Un-married partner visa - proof of cohabitation.

[GCarter243]

Hi all.

I am a British Citizen (23) and my girlfriend (27) is from the US. We have been together for 3.5 years now, and are looking into getting the Un-Married partner visa.

Our story is this; we met in Costa Rica in 2015 when working as dive instructors, and rented an apartment there until October 15. We have no official proof of this as it was a cash in hand.

In November 15 we went to Australia and worked together for the next 11 months. We have bank statements and tax returns with the same address on it, the addresses of the resorts we worked at. I'm assuming this will be acceptable as proof of relationship.

Heres where I get worried. From November 16 until April 17 we went back to Costa Rica to work (again we have no official documentation of this) and then to Malaysia from April 17 to July 17 (same deal with documentation).

From August 17 my girlfriend has been doing her master's degree in the UK so we have rental lease, utility bills, electric bills etc in both our names. But my concern is that we have nothing official that links us together between November 16 and August 17. We have absolutely loads of email correspondence of job offers for both of us, plane tickets for the two of us, visa stamps, photos etc.

Will the lack of evidence in that period of 10 months be a problem, despite us having official documentation
outside that period covering almost 3 years?

[CR001]

You need substantial, rock solid evidence of cohabitation of 'living in a relationship akin to marriage' to qualify for an unmarried partner visa covering the whole two year period prior to date of application. There is no discretion on this.