enquirer

About the requirement for £18,600 annual income:

It is an enormous leap from the previous requirement (unofficial but widely used) to earn at least the equivalent of the UK benefits a qualifying couple would receive, ie about £112 a week or less than £6000 a year. It's all very well quoting £18,600 as being the average or even median income in the UK - it ignores the fact that a huge proportion of UK couples earn much less than that (and a large proportion well over it, of course, but this thread is not about them).

My Thai daughter-in-law recently applied for ILR on my son's income of about £10,000 a year and was refused (given DLR for 3 years instead) on the grounds it was not enough to support her without further recourse to public funds. Yet they have been living frugally but happily on this amount ever since she received her spouse visa in Bangkok and returned to the UK nearly three years ago.

We are lucky enough to continue to be dealt with under the "old" rules; I just wanted to agree with those who say the new financial requirement is much too high.

I started to read this because over the last four years I have twice stayed in a Silom hotel around soi 3 and 5, once on my own (I am a grandmother), and then with my family and friends during the week of my son's marriage to my Thai daughter-in-law. Seven adults and four young children had a delightful week which no-one will forget (apart from the one year old....)

We went to the Patpong night market with our Thai family, looking for a watch and a leather handbag, and T shirts and toys for the children; bargaining took place with much laughter and friendliness and we still use what we bought.

On my first visit I had met a tailor down Silom whom I had learned to like and trust, and all our wedding clothes and much more besides were made on both visits - reasonable prices, courteous attention, prompt delivery. Even the Thai family, who spent their whole lives in Bangkok, were impressed by this tailor and he dressed my son and his fiancee beautifully. Further up the road we bought silk scarves to go with our new outfits from a lovely lady in her beautiful shop.

We looked round the Hindu Temple further down the road. We spent hours in Lumphini Park at the top of Silom. We ate street food, and went to several restaurants in and around Silom. We took Tuk Tuks everywhere and were never ripped off even when we did not have our Thai relations with us. One Tuk Tuk driver goodnaturedly managed the apparently impossible task of loading my daughter's immense double buggy as well as herself, her sister and four children.

The wedding reception was held in a comfortable hotel just west of Silom.

This is a rather irrelevant posting, I admit, because none of us were looking for sexual titillation. I can never redress the balance against all the people who are rubbishing this area, but I felt the need to try. As soon as my daughter-in-law has her ILR for UK, we will go back as a family, hoping to stay in the same place.

[Yes, I was approached by the usual man offering a Tuk Tuk ride to a jewel factory, but he was easily and politely sent on his way]

<<< But the Dutch have controlled water,especially sea water for hundreds of years >>>

This year, staying with Dutch friends and travelling around with them up and down their country, I learned a lot about how the Dutch cope with surges of rain or sea water. The canals and other stretches of water are deliberately interconnected so that a surge anywhere spreads around the whole country immediately and raises water levels by centimetres as opposed to metres.

Not SO relevant to a huge country like Thailand and the vast city of Bangkok, I admit. But I have family in Bangkok and am following the information with great concern. I hope the worst does not happen over the next few days or weeks.

My Thai daughter-in-law and I worked hard for her visa to join my son in UK. She arrived here 6 months ago, thank goodness. Her entire family remains in Bangkok, and I do not appreciate the facetious comments made about this frightening situation.

They are lovely people who welcomed us to the wedding of my son and daughter-in-law in Bangkok. We stayed on Silom, took our children to play in Lumpini Park, had our wedding clothes made by a charming tailor on Silom, bought silk scarves from a lady nearby, and the wedding was held in a hotel just off Silom. Every time there are pictures of the barricades set up by the Red faction, I recognise places we enjoyed.

All these small businesses that welcomed us must be devastated by the Red blockades.

The family stayed with us in UK in February to celebrate the reunion of their daughter/sister with my son. I think all the time of the dangers they must be now facing.

Please respond seriously to the situation and keep us informed about what is happening.

I remember a lot of argument about student houses in which most were students but one or two were working. The problem was then that one working person disqualified all the students, so Council Tax became payable (shared among them at the full rate). So as the OP is working, the two of them may may be liable to pay the full rate of Council Tax.

