Settlement Visa – Do I Have To Return To The Uk First?

[Mig15]

I just emailed a visa agent here in Thailand and he said I will have to return to the UK alone and get a job and be in employment 3 months before I can apply for the settlement visas for my wife and her son. Is that correct? I did not get that impression form the embassy.

[Mig15]

"The regulations are that you must return alone to the UK to regain your residence there, and that you must be in employment at last 3 months before you can apply for a visa for your wife. If you were married to her for 4 years then you could of applied.

We have done many visas for expats who want to return to the UK."

This is his responce.

[the scouser]

That's not necessarily so. Having employment is not the be all and end all of a settlement application. If you do not have a job, the visa officer has to consider whether your savings are sufficient to support yourselves until such a time as you find work, and, given your experience/qualifications, the ease with which either party to the relationship will find work in the UK.

This is another example of an agent using a tick-box approach when it is not relevant to the circumstances. If you do want representation in your wife's matter, I suggest you instruct either an immigration solicitor or OISC-registered adviser in the U.K. If you wish to discuss the case, by all means drop me a PM.

Scouse.

[Mahout Angrit]

I just emailed a visa agent here in Thailand and he said I will have to return to the UK alone and get a job and be in employment 3 months before I can apply for the settlement visas for my wife and her son. Is that correct? I did not get that impression form the embassy.

You really are getting some bum advice. Stick to the advice offered on this forum and what is in the UK Visas guides and you dont have to pay for it.

[the scouser]

"The regulations are that you must return alone to the UK to regain your residence there, and that you must be in employment at last 3 months before you can apply for a visa for your wife. If you were married to her for 4 years then you could of applied.

We have done many visas for expats who want to return to the UK."

Mig15, I'd take this lot with a large pinch of salt. Their advice has no basis in immigration law and policy, and one must wonder what their qualification to give advice is.

Entry to the UK as the spouse of someone settled in the country is governed by paragraph 281 of the Immigration Rules which can be read on the Home Office website. Nowhere within paragraph 281 does it say that you must return to the UK to regain your residence, nor that you must be in employment for 3 months before your wife can apply for a visa. The bit about how your wife could have made an application were you to have been married for four years is, again, a total misconstruction of the law. Were you so married, your wife could apply for indefinite leave to enter the UK and wouldn't have to undergo the probationary two years which others have to do, but the remaining criteria are identical, so you would still, as he believes, have to return to the UK etc. Additionally, this adviser has omitted to tell you that were you and your wife to have been married for 4 years, she would have to demonstrate her knowledge of life in the UK in order to successfully get the visa. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the child-like grammar doesn't exactly inspire confidence, either.

Scouse.

[paully]

I just emailed a visa agent here in Thailand and he said I will have to return to the UK alone and get a job and be in employment 3 months before I can apply for the settlement visas for my wife and her son. Is that correct? I did not get that impression form the embassy.

Sounds like BS to me, mig. Last year, when the wife applied for and got her settlement visa in BKK, I was unemployed on holiday in Thailand with only a formal offer of a teaching job in the UK to start in 2 months' time. This was shortly after I'd completed a PGCE course and before that I'd been in Thailand for 4 years, so I hadn't worked in UK for more than 5 years. No queries were raised about my not having been in UK employment for 3 months or otherwise.

Edited April 27, 2007 by paully

[slimsam]

In my opinion having a "formal offer of a teaching job" is of significantly more value than no job at all. Unless you can show that you can support your partner (without recouse to public funds) then this will be a reason to refuse the visa. So unless you have 20K in the bank then coming back to the UK and getting a job is good advice. Not a defined requirement but good advice.

[paully]

^ Yes, I'm sure that, ideally, it would be helpful for mig to get a full-time job in the UK and then apply for a settlement visa for his wife and her child. But the implication from the agent he consulted was that he must do so and have been in England for 3 months before the application is made. I don't think that's true.

[Mig15]

I have 30k in the UK bank. We have accommodation with my Dad. I am a qualified teacher and I hope I have a good chance of getting a job soon. I am trying to do it without an agent or legal help as the cost is prohibitive. If I end up having to go back, I will have to, but I hope not and I think we should be able to satisfy all the criteria.