Hello people

About 8 months ago I tryed to get my Thai boyfriend a 'family visit visa' for England. It was refused. From my understanding the embassy believed he would not to return back to Thailand. Reason being he has no porperty here. They also said there was not enough evidence of our relationship. We have been living together in a rented apartment and spend all our time together but this seems differcult to prove.

On my side (family in England) money was all covered - ie enough money to support him for six months even more...

We have been together for a couple of years and I really want to take him to England. Now we both want to work and live in the UK.

Really what is the best way to do this? Should I marry him? Would that get him a visa? Are marrage visas just as differcult?

To anyone who can help THANKYOU very much

If you get married they might see it as part of a plan to get him over there.

There is currently a big crackdown on people having arranged marriages and so on.

If you get married its not that easy, they still want proof of everything, also you have the

additional run around of getting the Affirmation to Marry and all the other things needed to

get married

I would agree that getting married just to get a visa is not a good idea, I'm pretty sure that UK Visas would certainly be suspicious that you and your boyfriend were trying to circumnavigate the system.

I think that if he is still keen to go to the UK he should re-apply after addressing the concerns of the ECO in the notice of refusal, it would help get advice if you could post the wording in the refusal letter on this forum.

Proving you lived together can be done, were you in rented accomodation if so was there a lease in both of your names or maybe get a letter from the landlord or agent, did you have tv, internet or anything else in your names or even letters addressed to you both. Have you travelled around, you could supply photos of you together, hotel reservation or even better trips out of the country.

Convincing the ECO that a person would return is always the biggest hurdle and once that is done you are almost there, he may not have property but does he have a job or studying, if so provide details and get a letter from his employers or school outlining the work or studies to date and indicating that the studies are ongoing and/or the job will be open on his return.

Anyway, don't give up hope, post the details of the refusal, there are experts [or certainly people with a wealth of experience] waiting in the wings as we speak.

You've said you want to live and work together in the UK, so the only way you can do that is via some form of settlement visa. The previous refusal is not a total negative, because you have already established an ongoing relationship, which is the most difficult thing to demonstrate - support and accommodation can be shown on paper, the true intentions of an applicant can't.

You can either get married in Thailand, and apply for a spouse visa, or apply for a fiance visa which entitles travel to the UK in order to get married within 6 months, and then apply for the spouse visa there, but as that puts an extra step into the process it's more expensive.

If you can show that you've lived together in Thailand in a relationship akin to marriage for at least 2 years you can apply for an "unmarried partner" visa, which allows entry to the UK on the same basis as a spouse. You can then decide to get married later on if you want to.

By the way, you say you applied for a family visit visa before - did they give you a right of appeal? If so, did you exercise it?

Edited July 30, 200916 yr by Eff1n2ret

If you satisfy the ECO concerns you will be issued a visa .

If you require any professional help feel free to contact me.