anything from NSWD;
  evidence of (only the) mother financing child;
  affidavits from all and sundry;

& etc

[strontiumdog74]

Thanks, sorry for raising this again.

The information about custody rights in the Philippines has pointed me to some really useful information.. Thanks

[strontiumdog74]

noajthan,

Komusta po?

Your information on custody has led me to some great sources for Filipino Family Law and the articles that relate, I am currently trying to get a price for a bar registered Filipino attorney to write an attested letter with the following:

Definition of illegitimate child under Philippines law
Definition of custody rights of illegitimate child under that law and specifilaly even if the father was named on the birth cert (as we know he is not) that this would not affect the mother's right
That a precedent was set in 2004 with the supreme court case of Briones vs. Miguel and that this is still the most relevant case to date
How these issues relate to my case - attorney has seen evidence that my partner was unmarried at time of birth thereby making her daughter illegitimate as demonstrated in the above definitions
This therefore gives her sole custody rights as detailed by the above definitions

If possible I will get them to state that no case has been brought by any party to dispute custody and that my partner does not need any special clearances from DSDW for her to remove her daughter from the country etc.

I know that this is not a guarantee that we will be successful for the visa application for the UK but I feel our case is now somewhat strengthened and have hope that we might have a positive result.

We have also decided that we will bring the child to the UAE to live with us from October until we apply and move to the UK, hopefully strengthening the sole custody case by the fact that we have her with us outside the Philippines. Also her living in UAE for 6 months will mean she will not need a TB test, although I know for getting her visa here she will be tested for that anyway but it's one less hassle to worry about as they only seem to do that in Manila and she is in the provinces in Leyte.

Sorry to waffle on but I just thought I would update on my plan and give you a chance to comment on anything you think I have missed etc.

[strontiumdog74]

For some reason I couldn't edit my last post, I wanted to add:

We still plan on getting sworn affidavits from the local priest, midwife and anyone else we can think of who is of some standing in the community.

My partner is going back to Philippines in September for a month (after we are married) and will get as much of the information as she possible can.

I also take on board what you have said about documents from Philippines not being believed, fortunately our wedding certificate will be from the UAE so at least that should stand up to more scrutiny.

I assume we have to get the child's birth certificate red ribboned?

[noajthan]

Sounds like a good plan.
You are covering the same sort of ground I had to.

In my case the bc even had a husband's name as the father's family registered the birth (even though the case was single mother, no legal "husband");
the "in-laws" did that "for the good of the family" and "reasons of modesty".
Things are done differently there.

I would caution that even with the legal inputs the HO/HMPO can still misunderstand and get it wrong.
In my second battle with UK I provided such inputs on foreign laws which went to a UK 'policy unit' for review and consideration.
This UK policy unit came back with a written but faulty interpretation of Philippine law (of their own) which was the opposite of the actual law (they just got it wrong); it then proved very hard to convince them of their mistake.
So, in my experience, as many forms of evidence as possible will be required: belt and braces approach.

The senior lawyer I managed to hire in PH was very reasonable. Possibly because my fiancee (now wife) negotiated the price and I kept out of the way until the deal was sealed.
That approach seems to work well.

As I recall, no TB test was necessary in my case (wasn't provided anyway); child was stopped and held on first entry to UK but a senior MO intervened and refused to examine the child "due to her age". So no test was done or demanded or ever provided.
Maybe rules have since changed.

The child's move to join your family unit is an excellent idea,

[strontiumdog74]

Do you think it's worth getting a DNA test to prove maternity? It seems like overkill and from what I am finding it could cost between £400 and £900 to get it done by a recognised centre.

I can't find anything on uk.gov site that gives details of approved centres abroad but I found a reference on another forum about UP Dilman being recognised by UK Gov for visa applications.

I wish this was all so much simpler.

[noajthan]

Do you think it's worth getting a DNA test to prove maternity? It seems like overkill and from what I am finding it could cost between £400 and £900 to get it done by a recognised centre.

I can't find anything on uk.gov site that gives details of approved centres abroad but I found a reference on another forum about UP Dilman being recognised by UK Gov for visa applications.

I wish this was all so much simpler.

Well it may cut straight to the heart of the matter.
Not sure why we didn't do that (about 7 years ago).
It just never came up, was never asked for or even suggested (not by UK HO nor by my UK lawyer) and I suppose I didn't think of it.

Yes, you would surely have to be sure the provider was recognised.

[strontiumdog74]

Just literally got a reply back from UP Dilman and they want 65,000 pesos to conduct a test. I think I'll give that a miss.

Oh well.

[strontiumdog74]

Noajthan,

Did you get any of the documents red ribboned or just attested?

Just curios?

Stront

[Casa]

noajthan is away from the forum for a few days.

[strontiumdog74]

Thanks Casa, hope he will reply when he is back.

[Casa]

I'm sure he will.

[noajthan]

Noajthan,

Did you get any of the documents red ribboned or just attested?

Just curios?

Stront

Back again.

No, nothing red ribboned. Just original docs (or official copies) from NSO & etc.
And properly notarised affidavits.