rasg

From my wife's experience it was about seven weeks and reading on here and elsewhere it seems to be about the same.

The Danish Embassy were quite difficult to get a sensible answer from last year when I requested an appointment. It was only when I threatened to email Solvit to complain that they gave me an appointment. When we went to the appointment they gave my wife her visa while we waited. I was impressed! 

Last year those using the premium service for settlement visas after the decision making was moved to Sheffield they were taking as long as those who didn’t pay for the faster service. I don't know if that situation has changed.

1 hour ago, laislica said:

OK, that's your opinion and you are entitled to it.

Do others feel the same - Oh the idea might not work, so let's not try?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained......

Interesting that you think this:-  "Not much point as an MP has no sway at all over the decision making process."

Who does then?

What are they there for?

The ECOs are the decision makers. An MP might speed things up a bit if a visa is taking a longer than it should but that's about it.

I’ll let you be the one to start a petition on httpw://petition.parliament.uk/help and I'll vote for it. It's a start. Only 99,999 votes to go for it to be debated in Parliament.

7 hours ago, laislica said:

OP, why don't you write to your MP and explain the difficulties you and your lady are facing and ask for help from the MP?

Not much point as an MP has no sway at all over the decision making process. I agree that it's a good idea but I doubt it would make much difference.

7 hours ago, laislica said:

Would there be enough of us to successfully force a petition through?

I don't think you'd have the numbers necessary to force anything. When most journalists don't understand the rules themselves to write or talk about them what chance for the public unless they have been in the same situation?

You can use your £62,500 savings alone but they need to be easily accessible. I remember that Premium Bonds weren't allowed even though you can cash them in in a few days. That may have changed though. Bonds and ISAs might be a problem and I have no doubt that somebody else on here can help you.

Knowing what I know now I would never have put my wife in for the A1 test as it's so similar to the A2 test. It's another £150 and a trip into London but the Government changed the rules for the second FLR.

Go onto the Trinity College YouTube feed and take a look at real tests. My wife did her A1 while she was in the UK on a visit visa.

3 hours ago, Trevor1809 said:

After the FLR I actually changed the financial year as it used to run April to March. With an ILR in May I would not have got the year end accounts done between 31 March and the ILR application. I coudn't see UKVI accepting accounts over one year old but as you say that is the rules. I wasn't prepared to risk it.

 

" The way I understand it is if you have a limited company you are an employee of that company and not self employed but I am not an accountant. " Correct in the eyes of HMRC but not in the eyes of UKVI bizarrely.

Strange. When I give my accountant my spreadsheets he can give me an idea of my financial obligations in a few hours and prepared a set of accounts in two or three days. Many of my bank statements were close to two years old when I submitted my wife's settlement visa purely because of the date we submitted. If you rely on an average of two years accounts they can be a lot older and it's not a problem.

3 hours ago, Trevor1809 said:

 

It also seems odd that you could be self employed and not actually working but have previous accounts exceeding the limit but an employee made redundant but exceeded the annual limit on previous earning would fail as they wouldn't be able to provide 6 month's worth of pay slips.

There are anomalies all over the place. If you are self employed you cannot rely on savings to bring your earnings up to the financial requirement.

If you are self employed you will be relying on the latest set of accounts available or an average of the previous two years.

When my wife went for a settlement in February 2016 I used my accounts that ran from April 2014 - March 2015. Her first FLR in September 2016 used accounts from April 2015 - March 2016.

The way I understand it is if you have a limited company you are an employee of that company and not self employed but I am not an accountant.

All I did was send the requirements to the accountant and let him do the job. Well worth the £100.

The applicant has to submit biometrics so they have to attend in person.

We didn't need the certificate at all for my wife's FLR in September 2016. After a few days she received an email with a reference number that you use on the FLR application so that they can check online that your wife has passed the test. My guess is that it will be the same.

Yes she can.

On 1/4/2018 at 9:55 AM, darren1971 said:

I imagine there are other reasons but those are the two that are most obvious to me. We can get most Thai foods here but I think it's the culture of food and eating she misses, I do too. On a deeper level I think the whole visa process for a visit and then settlement makes her feel unwelcome here, when I stay in Thailand I actually enjoy feeling like the outsider but again that is not for everyone. I'm grateful for your help because this visit has cleared up a lot of unanswered questions and we could have ended up going through the whole settlement process only for her to be unhappy living here.

I really think you might be jumping the gun on this. Your GF has been here in the UK for a matter of weeks, she's been here in the worst of the weather and as far as I know you have only been together in a holiday environment. It makes a big difference I think.

My wife came here first for 18 weeks and then for eight weeks in Christmas 2016. My family love getting together to eat and it helps that most of them love her and her food. Their eyes light up when I suggest that we meet up and we will have Thai food. One of my sisters adds some English food too and we spend an evening together eating and chatting. My niece's daughters adore her and the feeling is reciprocated. Three big kids together and we go out together quite regularly throughout the year.

She never had a visa refused so quite lucky in that sense and has never been made to feel unwelcome apart from her first immigration officer with her first visit visa the day she arrived for the first time...

Just my thoughts after almost three years together. I asked her last week if she would like to go back to her family for a few weeks as work is slow and she doesn't want to go without me. Skype and Facebook have helped hugely and she speaks to one or two of her family most days and even helps her nieces with their homework. It works for us.

4 hours ago, darren1971 said:

My gf has been in the UK for 3 months now, we have both enjoyed the time here but she has decided she does not want to live in the UK. So if anyone like me was considering going direct to the settlement route because a visit visa was refused then I suggest you should at least try a second application. As wonderful as we may or may not think it is in the UK it is not for everyone, her main reasons for not wanting to live here are the cold and the food. I'm happy with how things have worked out because we were seriously considering going direct to the settlement route.

