Currently working on the third visit to the UK with wife and boy. Just wasnt sure whether I should apply for a general visa or a 'family' visa as we will be visiting my parents whilst we are there. Are in laws classed as family or do they mean family by birth?

Cheers

If the applicant is the spouse or civil partner of their British citizen/resident sponsor, or qualifies under the unmarried partners rules, and the main purpose of the visit is to visit the sponsor's family in the UK then this would be a family visit and they should use form VAF1B.

If the applicant is the spouse or civil partner of their British citizen/resident sponsor, or qualifies under the unmarried partners rules, and the main purpose of the visit is to visit the sponsor's family in the UK then this would be a family visit and they should use form VAF1B.

Many thanks. I searched and searched, but for the life of me could not find any details about it. I appreciate you taking the time to help me on this one.

Currently working on the third visit to the UK with wife and boy. Just wasnt sure whether I should apply for a general visa or a 'family' visa as we will be visiting my parents whilst we are there. Are in laws classed as family or do they mean family by birth?

Cheers

I think this is the third recent thread on this topic. I have tried to get clarification from the Embassy but have not had a response to my email.

"Family' is defined on the back of the Family Visitor form. It includes your parents and siblings but not children.

My parents are dead so in going to UK together we are going to visit my adult children. Living together in Thailand travelling together to UK, is my Thai wife visiting me and should she complete the Family Visitor form and thus get a right of appeal?

You would think so but there's no way to find out.

Kafka springs to mind or is it just sheer British incompetence caused by excessive complexity. Why have different form anyway?

Andrew

Andrew

[

"Family' is defined on the back of the Family Visitor form. It includes your parents and siblings but not children.

My parents are dead so in going to UK together we are going to visit my adult children. Living together in Thailand travelling together to UK, is my Thai wife visiting me and should she complete the Family Visitor form and thus get a right of appeal?

You would think so but there's no way to find out.

Andrew

Andrew

Children are included - see the notes on the form

"Definition of a family member

A “member of the applicant’s family” is any of the following persons

(a) the applicant’s spouse, father, mother, son, daughter, grandfather,

grandmother, grandson, granddaughter, brother, sister, uncle,

aunt, nephew, niece or first cousin; (NB: “first cousin” means, in

relation to a person, the son or daughter of his uncle or aunt);

b)the father, mother, brother or sister of the applicant’s spouse;

c) the spouse of the applicant’s son or daughter;

(d) the applicant’s stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter,

stepbrother or stepsister; or

(e) a person with whom the applicant has lived as a member of an

unmarried couple for at least two of the three years before the

day on which his application for entry clearance was made."

c) is grammatically infelicitous, but the son or daughter has to refer to the spouse, not the applicant - it wouldn't make much sense the other way round.

Turning to the wider point, that it's not clear whether a spouse with right of abode himself visiting the UK can be classed as a family member for the purposes of sponsoring an application, one should perhaps look at category e) above. Granted that it allows for an unmarried partner to have gone back to the UK separately up to a year before the proposed visit, but it also could not exclude a partner who is still living abroad and travelling with the applicant on the same occasion. Therefore, a fortiori a spouse travelling with the applicant should also qualify as a family member

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you claim credentials as a former lawyer? Couldn't you have worked this out for yourself?