Spouse visa application - evidence issues (or not)?

[Jhb552]

Hi Everyone, sorry if already been asked on here but couldn't find an answer.

I am currently going through processes to obtain a spouse visa for my Indian national wife. I am a British citizen. We have a genuine relationship, meet all requirements and on the face of it this is an open and shut case which should be approved very swiftly.

Thing is - my now wife, who for the last year since the end of her degree, has been living in India, came to visit me for a month in February on a tourist visa. As she wasn't working at there time and was pretty keen on ensuring she was not rejected for the visa she said on the form she was "single" rather than "engaged" and made no reference to my existence on the cover letter. Anyway, as with all 3 of her tourist visas she has been on since she finished her studies here she left on time with no issues. She has never been refused before or had any overstays or problems with immigration.

Question is: will her previous tourist visa applications be fully scrutinised as part of the spouse visa application? And also, if they are scrutinised, is this sufficient grounds for "deception" given it should be very easy to pass it off as being a simple mistake? Her earlier two tourist visas we were not yet engaged and so the fact I wasn't mentioned for those wouldn't matter.

Thanks everyone.

[Casa]

Yes it will. All applications are cross-checked on the UKVI for statements given in previous visa applications. Your wife withholding the information that she is married with her husband living in the UK is deception and the spouse settlement visa is highly likely to be refused under 320(7A) of the Immigration Rules:
(7A) where false representations have been made or false documents or information have been submitted (whether or not material to the application, and whether or not to the applicant’s knowledge), or material facts have not been disclosed, in relation to the application or in order to obtain documents from the Secretary of State or a third party required in support of the application.

Se will also be subject to all future UK visitor visa applications being refused

[Jhb552]

Yes it will. All applications are cross-checked on the UKVI for statements given in previous visa applications. Your wife withholding the information that she is married with her husband living in the UK is deception and the spouse settlement visa is highly likely to be refused under 320(7A) of the Immigration Rules:
(7A) where false representations have been made or false documents or information have been submitted (whether or not material to the application, and whether or not to the applicant’s knowledge), or material facts have not been disclosed, in relation to the application or in order to obtain documents from the Secretary of State or a third party required in support of the application.

Se will also be subject to all future UK visitor visa applications being refused

Thanks for your reply. Just to be clear, we only married this month and were not married in February (only engaged). I understand there is a fiancé option but is that still a material misrepresentio ?

[Casa]

OK, I missed the fact that you were engaged and not married at that point! She was still considered as single. Did she mention you at all in the application? I'm going offline for now.

[Jhb552]

OK, I missed the fact that you were engaged and not married at that point! She was still considered as single. Did she mention you at all in the application? I'm going offline for now.

No, she did not mention me at all in the application .

[Casa]

OK, I missed the fact that you were engaged and not married at that point! She was still considered as single. Did she mention you at all in the application? I'm going offline for now.

No, she did not mention me at all in the application .

This will probably be spotted when her spouse visa application is assessed and she has to submit evidence of how long you have been in a relationship. Withholding of information or giving false information may still result in a refusal under 320(7a).

Who did she state she was visiting in her application?

[Jhb552]

OK, I missed the fact that you were engaged and not married at that point! She was still considered as single. Did she mention you at all in the application? I'm going offline for now.

No, she did not mention me at all in the application .

This will probably be spotted when her spouse visa application is assessed and she has to submit evidence of how long you have been in a relationship. Withholding of information or giving false information may still result in a refusal under 320(7a).

Who did she state she was visiting in her application?

A former university friend who showed her council tax receipts as proof of address.

[Casa]

There's not anything you can do now but hope for the best. Your wife can hardly claim that she forgot she had a fiance living in the UK. I assume that she believed her visitor visa would be refused if she mentioned you, which it probably would have been.

Withholding a material fact in order to obtain a visa is considered to be deception.

[Jhb552]

I'm marrying my fiancé in October. Preparing the application as early as possible. We can get everything we need but I'm worried about a gap in our evidence. I'll summarise what we have:

(Key facts. I'm UK national, she's Indian and we met in 2014 when she was a student in London. We are both 27. My gross salary is 57k per year and I'm applying category a as been in my job for over six months. Rent a two bedroom flat which we will obtain representations for that she's allowed to move into)

We primarily communicate on Whatsapp. In fact almost entirely. She has been working in China and we have an 8 hour time difference and I work very long hours. Scheduled Skype calls doesn't suit it, and we don't have "itemised" phone bills as who wastes money on that in 2017 with Whatsapp? And who emails their gf when you can Whatsapp call them? Maybe it's an age thing, but I don't know if any 27 year old would be so different to us.

We both changed phones in January 2016 and have no Whatsapp call logs (we do weekly Whatsapp calls) or chat histories before that. After that, we are fine. This is what we have:

Evidence summary:

Met sept 2014. 2014 we have 25 time stamped photos together and sms messages from my mother about how nice it was to meet my new gf and a picture she sent of us.
2015: she left uk in Jan and took a job in Morocco. We have no Whatsapp messages in 2015. That's just how it is. However we have many pictures from her two trips to London to see me showing us with all my friends and all 2015 time stamped as well as an sms from my mother in October 2015 asking us what we wanted for dinner (referring to her by name) when we went to visit them.
2016: new phones! 2016-2017 is 100 pages of non stop Whatsapp conversation. Few love yours and miss yous etc, plans for the future, counselling each other and so on. Weekly Whatsapp calls also on weekends all logged and printed.
Photos: in 2016 she came to London and again we have tons of picture evidence and evidence showing trips we made to Cornwall. In late 2016 she took her China job. We went on holiday to Thailand together when she had a week off and again we have tons of evidence of that. I also went to China to visit her and we have pictures of that.
2017: I went to Delhi to meet her family in January. Pictures with her extended family. I proposed this month, and there are also pictures with their family pastor showing us being blessed.
April: my parents went to Delhi to meet her family. They gave us lots of pictures of that trip.
May: I went to China again to see her. We also stayed in Macau and Hong Kong. I have many pics again.

And obviously on the day we will have lots of wedding pics. I'm not trying to brag but it's going to be an expensive wedding with about 600 guests. I mean, how's that a sham?

Her father is a minister in the Indian government and though the Eco won't give a toss about that he is going to sign a statement on parliamentary paper also confirming our relationship and that the evidence is all correct, can't hurt.

So I've read this back and it's comprehensive. But we have NO COMVERSATION DUE TO PHONE CHANGES AS WHATSAPP DIDNT SAVE THE CONVOS ore January 2016. I've read on here of people failing due to not sending greeting cards or not using Skype frequently enough so I'm worried. But viewing our package of evidence, will the Eco exercise common sense?

And should we write a letter explaining the gap? I say gap but we have photos and plane tickets from 2015.

Thanks and sorry for the long message.

J