Thai In Uk On Student Visa

[culvers]

Hi guys

My girlfriend is in the UK on a student visa. We have got the certificate of approval for marriage, and will be giving notice of marriage at the local authority in 2 weeks. We were planning to have the ceremony at the end of march, however I discovered that as she has been married before, her divorce certificate has to be sent away to make sure it is authentic, and this can take time.

Normally this wouldnt be a problem, however her student visa expires mid april, and so its looking like we might not be able to have the wedding until after it expires.

Is there any alternative to her having to return home, apply for a fiancee visa, come here, and go through the whole process again? Seeing as they already gave her a certificate of approval for marriage, is there no way it can be extended at all?

Would just going ahead and getting married in the UK a few days after her student visa expires cause any problems?

Everything else is fine, she has travelled all over the world and has a good history, its just annoying that we might miss her visa expiry date by a couple of days.... Would hate to have to go through the long winded process again.

Cheers

[Thongkorn]

You have to return to Thailand , then apply for a fiancée or settlement visa which ever you chose .Also make certain that she leaves the County before her Student visa expires, Because if she does not leave before the date in her passport that will not look good when you apply for a visa in the Future. and it may have bearing on her application.

Edited February 23, 2010 by Thongkorn

[CharlieB]

What was/is your intention visa-wise after the marriage? How long was her student visa for? If she stays after her student visa expires, she will become an overstayer and this will affect all future visa applications for the forseeable future.

Edited February 23, 2010 by CharlieB

[culvers]

What was/is your intention visa-wise after the marriage? How long was her student visa for? If she stays after her student visa expires, she will become an overstayer and this will affect all future visa applications for the forseeable future.

After the marriage we were going to apply for the marriage visa straight away, on the 1 week express option where you pay £700ish for it. Her student visa was for 1 year.

Whats likely to be faster/easier?:

- we go back to thailand together, get married, then i come back here and we go through the process of getting her here on a marriage visa

- she goes back, and applies for a fiancee visa

Thanks

edit: just to add, the reason Im keen to get it done quickly, is because I want to quit my job and study for a masters degree, and im guessing it would be near impossible for her to get a visa if I am a part time working student on a low income (even though we wouldnt need any public funds)

Edited February 23, 2010 by culvers

[CharlieB]

What was/is your intention visa-wise after the marriage? How long was her student visa for? If she stays after her student visa expires, she will become an overstayer and this will affect all future visa applications for the forseeable future.

After the marriage we were going to apply for the marriage visa straight away, on the 1 week express option where you pay £700ish for it. Her student visa was for 1 year.

Whats likely to be faster/easier?:

- we go back to thailand together, get married, then i come back here and we go through the process of getting her here on a marriage visa

- she goes back, and applies for a fiancee visa

Thanks

edit: just to add, the reason Im keen to get it done quickly, is because I want to quit my job and study for a masters degree, and im guessing it would be near impossible for her to get a visa if I am a part time working student on a low income (even though we wouldnt need any public funds)

Quickest way is probably for both of you to go back to BKK, get married and hand in your settlement application at the same time. This would take less than a week to do. Then depending on your current work arrangements, you can either stay with her and come back together if she gets the visa, or come back alone and she comes on her own once she has it.

[culvers]

Thanks for your help Charlie, appreciate you taking the time to reply.

[kennkate]

I think you have a good chance that you will get the OK in time if you are looking at the end of march.

I had to send my Wife's Thai birth cert off to get it confirmed

It was done in less than 2 weeks. Don't forget you can only give notice at certain reg offices because your wife to be is not a UK national.

You can Marry at any after you have given notice.

We handed my wife's in at the Reg Office we gave notice at and got married 3 weeks later. Are you talking about her divorce cert I take it she as it with her.

Anyway good Luck and best wishes

[7by7]

As long as your marriage has taken place and her application is received by the UKBA before her current visa expires then she will be OK, as her current visa will be automatically extended until the new application has been decided.

However, if her current visa expires before you can do this, then she must leave the UK or she will be an overstayer.

She can then either apply for a fiance visa in Thailand and return to the UK to marry you; or you can go to Thailand with her, marry there and she then applies for a spouse visa.

The spouse visa is, IMHO, the better option as a fiance visa is only valid for 6 months and she would need to make, and pay for, another application to the UKBA after you are married for further 2 years leave and then indefinite leave; a spouse visa is valid for 27 months after which she can apply for indefinite leave.

But you do, of course, have to factor in the cost of your trip to Thailand, but then if you'd be going anyway this wouldn't be a factor.

[culvers]

Thanks for all the replies. The appointment to give notice isn't until early march, but i spoke to the woman there and she said that the divorce cert approval can take weeks, so its unlikely that we will have the docs back in time, as they wont be sent off until mid march, so we would need to receive them back before the end of march.

Its looking like we will both go to thailand for 2 or 3 weeks, marry there, and hopefully it will all be sorted by the end of the holiday or thereabouts so she can come back with me.

Thanks again

[enquirer]

This may be irrelevant, in which case I'm sorry.

Why can she not apply for her next student visa and stay on here in the UK? Has she stopped qualifying for it, ie completed her course?

I mention this because my daughter-in-law stayed here in UK for 10 years doing successively higher qualifications. She then applied for ILR on the basis of 10 years in the UK (lawfully) but was refused because she had inadvertantly allowed gaps between successive student visas, and there was no such thing as automatic renewal (mentioned above), far from it. As much as a day between student visas can invalidate the ten years. So I am writing to ask if you could buy time by quickly renewing the student visa.

In our case, my son and his fiance did indeed have to go to Bangkok and marry there, and she has recently received her spouse settlement visa and returned to the UK, but it has been a long drawn out and expensive process. We were warned by our specialist immigration solicitor that she must return to Bangkok before her final visa ran out.

[dowman73]

I had exactly the same problem last year with my Thai wife, she was also a student who had studied General English for 2 years and could not apply for a 3rd year as she did not want to study for a Masters Degree. We applied for a COA when she had 3 months left on her visa, unfortunately everything we sent in the post was stolen (money, passports and birth certificate), by the time she got a new passport we had very little time to really for a COA as her visa had just about run out. She had to leave the Uk and go back to bangkok, I followed her there where we got married and applied for a settlement visa 3 months later she was here.

It was not a great experience for us but it was the best option, if your gf does have to go back to thailand go with her and get married, the fact that you have applied for and been granted a COA must go in your favour as you would have had to state your intention of her staying here in the Uk after you were married, and looking at the times of processing for the settlement visa that was on here a couple of months ago some people were being granted in 2 weeks.

i hope you dont have to go down this route and you manage to get married here, and wish you all the best.