Unmarried Partner Visa

[lovednb]

Hi

This is my first post. I am currently living with my boyfriend of 3 years in London but he is due to return home on monday when his tourist visa expires. He is keen to return to England so that we can stay together, but we do not want to apply for another tourist visa (this is our second) and nor do we think he would get another visa as this is his second visit in 16 months. Ideally we would like to apply for an unmarried partner visa as this would allow him to work on the grounds that we have been in a committed relationship since 2006.

We are currently engaged and applied for his second tourist visa on the grounds that we were planning to return to thailand at the end of the 6 months and marry, at the time this was the best way to have all of our family and friends around us, as his family could not afford to travel to the uk for a wedding and mine were happy to combine their holiday with a wedding. However in the current financial climate I no longer feel able to ask my family and friends to pay out such an expense to travel to thailand for the wedding and would also rather use what saving we do have to put down as the deposit for a home for us in London.

Can anyone offer us any advise? Should we just rush off and have a quiet wedding (although I have always dreamed of having my family as has he with me) or is the unmarried partner visa a possibility? In terms of evidence of our relatioships we have:

• 3 years worth of entry visas for myself to visit him in thailand
  
• 2 Sussessful UK tourist visa applications for him stay with me and my family
  
• we can get a letter from the landlord we had when we lived in thailand for 10 months together
  
• Receipts and a letter of attendence where I attended Thai language classes in england
  
• A joint uk bank account but we only oppend this in March this year
  
• Electric Bills linking him to my address in london from march this year
  
• letters from family, friends and work colleagues,
  
• flight bookings for us both within the uk and thailand
  
• 3 years worth of photos including my family visiting us when we lived in thailand, photos at friends weddings, photos of me with his family, holiday photos together taken all over thailand and the uk.
  
• Phone bills from when he was in thailand and I was in the uk, a hundred or more used international phonecards
  
• Letters, cards
  
• Bank statements
  
• letters of leave from his employer in thailand for when he came to the uk.
  

Sorry I have probably gone on a bit. I plan to return to thailand for a month in Nov and could use the next 3 months to put together an application but worry as have read many posts expressing the difficulties that married couples are having at getting a spouse visa, let alone unmarried couples.

I love my fiance very much, but we would like the oppertunity to be able to live and work together in the UK for a few years and not being rushed into a marrage. We anticipate being together for the rest of our lives and want to be able to look back on our wedding day as one of the best days of our lives (sounds cheesy I know) not something that we had to do to get a visa. Any advice on an unmarried visa would be very greatfully received. Has anyone applied for one and been successful or rejected?

Thanks

Kate

[7by7]

From what you have said, provided you satisfy the maintenance and accommodation requirements, you should have no problems obtaining a spouse (marry in Thailand) or fiance (marry in the UK) visa for your boyfriend.

However, I'm not sure if he qualifies as an unmarried partner. The basic requirement is that the couple must have been living together in a relationship akin to marriage for at least the last two years.

SET05 - Unmarried and same sex partners

SET5.12 Assessing whether the relationship has subsisted for two years

‘Living together’, should be applied fairly tightly, with a couple providing evidence of cohabitation in the 2-year period preceding the application.

Periods apart for up to six months would be acceptable for good reasons, such as work commitments, or looking after a relative as long as:

it was not possible for the other partner to accompany; and

The applicant can show evidence that the relationship continued throughout that period eg by visits, letters, logged phonecalls.

Where a couple have been living together for the preceding 2-year period but have been dividing their time between countries and may, for example, have used the 'visitor' category, then this will be sufficient to meet the requirement.

SET5.13 What types of evidence might demonstrate living together and a relationship akin to marriage/civil partnership?

The applicant should provide at least three pieces of evidence of joint commitment. All must have been held for a minimum of 2 years, prior to the application:

Joint commitments, (such as joint bank accounts, investments, rent agreements, mortgage, life insurance policy naming the other partner as beneficiary etc);

Birth certificates or records of any children of the relationship, showing both partners as parents;

Any official correspondence linking both partners to the same address e.g. Council Tax, utility bills, Doctors records

Any other evidence that adequately demonstrates the couple's long-term commitment to each other.

You will see that you can use visits to each other's country to satisfy the rule, but if you have been living in the UK while he has been living in Thailand with visits to each other then I don't think this will satisfy the requirement; you need to have been living together and able to produce evidence of this, such as that suggested in the guidance.

[Yoshitaka]

Kate, welcome to ThaiVisa.

[ThaiVisaExpress]

I would advise a fiance visa application and marry in the UK it is a fairly simple process for you both as he already has immigration history .

If you require professional help feel free to contact me via a pm or via my website.

[7by7]

TV, can I ask why you would advise a fiance visa over a spouse visa?

I believe a spouse visa to be the better option for two reasons:-

1) Spouse visa holders can work from day 1 in the UK; fiance visa holders cannot work until they have FLR.

2) Fiance visa holders need to apply for FLR after the marriage, currently costing £465 by post, £665 in person.