rasg

Glad to hear all went well RASG and many thanks for your help with my FLR form queries. Ours was sent the week after yours and came through without problems yesterday. Like yours, the whole process took exactly 7 weeks. Not bad really. Maybe one day they'll make the FLR application and guidance notes decipherable, although I doubt it!

Pleased to hear it went well.

Decipherable? Probably too much to ask, surely?

I've started on the next one and also applied for a National Insurance number too... Appointment for the NI is on the 11th.

Thank you so you are saying do not do the online application until I have the supporting documents and have done the tb test and English exam so we return to Thailand on 8th  off to ubon ratchathani the next day and get married 22november so do tb test and English test after marrage as to have the correct surname on her documents.

In the past I have done most of the visa application in advance and only hit the completion button a day or so before, paid for it and booked the appointment. For a Visit Visa you can definitely change the UK arrival date because I just checked and I am pretty certain you can do the same with a settlement visa application.

Good news today.

We couriered my wife's FLR application on the 6th September as her Fiancée visa expired on the 8th. I called a week later as I hadn’t had an acknowledgement and they don't send them immediately and it arrived three days later.

The letter to get BRP information done arrived after about three weeks and we popped to Windsor the same day and had it done.

The BRP arrived today via courier and ten minutes later the postman delivered all of our documents back. It took seven weeks. Not too bad and now the wife can work if she wants to.

Interesting bonus. The new visa's start date was yesterday.

My (now) wife actually had two visit visas that overlapped by 12 days last year as we wanted her to spend Christmas with my family. The first ran out on the 12th December. The second started on the 1st December.

Back then a 3 year visa was the same price as a two year but they seemed to have dropped the three year offering altogether.

We decide to go for the settlement visa (fiancé) and got married despite having almost three years left on her second visit visa.

My missus happily walks or cycles with me for miles if it's around the New Forest or somewhere pretty where there is the chance of spotting any animals. She really gets into her stride if shopping is involved and we now have an agreement on the shopping front because it bores me to death. I find a coffee shop and drink half a dozen cappuccinos while she browses the shops. I do most of mine on Amazon.

The UKVI do say that anything not in English should be translated, some people do and some don't bother.

I would suggest that any documents that are not translated that are actually required documents for the visa application will mean that the application would be refused.

Tractor ownership document translation would obviously would be irrelevant...

If you print on a decent quality laser printer many look very, very similar to originals. The Santander Internet bank statements have "this is an online document" very faintly in the background though. It's hard to see.

Get your folks to do it and scan it, email you a PDF, and get it printed at the local copy shop. Just explain what you have done because your bank couldn’t do it in time but point out that all the others are original.

Download and print the PDF and pop into the bank and get them to stamp it. I am with Santander and they stamped a whole year of statements while I waited. Both for a Settlement visa and FLR.

We will probably do the IELTS test and then book the TB test either the day before or after so we're not rushing around.

Try and get an earliesh appointment at IOM for the TB test. You have to go there first and they then send you to the hospital. It sometimes takes more than one XRay. Then you have to schlep back to the IOM building to collect the certificate. My wife had an 11.00 am appointment and it was touch and go to get the certificate with a single XRay by about 4.00 pm.

Probably it is a lie detector in disguise.

A small correction. 10000 of them were sold to the RTP as lie detectors and they still haven't fully worked out how they work.

They stick it on your arm, interrogate you and typically get an answer that you have lied at least 120/80 times. It could be as high as 190/120.

Well worth the extra few baht to get it delivered if you are a long way from Bangkok.

Good luck! 

It won't make a difference. Just the £18600 financial requirement.

HI RASG. Thanks for your help during the recent FLR application. I'm stiil trying to recover from the shock of it leaving the house!! The application was sent to them on September 14th and she got a letter from them on September 30th requesting her to enrol biometrics, so it looks like it takes about 2 weeks before you'll hear from them.

Just a  word of warning (which won't surprise you). The guidance notes which come with the letter state at one point that the applicant needs to bring ID (passport,ID card,Photo Driving Licence) to enrol biometrics. It's badly written, like all FLR guidance notes. I can confirm that as my wife has now enrolled her biometrics, NO ID IS REQUIRED. All that's needed is the Home Office letter which includes a bar code, and of course the £19.20 fee, which must be paid by cash or debit card. They don't accept credit cards.

