Uk Public Funds And Settlement Visa

[Lottie79]

Early this summer I was made redundant from my job at almost exactly the same time as my girlfriend had to return to Thailand to apply for a Settlement Visa.

I was aware of a sort of stigma attached to public funds and how it might affect her visa application should I claim any benefits for being unemployed, and received conflicting advice from authoratitive sources on this subject.

So not wanting to do anything that would jeopardise her visa application I soldiered on without any help from the state when I would have been entitled, and received the good news last week that her visa has been approved (although she won't be back in the UK until next week).

So my thoughts have now turned to whether there is any reason why I shouldn't claim unemployment benefits. Her Visa is marked 'No Public Funds' but I don't think that precludes me from claiming, hence the question.

I think I have three options....

1) Continue not to claim

2) Wait until she is back in the UK and then claim

3) Claim immediately

Then there is the question of whether I should attempt to have the claim backdated.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[CharlieB]

Early this summer I was made redundant from my job at almost exactly the same time as my girlfriend had to return to Thailand to apply for a Settlement Visa.

I was aware of a sort of stigma attached to public funds and how it might affect her visa application should I claim any benefits for being unemployed, and received conflicting advice from authoratitive sources on this subject.

So not wanting to do anything that would jeopardise her visa application I soldiered on without any help from the state when I would have been entitled, and received the good news last week that her visa has been approved (although she won't be back in the UK until next week).

So my thoughts have now turned to whether there is any reason why I shouldn't claim unemployment benefits. Her Visa is marked 'No Public Funds' but I don't think that precludes me from claiming, hence the question.

I think I have three options....

1) Continue not to claim

2) Wait until she is back in the UK and then claim

3) Claim immediately

Then there is the question of whether I should attempt to have the claim backdated.

Any advice would be appreciated.

How long is her visa for? I guess that if you are back in work by the time you have to apply for the next stage, then it probably won't harm her visa chance then. I would go down and claim now, but I doubt you will get it back-dated more than a few days. Normally they only start the claim from the day you inform them that you want to claim. Every benefit has a back-claim limit, ie for child benefit it's 1 month, for tax credits it's 3 or 4 months. You'll have to take your redundancy letter with you and if you got a substantial lump sum you might have to claim based on your contributions made as it's all means tested and they will count any saving/redundancy against this.

[mrbojangles]

and received the good news last week that her visa has been approved (although she won't be back in the UK until next week).

She has received the visa

3) Claim immediately

Claim immediately.

You are entitled to public funds, it is her who has no recourse to public funds. You could have claimed before and by not doing, you have actually weakened your financial status that enables you to support you both.

Good luck to you both and your job hunting.

[7by7]

Mrbojangles is spot on, she is not allowed to claim certain public funds, but you are. You should have claimed as soon as you were entitled to. It would not have effected her application as long as her coming did not cause you to claim any additional funds.

Not all public funds are proscribed. For a list of those that are see 9.2 - Public funds in Chapter 9 - The maintenance and accommodation requirements.

[macduff]

You cannot claim any additional funds unless you can achieve ilr. Then you can claim whatever is available in your partners name. So i'm led to believe!