Sorry to hear that. She didn't really pick the best time of year for the good weather though. My wife loves the snow!

We rarely eat out as her cooking is so good and we have no trouble finding all of the Thai ingredients. My wife likes Brit food too and wants to cook a roast dinner back in her village in Thailand when we go back later this year. She;s been taking lessons from my sister.

The main and almost only difference in Darren's GF's visa application after the refusal was that his sponsor letter was reworded. A good sponsor letter is critical.

7 or 8 years back I did a job in Manchester and at lunchtime popped out and bought a few items I needed using my business debit card. Later that night at home on London I went online to make a transfer to pay a bill and the balance was showing was about £30K but the available to spend balance was £0.00. It didn't feel or look right and I called the bank and they confirmed that the contents of the account were about to be transferred from the account.

I told them to stop it as it wasn't me but they went ahead any way explaining it was to try and catch the perps. They narrowed the location of transaction down to Liverpool (I'd never been to Manchester or Liverpool before) and two weeks later they reimbursed me. Somebody had presumably cloned the card in the camera shop in Manchester but I never did find out.

I learned a bit from it and will never hand my card to anybody in a shop, bar or restaurant and I always cover my pin. I have never written my passwords or pins down anywhere. And I have an RFID wallet. You can’t do much more unless you simply don't use cards. For transactions less than £30 I use Apple Pay.

Because they changed the rules for FLR she will need A2 for it and it's not that different from A1. Well worth doing A2 to save money and with another test for FLR. As brewsterbudgen says B1 is even better if her English is good enough.

9 hours ago, Tony M said:

Why can't UKVI just come up with a reasonable system, perhaps along the lines of the Australian system, whereby applicant/sponsors scan and upload their own documents, from home or wherever to the Aussie immigration service ?

If they allowed applicants to scan and upload documents the system would be very open to fraud.

The whole system of transferring from Thailand to Sheffield seemed to be rushed. It worked pretty well prior too it. My wife's Settlement Visa was done and dusted in 15 days at the beginning of 2016. She returned to Thailand armed with the docs and her A1 that she took in the UK, went for the TB test the day after she went back and went to VFS the following day. She stayed with her cousin and his wife in Bangkok waiting for the visa and flew back to the UK the same day that she picked the visa up. I feel very sorry for anybody now with the shambles that is Sheffield.

3 hours ago, duncsmove said:

Thanks stuartsko ...so my question know is what are our options ? finding a sponser? or is there a way of extending her visa or switching to a 10 year route or applying for a different visa? in 6 months we would have all the paperwork we would need...its a mess and I'm quite concerned

The only other visa your wife can apply for is another FLR but it has the same financial requirements as ILR as far as I know. For ILR she will need a B1 language test and of course she needs to pass the LITUK test. Depending on her English if she hasn't done anything yet about swotting up on the test she has a bit of a mountain to climb.

How good is your wife's English and which test did she do to get her last FLR? The reason I ask is that prior to this year, A1 was all that was required for FLR and the Government changed the rules so, for example, my wife now needs A2 for her next FLR. FLR also carries the NHS surcharge that is £500 for 30 months. No NHS surcharge for ILR.

What did you do before you started the company? Did you have a job with a salary over £18,600 pa? I am self employed and it was worth every penny of the £100 to have my accountant check the requirements after I emailed the PDF to him and he then prepared my accounts to show what was needed. 

I put my wife in the Council Tax the same week that she arrived here on her engagement/marriage visa. The documents provided by the council were handy for the next visa (FLR). I asked the same question of the council and they said I had to pay which was fine.

3 hours ago, changnaam said:

We are looking to submit the application ASAP but with my wife being in UK on holiday we have been unable to do language test and TB test. She has been getting conflicting information on when the test results need to be provided but I think this could be from people using agents who are submitting information gradually to the agent.

 

My understanding is that when you have the appointment for submission of docs at VFS ALL documentation relevant to the application must be submitted at the same time as it has to be scanned (optional) and sent to the UK.

if you turned up 3 days later with English / TB test results they would not be added  to the application.

 

My wife has been lead to believe she can submit the application and then follow it up with test results while the application is being processed and they will be required before the visa is released.

This info has come from people who have used agents, and Thai forums in UK.

My wife did her A1 test here in the UK while on a visit visa. We booked at Trinity College in Hammersmith. You don't need the certificate to go with the application, as far as I know. All you need is the Unique Electronic Reference Number they email to you.

A tip if your wife's English is good. Go for A2 as you will need that for FLR. It's not much different than A1. Even better if she is good enough for B1 which currently would take her through to ILR.

Go onto YouTube and type in Trinity tests. There are plenty of examples to show you what is required of real tests.

My wife went back to Thailand last February carrying all the info and paperwork for her Settlement visa, had the TB test the next day and went to VFS the following day to submit the application. A tip with the TB test. Try and get an early appointment. The XRay sometimes needs to be done again and there is a bit of schlepping from the IOM building to the hospital and back again.

I wouldn’t chance not supplying everything at the same time myself and wouldn’t trust the advice from a visa agent without knowing that they know what they are talking about. Things have changed over the last two years and the decision making move to Sheffield, imho, has been a huge backward step. My wife had her visa back in two weeks early last year. Now they are taking months.

Yes you are having a go at me, but I get it. I've done the same on here when somebody's advice has been wrong.

Maybe what you mean is that a good visa agent will know that it's possible to appeal on Human Rights grounds.

I wonder what percentage of visit visas are actually appealed on human rights grounds?