settlement for thai step daughter

[zak]

hi my thai wife has been in the uk for  6.5  years she was untill last month on llr at the ukba discretion,

we have a 8 year old son who was born in thailand but came here with us at 1 year old ( he has british passport) we were only coming to the uk for around four months so my wifes daughter stayed in thailand while we were in the uk on a tourist visa during this time in the uk we had to apply for an extension to my wifes visa but were granted 3 years llr at there discretion

we then applied for my step daughter to join us but were refused as my wife didnt have settlement we then applied for a further extension after 3 years which were granted and now she has just been given settlement.

now we have the right to do so we want to apply for the daughter to come to the uk we have substantially supported her financially during this time and my wife is in regular contact i understand we have to prove sole responsibility,

she is staying with grand parents who are getting old 68 years and they are genuinely struggling to look after her as she is 14 years old and starting to want to put a strain on them.

could any one who has maybe been in this situation please give us some advise as to the process ie:

medical TB?

NHS do we have to pay a fee

what form to use or online

vfs setting up

what sort of fees are involved

 

any advise would be much appreciated  

   

[Fish Head Soup]

You'll need to make an application for a child visa on visa4uk website.

Your wife will need to provide details regarding the child's father and probably the dates of the relationship.

She will get the father's permission to remove the child from Thailand and be able to prove sole custody. The embassy will probably also want to interview you're wife and the child.

 

She will need to show how she has supported the child, dates of visiting her child since moving to UK, is their still contact between child and her father etc.

 

Cost at present is £1464 plus £600 NHS charge but the fees usually increase in April.

 

She will require TB test certificate if over 11.

 

I assume she has been taking plenty of extra English classes in preparation for moving to an English school?

[Fish Head Soup]

By-the-way how was your wife granted limited leave to remain for such a long time from being on a tourist visa? Sounds rather odd!

Edited March 19, 2018 by Fish Head Soup

[TCA]

11 hours ago, Fish Head Soup said:

She will get the father's permission to remove the child from Thailand and be able to prove sole custody. The embassy will probably also want to interview you're wife and the child.

The father's permission may not be necessary depending on his level of involvement with the child. If he's an absent father, then the mother can get a Por Kor 14 from the amphur to show her sole responsibility. This can be obtained with a couple of witnesses and can be used to obtain a Thai passport and then with the UK visa application. A different ball game is the father is still in the frame.

 

The major stumbling block for the OP is proving that the mother has had sole responsibility for the child over such a long period of separation and they'll wonder why the child wasn't brought to the UK when her mother arrived at first. I'm not quite understanding how your wife was granted ILR whilst being in the UK on a tourist visa but I'd have thought that when your wife was in the UK on anything other than a tourist visa, then her daughter could have joined you from that point.

         

[bobrussell]

Not sole custody but as stated above, sole responsibility. This generally means all important day to day decisions are made by the responsible parent. This includes schooling, financial decisions etc.

The longer the period of separation the trickier it is likely to be to persuade the ECO that this is the case.

If a father is on the scene it can make life even more complicated as it is necessary to detail why the child cannot live with him. It is important to demonstrate reasons why the present arrangements are no longer suitable.

There will be no formal interview with the parent or child but informal telephone checking of facts is likely and stories must match up. Innocent misunderstandings when questioning parent or child have complicated applications discussed on this site in the past.

I have always considered these cases should be dealt with by true professionals as unsuitable statements on the application can block a visa application. Some have ended up in appeals. No cowboy agents! Be prepared to pay good money for good advice.

Golden rule is to make it clear (with evidence) that the decision has been made in the best interests of the child!

[Fish Head Soup]

5 hours ago, TCA said:

The father's permission may not be necessary depending on his level of involvement with the child. If he's an absent father, then the mother can get a Por Kor 14 from the amphur to show her sole responsibility. This can be obtained with a couple of witnesses and can be used to obtain a Thai passport and then with the UK visa application. A different ball game is the father is still in the frame.

 

The major stumbling block for the OP is proving that the mother has had sole responsibility for the child over such a long period of separation and they'll wonder why the child wasn't brought to the UK when her mother arrived at first.

If she was married to the father and then divorced she would probably have been issued a Gor Por 6 with her divorce certificate which would state she has sole responsibility for the child. The Gor Por 6 would have been signed by the father of the child along with the divorce papers.

 

Worth noting that a Por Kor 14 is only valid for 6 months from issue.

5 hours ago, TCA said:

. I'm not quite understanding how your wife was granted ILR whilst being in the UK on a tourist visa but I'd have thought that when your wife was in the UK on anything other than a tourist visa, then her daughter could have joined you from that point.

         

I read it as LLR not ILR as in Limited Leave to Remain not Indefinite Leave to Remain.

 

Still not sure how that worked out though.

[Fish Head Soup]

58 minutes ago, bobrussell said:

Not sole custody but as stated above, sole responsibility.

Yes you are certainly correct there.

[TCA]

Just to add to what Bob said re fact checking phone calls, in our situation (like the OP's), grandmother was looking after the child. It was my wife and her mother who got the phone calls, not the child. My wife had just applied for FLR (including her daughter's application) so this was after 2.5 years of separation. Each phone call lasted 45 mins to 1 hour, with constant repetition of the same questions, those same questions being asked to both people. Fortunately my wife was in Thailand (in the hope she'd be bringing her daughter back to the UK) and they were both called one right after the other and were together at the time, so one of them heard all of the first conversation so was well primed. I can't recall who was called first but as Bob said, everyone has to be singing from the same hymn sheet or they'll pick up on it. The questioning was very much about who makes all the important decisions in the child's life. I should add that my stepdaughter was 11 years old at the time, so I've no idea whether her age was a factor in them not calling her.

 

[zak]

Hi sorry for the late reply.

my wife came to the uk on a tourist visa just to get a feel for the uk with a view to returning to Thailand and then applying for a fiancé visa.  But while in the uk there was a serious conflict between Cambodia and Thailand on the border where this conflict was taking place was where my wife’s family home is only about 5 miles of the border. The whole village were displaced by Thai military a few times and the British commonwealth advised against all travel to the region and we explained this to the ukba and asked for an extension as we didn’t want our 1 year old son returning to the area and we didn’t have the finances to relocate to another part of Thailand, and she was granted 3 year discretionary leave and soon after we applied for the daughter to join us but were refused due to my wife’s type of leave granted which did state that you were not automatically entitled to bring family but we applied hoping they might understand. 

Also we have been thinking about applying for a 6 month tourist visa for the daughter as it seems we will more than likely be refused for settlement after speaking to a couple of advisors we want to apply for the tourist visa so that she can see the uk and also show the ukba that we want to spend family time with her before applying for settlement. 

Thanks all for the comments very knowledgeable and I would be grateful for advise to my other question 

also paid £150 this week for phone advise from a so called immigration solicitor and most of my questions were googled she kept pausing and putting me on hold while she googled the questions to which most were totally wrong ?