ILR through UK Ancestry if main applicant is not bread winner

[hello_you]

Hello to everyone.

Our family has just moved to the UK through my wife who has UK Ancestry. So myself and our child are dependants through her UK Ancestry VISA, and we have our dependant VISAs and all is well.

We are worried about IRL (which I know is still a long way to go but we want to be prepared) however because although my wife is the main VISA holder, it is actually I who is the breadwinner in the family. We are able to live off my income, I already have a full time job in the UK, and we have no public fund requirements (not that we could get these) and we have a healthy savings to go with this. My wife does do a little photography on the side and she does generate a little bit of money through this as well but we are not dependant on this financially as a family.

When we as a family do our application for ILR, will our work/income situation be an issue? Does my wife actually need to have a full time job and earn an X amount of income for us to be successful? Will they review our case as a whole when making the decision to approve ILR for all of us?

If anyone knows of a good advisor who could assist (if none of the good souls on here are too sure on my questions), please do let me know.

Thank you all!

[CR001]

She holds an employment category visa and should therefore work, even part time work.

There is no minimum income she must earn either.

I hope she is declaring her photography income for tax and has registered as self employed with hmrc?

Members are not permitted to post names and details of advisors.

[hello_you]

Thanks for the reply - no she is not on HMRC yet. We have literally just arrived in the UK (only been here a month actually) so I am asking the questions now so we can get ourselves prepared and sorted.

Will make arrangements to get the HMRC registration done - she has not made any money since we arrived (as you can imagine, moving around, finding our feet etc. takes up all our time at the moment) but any that she will make she will declare. Is is the same as South Africa where earning below a certain amount PA is not required to be declared? Or do you need to declare anyway even if you do not need to pay tax?

Thanks again in advance.

[CR001]

Is is the same as South Africa where earning below a certain amount PA is not required to be declared?

It is very different here to the way SARS works. You most definitely do not want to mess with the tax man here, it can result in home office applications being refused even.

Or do you need to declare anyway even if you do not need to pay tax?

You must declare every penny in the self assessment if she is self employed. HMRC will judge if you need to pay tax and NI and inform you.

You also need to make sure that if she is going to work with the public, that she has the appropriate insurances etc.

Also note that if you are renting, the majority of tenancy agreements prohibit having a business at home so you will need to check very carefully and get permission as things like this can affect your landlords insurance.