This may be irrelevant, in which case I'm sorry.

Why can she not apply for her next student visa and stay on here in the UK? Has she stopped qualifying for it, ie completed her course?

I mention this because my daughter-in-law stayed here in UK for 10 years doing successively higher qualifications. She then applied for ILR on the basis of 10 years in the UK (lawfully) but was refused because she had inadvertantly allowed gaps between successive student visas, and there was no such thing as automatic renewal (mentioned above), far from it. As much as a day between student visas can invalidate the ten years. So I am writing to ask if you could buy time by quickly renewing the student visa.

In our case, my son and his fiance did indeed have to go to Bangkok and marry there, and she has recently received her spouse settlement visa and returned to the UK, but it has been a long drawn out and expensive process. We were warned by our specialist immigration solicitor that she must return to Bangkok before her final visa ran out.

I prepared my daughter-in-law's spouse visa application last August. As others have said, I put everything into plastic folders inside a large file. I learned here that they would be taken out of the file and put into another container, so everything in the folders that had to stay in order was stapled together, or kept together with treasury tags, and exhaustively labelled. My d-i-l submitted FIVE photograph albums, which they accepted. I have to say it was a difficult application so we used overkill. The difficulty was that my son's miniscule income is based on housing benefit and tax credits for a very part-time job, disability level, so it was hard to prove he could support her without further access to public funds.

I personally believe that a set of photographs is a swift way of alerting the ECOs to a longstanding relationship with family and friends in relaxed situations - they need only flip briefly through them to pick up the atmosphere. My d-i-l could not bear to reduce her albums to anything smaller, but it did not seem to matter, and she got her visa a few weeks later. We have just had a splendid party to introduce her to our extended families and friends, including her family from Bangkok, who all successfully applied for visitor visas.

Well, that has given me a lot to think about, and some sensible questions to ask my daughter-in-law. Thank you to everyone, even if it is not entirely good news.

Has anyone else experienced this? My daughter-in-law, newly arrived in UK to join my son after successful visa application in Bangkok, has an International Driving Licence. They have just bought a car and got insurance for son to drive it, but the insurers will not include his wife because she only has an International Licence. As far as I know, the International Licence allows her to drive here for up to a year, but in practice, she cannot drive, because of the insurance problem.

The solution is for her to get a UK licence as soon as possible, but the fact remains that the reason they got the car (so she can work) is now useless.

She used to drive in the UK a lot on her International Licence, but now wonders if she was properly covered even then......

When I said a Schengen Visa was free to the spouse of a UK citizen, I meant a spouse in the same position as the OP's wife, and that of my Thai daughter-in-law: living in the UK with her husband on a spouse visa.

To repeat: she can get a Schengen visa free of charge because she is here in the UK and married to a UK citizen. Her family, living in Bangkok, have to apply for their Schengen Visas in Bangkok, at the relevant embassy (they are going for the German one) and they DO have to pay the fee.

If it is true that a Spanish Schengen is quicker to get than a German one (French reportedly very slow) I will suggest they try that. One advantage of a German one is that a member of the family in Bangkok works for a German company, and my British daughter lives permanently in Germany and can write them a letter of invitation. Don't know if this will help, but I throw it into the mix.

".....genuine British subjects cannot take their wives into their own homeland without all this palava...."

Lots of people have said this to me and seem genuinely astonished that we had to go to such lengths to get my daughter-in-law back here.

It all hinges on whether the UK spouse is able to support a Thai (or other nationality) without HER falling back on public funds and being a drain on this country's resources. Hence the absolute necessity to prove sufficient income to support her, somewhere to live, and genuine relationship. I actually know someone from BKK who married an older UK man, hung around with him for the requisite 2 years in order to get Indefinite Leave to Remain, then left him and now she and her daughter (who is not his) live on benefits. It happens. Our immigration officials have a duty to protect UK from deliberate exploitation, and that makes their default attitude one of extreme suspicion.

The alternative is to have open borders, free access, benefits for all, no arguments, and there is a case to be made for this, of course.

"....When i say British i mean the ones who have not only been born there, but their parents and grandparents too....."

