Settlement Visa ,help Needed!

[Matty]

I have recently returned to the UK after an 18month stay in Thailand.

I have a Thai wife(married in Bangkok),and an 18month old daughter by her.

I was originally intending to settle in the LOS, but have decided against this due to visa hassles, job opportunities or lack of them, and the general lack of rights I am afforded as a "guest" of Thailand.

If I only knew then what I know now I would of approached this from a different angle. Before we were married we were refused a fiance visa for the UK.

Can anybody suggest the best course of action for us now? Would it be best for me to re-settle in the UK alone and then apply for a settlement visa when I am working, or could I return to LOS and apply now?.

I have the funds from the sale of my property in the UK, in the bank, could this be an assurance of my ability to support my wife? Are the visa agents in Thailand worth consideration?

Does anyone have any positive feedback after using these guys? If anyone has any thoughts that may be of help to me, I would be glad to hear from you.

[bkk_mike]

Now you're married, with a child, so long as the marriage is official, and you have money in the bank, you should get the Visa. Visa refusals from before you were married shouldn't cause problems, as such.

Just go back to the embassy in Bangkok, with all the paperwork. (Marriage / children's birth certificate / bank statements, etc.)

Assuming you are named as the father of the child on the birth certificate, they would have a SERIOUSLY hard time justifying a refusal on the grounds of a "sham" marriage.

Also, the refusal of a settlement visa for a spouse can be appealed, so the person at the embassy has to be very sure of why they are refusing the application.

The big question is why was the initial fiance visa refused. - So long as whatever the reason given on that refusal is no longer an issue, the visa should be granted.

One more thing - the child should be eligible for a British Passport, which is cheaper than a settlement visa. You apply at the embassy again, with the usual paperwork requirements. Only complication is they need your FULL birth certificate, - I know all I had was the abbreviated one, and had to get the full one sent out by DHL by my father.

[ghengis]

Matty

Now that you are married and have been living with your wife for some time you would have no problem getting a Marriage Settlement Visa. The previous refusal of a Fiancee Visa should not cause a problem since this for a different type of visa (not Marriage Visa).

The only problems you have are:

• Proving you have a regular income to support your wife
  
• Evidence of a place to live in the UK - e.g. Rent Agreement, Mortgage Statement etc.
  

So you need to get a job and place for you both to live in the UK. Once you have ALL the evidence then it is likely you would qualify for a 'short interview' for a Settlement Visa rather than the full 40 min one. If you apply without 3 months wage slips and evidence of where you will live then you will probably fail to get the visa.

Forget Visa agents. For UK Visa advice see website and forum www.thailand-uk.com

[Matty]

Thanks for the help guys.I don't remember any reason being given to us when we were refused the fiance visa,they didn't speak to me,and my G/F didn't mention anything.Would it of been given in writing?

[MartinB]

Hi, Ghengis

I digress somewhat from the original topic, but looks like you have a lot of knowledge on the subject and I have a question. I am aiming to go back to the UK for similar reasons as Matty. I have a Thai partner and was going to apply for Fiancée Settlement visa. I also have sufficient funds in my account, but no job and home. My plan was to find employment and then lease a property short term say six months, with the intention of getting mortgage to buy a property in the future. Once job and home was sorted I was going to submit all the visa documentation. I know that currently there is about 10-13 week wait for interview so the time table would look something like this:

Job and home sorted by end of August

Thai partner submits visa docs Sep 3rd

Interview takes place approx ten weeks say 12 Nov.

However, I wont be able to produce hard copy wage slips on the 3 Sept and potentially wont have 3 full months of wage slips for the 12 Nov.

Sorry don’t think I am explaining this too well – what’s my chances of getting the visa without 3 months of wage slips, but with a healthy bank balance, a job and a home?

[Boo]

Hi martinB &Matty, on the application form it states that the listed requirements are preferred but that they reveiw each case on an individual basis (or something along those lines) so having no place to stay & no job are not as important as you think. Especially since you can prove you have been living in LOS with your partners & hence couldn't have had a job at home. A letter of invite from a parent with a copy of their house deeds/mortgage papers & a description of the property i.e how many rooms, bedrooms, living rooms etc (there is a section of this on the embassy wesite stating along the lines of, for 4 adults there must be 7 "living" rooms, not inc bathrooms & kitchen) & a sufficiently healthy bank balance & writing a letter outlining your relationship, your plans, your previous job (with a note on how quickly you can find a job etc) & they can usually find no reason to refuse. The embassy in particular are looking at your relationship & how genuine it is & it's really hard to prove that the person you've been with for x amount of years is actually someone you know, so overloading them with paperwork, photos, house bills, wedding certs, birth certs of any children, old flight stubs, old passports with thailand stamps for the duration of your relationship, will help them to make the correct judgement (giving the visa). It's quite a traumatic proccess esp for your thai partners as they will usually be required to have an interview & prepping them before hand with any kind of info (useless or otherwise, whats your grannys name etc) will help them feel more confident. They really aren;t the ogres they seem, these embassy folk & particually in matty's case, the chances of refusing a visa to a young family seems unlikley, providing that you put the extra effort in with the application folder.

Also, if they think that your relationship is what it is, genuine, then sometimes the 12weeks waiting list doesn't apply, again, depending on what they get from the info on the application.

Best of luck.

Boo

[ghengis]

Martin

You can produce the wage slips as evidence on the day of the interview in November. Maybe a letter from your new employer might help things. If you have sufficient funds in your bank account this would also help your cause.

If you have known your Thai partner for some time, and lived with her in Thailand, this helps a lot with the Visa application. What the embassy is looking for is :

• Is this a genuine relationship
  
• Can you support your wife/fiancee financially
  
• Do you have somewhere to live in the UK
  

You should wait until you have a job before submitting the visa application. You can Email the UK Embassy in Bangkok ([email protected]) to get futher advice. You will probably get a reply from Ray Keen ([email protected]).

[MartinB]

Ghengis,

Hi, many thanks for all the info. I will concentrate on getting the home and job requirements sorted and then will go for the visa. Like you say the guys at the embassy are just doing their jobs, so if they get all the required info proving that we have a genuine relationship, then things should work out. My girlfriend has already been to the UK to meet my family on a one-month tourist and I have a number of other bits of factual evidence that I will add to the file. Wow I think that I was getting paranoid about the whole process.

Thanks again for the advice

PS I have a number of emails from the guy you mention at the embassy, I wrote to him about my girlfriend tourist visa and also my own one-year Thai visa. Do you think its worth adding these to the file or will they check their own records?

[benny]

I was in a similar situation about 10 months ago. I resigned from my job in BKK and applied for a settlement visa for the U.K using my parents as sponsors. We both returned to the U.K without having to leave Thailand and the whole process was completed within 2 weeks.

We submitted all the dicuments required before the interview date, the interview lasted only 5 minutes and consisted soley of checking the details given.

Good Luck!!

[ghengis]

... the whole process was completed within 2 weeks.

We submitted all the documents required before the interview date, the interview lasted only 5 minutes and consisted solely of checking the details given.

This is what the UK Embassy calls a "Short Interview".