Unlike every other aspect of this mind-numbing FLR process, enrolling biometrics was simple and took only a few minutes, after waiting in a queue in the PO for about half an hour.

Thanks for this. We had the Biometrics letter on Friday and nipped to Windsor and got it all done. There were a couple of questions that I hadn’t ticked on the FLR form. All done and sent, I couriered the application on the 7th and I was surprised when the letter came Friday. On closer inspection the letter came from the Initial Assessment Unit in Sheffield so it seems to be a sort of clearing house to pre check that a visa is likely to go through.

RASG did your wife not have an NI number already before you sent the FLR application away? Mine did and has been working for over a year. Her employer just asked for proof  last week that her FLR application has been sent and she can keep working until the FLR decison is made.

She came here in a Fiancée visa which was for six months. No working allowed until we get FLR. Hope the visa is soon. All our documents including our marriage certificate and passports are with them.

The UKVI helpline seems to work moderately well for EU applications but I have found the premium rate non-EU 'helpline' particularly unhelpful if they bother answering at all.

The premium rate non EU number was answered very quickly indeed for me when I had a query last year. They wanted my CC number also very quickly and the cost went whizzing up just as quickly. Shame the woman on the other end had no clue what she was on about and my question went unanswered.

If you are applying for FLR after a Fiancée visa your life is on hold. My wife cannot work until her BRP arrives and because the Home Office has our passports we can’t travel even if we want to or apply for simple things like an NI number. (As far as I can see any way).

In many ways I wish we had gone for the Premium Service but I know when I am being ripped off and decided enough had been spent.

No problem getting through to the Home Office by phone last week and the woman last week told me we could expect to wait six weeks for the BRP letter.

We went to Jersey recently for our honeymoon and took the car on the Ferry. No passports or docs were ever asked for.

It's very small but a lovely place. Only 9 miles x 5 miles. Found a couple of very good Thai restaurants and the seafood is sensational.

A few of my family won't eat rice or seafood or fish. All they eat is english home cooking. My brother in law is the most boring person in the world when it comes to food but he enjoys non spicy Tom Yum Kung with a couple of slices of bread...

Some people eat to live, others live to eat.

We have never had a call for two visit visas or my wife's settlement visa and the trick is supplying all of the requested info so they don't need to call. Many people, both sponsors and applicants, do get calls to clarify things.

Maybe speak to your employers and ask to be allowed to carry your phone until you have a visa decision. Just an idea.

No problem. If they don't know nobody will except maybe the Government. I must have been wrong about the 18th then...

A suite in Center Point in Bangkok was £70 a night. You won't get a B&B anywhere in London for that.

A bottle of red wine was extortionate in a few Thai hotels we went to at about £40 a bottle but of you want imported wine you can expect to pay more for it. The same bottle in my local wine shop is a fiver.

The Ferang/Thai price for things still amuses me as so many people get upset about it. Six of us went to a National Park and it was £5 for all of us. The temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok is free for Thais and about £8 for a ferang. Three of us, (2 Thais) and me for £8. Sounds like a bargain to me when you compare to, say, London.

Not sure where I read it and now can’t find it but I think it's the 18th October.

Why not email one of the colleges that do the tests? They will know.

Probably 10 Rillington Place. Not really a horror movie but I was young when I watched it and it kept me awake and I had nightmares.

What advice would you give a Thai girl who was looking for a serious relationship with a western foreigner?

The same advice I would give a ferang. Make sure you pick a good'un.

It's a shame that they have removed the three year option that was available last year. A two year and a three year were the same price. My (now) wife managed to get a three year despite us only being together for 9 months. I agree with you that a two year might be the way to go or even a couple of six month visas over a couple of years.  It's the schlepping to and from Bangkok that's the pain.

English food just tastes too bland for me nowadays. Bread and potatoes have completely gone from my diet along with almost all red meat. Fish, chicken and seafood are all we eat now in the myriad of Thai dishes that the wife cooks but I do have a good juicy steak every few months if we go out to eat with friends.

On the odd occasion that we eat fish and chips I have it with black sticky rice. Otherwise 99% Thai food. Bought a couple of boat rods and we are catching our own fish now too. You can't beat the taste when it's totally fresh.

Never had a problem with Thai street food and the river prawns at a particular vendor in China Town in Bangkok are to die for.