Hi My Sister in law has just had her visa approved for a two year marriage visa to the uk on 5/5/09 but needs to stay in Thailand until 11/9/09 to see her Niece get married, we have been told by a friend that she needs to use the visa within 30 days or it will expire is this TRUE??

Please help

Sorry her approval was on 5/08/09 not 5/5/09

The "28-day" thing used to be the case, because the visas were issued with only 2 years' validity, and you could (and still can) only apply for ILR within 28 days of expiry of the visa, so wouldn't have clocked up the requisite 2 years to qualify.

Because that caused a lot of heartache, the spouse visa is now issued with 27 months' validity, so if the lady got hers on 5th August 09, it should be valid until 5th Nov 11. She can travel in September and will have spent 2 years in the UK when she applies for ILR in Nov 2011

Eff1n2ret thanks for the info but does that mean if she stays in Thailand until september 11 th this year before she comes over to the UK she will have to apply for another visa to come to the UK for her initial 2 years sorry i am a little confused not working on all 4 cylinders this am??

we have been told by a friend that she needs to use the visa within 30 days or it will expire is this TRUE??

No, it is not true.

As Eff1n2ret says, the visa is valid for 27 months and she can first use it to enter the UK at any time within that 27 months.

See this thread for more on this.

Thank you thats cleared it all up for us :D