FLR(M) as unmarried partners. Now married. What next?

[bjws1987]

Hi everyone,

Apologies if this has been asked before - I searched the forums but could not find anything directly dealing with my questions.

BACKGROUND:

I'm a British citizen. My (now) wife is Canadian.

She moved to the UK in 2013 and initially had the Tier 5 Youth Mobility visa.

In August 2015 we successfully applied for the FLR(M) visa, on the basis of being unmarried partners who had been cohabiting for at least 2 years. This forum was incredibly helpful for that application!

After 2.5 years, we renewed the FLR(M) visa for an additional 2.5 years - this was in February 2018.

We got married about a month ago, and I am now unsure how we should proceed with our progress towards ILR and, ultimately, citizenship.

QUESTIONS:

• Are there any specific actions that we need to take immediately now that we are married - do we (for example) need to update her current visa to reflect that we are married (rather than unmarried partners)?

OR

• Do we simply wait until we have completed the full 5-year route on the current FLR(M) visa, and complete any future applications as a married couple?

• My wife will be taking my surname, but there is no massive rush to "formalise" this. Should we update her passport and BRP now, or should we wait until the next time she needs to renew these documents (one reason for waiting to do so might just be that we will save ourselves a bit of money this way)?

Please let me know if I've missed any key pieces of information. Thank you so much in advance for any help.

B

[Casa]

Hi everyone,

Apologies if this has been asked before - I searched the forums but could not find anything directly dealing with my questions.

BACKGROUND:

I'm a British citizen. My (now) wife is Canadian.

She moved to the UK in 2013 and initially had the Tier 5 Youth Mobility visa.

In August 2015 we successfully applied for the FLR(M) visa, on the basis of being unmarried partners who had been cohabiting for at least 2 years. This forum was incredibly helpful for that application!

After 2.5 years, we renewed the FLR(M) visa for an additional 2.5 years - this was in February 2018.

We got married about a month ago, and I am now unsure how we should proceed with our progress towards ILR and, ultimately, citizenship.

QUESTIONS:

• Are there any specific actions that we need to take immediately now that we are married - do we (for example) need to update her current visa to reflect that we are married (rather than unmarried partners)? Nothing required.

OR

• Do we simply wait until we have completed the full 5-year route on the current FLR(M) visa, and complete any future applications as a married couple?

YES

• My wife will be taking my surname, but there is no massive rush to "formalise" this. Should we update her passport and BRP now, or should we wait until the next time she needs to renew these documents (one reason for waiting to do so might just be that we will save ourselves a bit of money this way)?

Best to update her passport & BRP from the time she changes her surname.

Please let me know if I've missed any key pieces of information. Thank you so much in advance for any help.

B

[bjws1987]

• My wife will be taking my surname, but there is no massive rush to "formalise" this. Should we update her passport and BRP now, or should we wait until the next time she needs to renew these documents (one reason for waiting to do so might just be that we will save ourselves a bit of money this way)?

Best to update her passport & BRP from the time she changes her surname.

Hi Casa,

Sorry for the delay in responding to this - thanks so much for your helpful responses. That's good that we don't need to do anything immediately.

With regards to updating the passport and BRP, technically she hasn't "changed her name" until she has government ID issued (e.g. passport) with her new name. The marriage certificate can be used as proof of name change, but it doesn't say anywhere that she has changed her name to my surname on [X] date.

So do you think it would be OK to combine the process of "changing her name" with the next round of renewals?

That way I figure we don't need to pay the fee for updating the BRP until the next time we would have to pay to renew it anyway.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
B