Well, this is not entirely simple either. My adult nephew was born in Oman into a UK family with a long tradition of service overseas. It doesn't take many generations to be born abroad by coincidence of where your parents and grandparents were working (his father was born in Sudan where his own parents were serving as doctors) to seem on paper to have a rather tenuous and arguable connection to the UK. My nephew, as a doctor himself, is likely to work abroad, so if his children are born in, say, the Yemen...... This is why there was such a fuss in the last century when the British Govt tried to remove British Citizenship from families who were born abroad for several generations. They were disenfranchising precisely those families who were "British" to the core, but serving abroad at crucial moments in their lives (ie reproductive years, like my sister).

"Switzerland (For a traveller with valid Schengen visa only)"

IF you have a valid Schengen visa anyway, you can visit anywhere in Europe (within Schengen area eg France and Germany etc etc etc). It is free to anyone married to a UK citizen. We are looking into this for my Thai daughter-in-law and Thai family (family must apply in Bangkok and pay a fee).

I agree about Scotland - that is our Plan B, if they don't all get their Schengens in time.

My son's wife was in a similar position to your wife in not having a high-earning husband. My son has CFS/ME and lives on a low income made up of Housing Benefit, part-time work and tax credits at the disabled rate. We were advised that there is an unofficial minimum income matching the sum that a couple would get if they DID live on benefits: something just over £100 a week, plus a place to live (which in his case was supplied by Housing Benefit). He did not get much more than this, and has savings of about £6000 (he lives very frugally).

We went to immense trouble to prove income (12 months of bank statements etc), suitable accommodation (letter from landlord etc), genuine relationship (volumes of photographs over the three years they had been together, eventually marrying in Bangkok, records of skype calls etc made while they were separated for 18 months). We added a job offer from a restaurant where she had worked before while in England. We established that she had been given wedding presents at the marriage and therefore had small savings of her own (about £3000).

We supplied a letter from our immigration lawyer explaining the circumstances of our case, and mentioning the possibility of a human rights case if the visa were refused; and establishing that his health would not allow him to have a family life in Bangkok because of the climate; a letter from a family friend saying how much his life had improved since meeting his wife and how devastated he would be if she were not allowed to join him in UK; and a brief sponsor letter from him saying the same. Some of this was possibly not relevant but we were grasping at straws.

Because we knew we had a weak case (low income, only part time work, housing benefit necessary) we supplied QUANTITIES of paperwork, but to avoid confusion these papers were subdivided into clear, labelled groups, stapled together, stored in open sided plastic envelopes for ease of access, and we tried hard to look at everything from the point of view of the ECO dealing with it. We suspected the ECO would be overworked and easily irritated and bored, so made the task of assessing the paper work as simple and quick as possible.

In Bangkok, any container you supply paperwork in is emptied so that the papers can be stored in their own containers, and could get muddled, hence the stapling, labelling, open sided plastic envelopes.

To our surprise the visa was granted 6 weeks later and she returned to UK in November 2009.

Some of this might be relevant to your case, and I hope it helps. It shows that dependence on benefits and a very low income do not necessarily prevent getting a visa. You appear to have a more reliable income (pension) and a long established relationship plus a child, and as everyone says, the important thing is to supply proof of this (and accommodation).

Same here. I read the site obsessively while I was helping my son and daughter-in-law with their settlement visa. For several reasons, it was up to me to do the donkey work, and I learned huge amounts from this site, even one or two things new to the specialist immigration solicitor I was paying (TB Certificate!!!) They are back here now and helping with Christmas cooking and present packing, but I still keep an eye on this site, and like to see how people are getting on. Best wishes to all for Visas, Christmas and future life!

My daughter-in-law made a successful application for Spouse Visa in September. I supplied her with a file with every pocket labelled with its contents. Because I learned from this site that the papers would be tipped out, I stapled loose papers together within each pocket (used treasury tabs for thick bundles of bank statements and similar) and stuck clear labels to them so that the ECO would find them easy to assess.

She was indeed asked to take everything out of the pockets, but she kept her head and placed them in the official container in the original order. The official dealing with her was very impressed with the orderliness of the papers and their clear labelling, and congratulated her. She also supplied 5 photograph albums documenting their relationship in UK and Bangkok, equally clearly labelled and dated for ease of checking through quickly.

I tried to imagine the state of mind of an ECO faced with a mixed bundle of loose and confused paperwork, and tried to make sure this could NOT happen. I also imagined him dragging paperwork out of plastic envelopes and becoming irritated, so I put the paperwork (stapled and labelled) inside plastic envelopes with two open sides to make his work easier.

This was not a straightforward application because my son is partially disabled and lives on a mixture of housing benefit, tax credit and vanishingly small income - I think it was the orderliness of the paperwork as well as the evidence of a true marriage that got her through. She is back home with us now! Good luck with your application.

<br /><img src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/burp.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="burp.gif" /> Just an update. <img src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/partytime2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="partytime2.gif" /> <br /><br />Had a call from Embassy - My stepdaughter has just had her visa overturned <img src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" /> <br /><br />A perfect Xmas pressie.<br /><br />Been having communications with our MP and it seems to have done the trick!<br /><br />Exactly 6 months since the online application went in.<br /><br />What a relief....hope she's ready for the weather <img src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="ohmy.gif" /> <br /><br />Thanks to everyone for their support and words of encouragement over the past months.<br /><br /><br />The very best of luck to those still waiting.<br /><br />TJ<br />

I remember your story and how devastated you were to have your stepdaughter's visa refused for completely spurious reasons, so I am glad to be the first to congratulate you after such a long wait.

Thank you very much to people who have taken the trouble to advise me.

From your replies it appears to be either possible or essential to apply for the Schengen Visas in Bangkok, either at the same time as applying for the Visitor Visas, or as soon as they have the Visitor Visas.

I am happy with that, as there is clearly nothing I can be expected to do towards this myself, apart from supplying party invitations and sponsor letters as required.

And, when they let me know they have all their Visitor/Schengen Visas, I can quickly arrange a modest overnight in Boulogne in the usual way (something I often do for friends and family at a known friendly hotel).

Let's hope it is as simple as it sounds. I am about to suggest they start working on their Visitor Visas asap, followed up by the Schengen ones, in time for mid-February.

I am giving a big party in February 2010 for my son and daughter-in-law, to celebrate her recent return to UK after a successful settlement visa application, and to celebrate their second Wedding Anniversary (the first was spent apart because of visa problems and delays).

To my delight, 5 or 6 members of her family, and one of their friends, will travel from Bangkok to join us, and will apply for visitor visas.

One of the things they would like to do while here is visit France for a couple of days. I have learned on another thread that they will all need Schengen Visas, including my daughter-in-law.

What I need advice on is the order in which they should do things. I believe the visitor visa lasts 6 months, so as long as it covers February they can start the applications soon. When they have their visitor visas, is that the time to apply for Schengen Visas, and can they do that FROM BANGKOK well before travelling? If so, I can then calmly book ferry and French hotel in advance.

If they have to ARRIVE IN UK before being allowed to apply for Schengen Visas, we will have to go into panic mode, wondering how long it will take to get the visas, and when to book ferry and hotel, and if we can we get this French trip in before they have to return home.

Does anyone know if they can apply from Bangkok for a French Schengen Visa? It would be so much easier if they could have all their paperwork done before arriving in UK for their 10 - 14 day special holiday.

I understand now that being married to a UK citizen means the Schengen Visa is free for my daughter-in-law; I am assuming that her family, all Thai citizens, will have to pay for theirs.

"The op can just do a little homework."

As the OP I can assure you that I have, once the useful word "Schengen" was added to my vocabulary. I am very grateful to this site for several pointers on our difficult journey towards achieving a UK Visa for my Thai daughter-in-law. Everyone has to start somewhere when in unfamiliar territory, and I am very grateful to the people who have helped me here.

Every time I have been given advice, I have been able to do additional "homework" on it, with the result that my Thai daughter-in-law is recently home and safe in the UK.

Some advice is good, some not so good, but everything has been a pointer towards some official site that I never would have come across if it were not for the people here who offer their time and expertise to explain the apparently obvious to bewildered newcomers.

Thank you again.

Thank you. My question is comprehensively answered now, and so are those of others.

http://www.schengenvisa.cc/

Thanks! Now you have given me the clue, I can look it up, and all is made clear. I've put the link here in case it is useful to anyone else with the same query.

Thanks, that's very helpful.

Any idea how long such a visa takes to get? Eg for a short trip to France - and whether one visa lasts long enough to cover several visits? My d-i-l was talking to a young Thai pianist a couple of days ago, and he apparently said he was getting tired of playing in European competitions because of the time and effort involved in getting visas every time, and that it took about 3 weeks. He is here on a student visa, which may be less flexible than a spouse visa.

It does sound a cumbersome system. If we drive to visit my daughter in Germany, we pass through France Belgium and Holland on the way, and once through Luxembourg (but have never been asked for our passports), so would that mean approaching five embassies for five separate visas just in case we were stopped? Or are you telling me that one Schengen visa covers all the countries?

Nice to know the visas are free, at least.

Now that my daughter-in-law is safely back in UK with her spouse visa, what is her position if we want to take a day trip to France, or visit my daughter in Germany, and so on?

Does she have to apply somewhere for a visa for each country visited?

Has anyone any experience of returning to UK from such a visit and having any trouble at Dover? For instance her long-awaited arrival at Heathrow last week from Bangkok was not straight forward at all in spite of her having all the necessary papers.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone about their experiences travelling outside UK on a spouse visa. She would love to travel a bit now she is back here, but we can't judge if it would be worth any possible problems at border controls.

see...now im worried, as althought its been less than 4 weeks, other people are getting there decisions granted, whilst im really happy for anyone who gets throught the system and can be with there loved ones, i so cant help but worry, my missus is still adamant that because our case is a little complex thats its going to be a 3 month wait..do we know if its generally the case for cases that do have complications to take that much longer? complication in this instance is that i met her in uk and she took a voluntary departure to leave the uk 2 yrs ago almost....

Just want to wrap this up by saying my daughter-in-law arrived at Heathrow last night (got her visa 1st October after 6 weeks) so she and my son are now together, and she is freezing but amazingly cheerful.

'paulyturner': our case was definitely complicated and similar to yours in that they met in UK and she was obliged to return to Bangkok 22 months ago when her student visas ran out and she was refused another one. They married in Bangkok 20 months ago. Our main complication is that my son is partially disabled in a way that is not always accepted (CFS/ME) and lives on a combination of benefits and a tiny part-time business with a vanishingly small income, supplemented by tax credits.

All we could do was supply 12 months of bank statements showing that his total income was marginally above the most basic benefits level for a couple. I was extremely worried about this, but in the event his wife was summoned to collect her application papers and visa long before we expected (we also thought 3 months, but it was 6 weeks).

It was even slightly comical because she and her sisters suddenly received several phone calls and emails to collect her papers IMMEDIATELY, and they all feared the worst (no hint of a successful visa, of course) but in the end it seemed we had supplied such quantities of stuff that they wanted it off the premises asap, even before the usual collection times (the outside staff wouldn't let her in at first but the inside staff keenly over-ruled them when she insisted on consulting them). There was no interview.

I am not really recommending this sort of overkill, but it worked in our case. I had been fanatically careful about labelling everything and putting the papers into self-explanatory sub-sections (stapled together, or using treasury tags) that would survive the way they remove the papers from our packaging and put them into their own. My daughter-in-law added to this FIVE albums of photos documenting their 2 years together. No wonder they wanted it all gone.

She was given a hard time at Heathrow last night, and it sounds like the sort of interview she might have had in Bangkok, but didn't, and she was taken off to a medical room for a through scrutiny of her TB certificate for some reason.

But she is here now, and they are ready to face together whatever life throws at them next.

I have to say that the first time I went to Bangkok, on leaving I handed my passport over, took it back, returned to UK. The second visit, I was taken away from passport control and grilled for 30 minutes - it turned out no-one had stamped my passport when I left a few months before. Eventually one of the police handwrote an exit visa and let me go. Slightly worrying, but they were polite.