Uk Settlement Visa For Wife And Step Son

[stament]

Hi,

First let me say I have trawled through a large number of posts here on Thai Visa and looked at the guidelines but I still have a couple of points I need to clarify before starting my sponsorship application.

1. Does it matter how long you and your wife have been married before you apply? We met in late 2007 and spent time together but I then returned to England for one year. I returned in April 2009 and we married in Dec 2009. I returned to England last month. Would this suffice? Do we need to have been boyfriend and girlfriend the whole time I have known her or is it okay just from May 2009 as I was intending to put in my application that the relationship only got serious in May 2009. Note she has never visited me in England before but was refused a visitors visa to visit me in June 2008 due to insufficient proof of relationship. Unfortunately we don't have the refusal documents for this so can't put the previous visa application number on the new form - will this cause us problems?

2. Secondly, I have read about sole responsibility and whilst my wife meets the criteria how do we go about proving it? Do we need a signed letter from her ex-husband attesting to the fact that that he has had no involvement in his son's upbringing? I must admit I feel this is a difficult one to prove. We are currently awaiting the sole custody order (as when they divorced it was amicable) and nobody asked for sole custody. However, the ex husband has had no involvement in over 2 years. He doesn't want any involvement either, hence he is supporting our petition for sole custody.

3. When we submit the application for settlement visa for my wife and her son, must we make two separate applications or can this be dealt with on one application with two fee's paid?

4. Finally, having recently returned from a year in Thailand I am currently unemployed but actively searching for a job. I do have a house and £8,000 in my bank. Will these funds be sufficient? I know from experience it will take me about 2 or 3 months to get a job and thus our application will show I'm unemployed. I do have a lot of equity in my house too which I can use should the need for money arise. Will these factors suffice?

I apologise in advance if these issues have already been answered elsewhere but I couldn't find answers to these questions in my search.

Many thanks

[ThaiVisaExpress]

Here are various links :

Children

Settlement

On point one this should not be an issue you married last year, but you must demonstrate to the ECO your relationship is subsisting and you can meet maintenance and accommodation requirements.

Both applications can be submitted at the same time with a separate fee for each applicant.

Sole responsibility

A sole custody document should be available from her local Amphur.

If you are unemployed hopefully you will be in employment before you submit the application however third party support is acceptable.

If you require professional help with this application feel free to contact me I'm currently in Thailand working in our Thai office.

Paul

[stament]

Here are various links :

Children

Settlement

On point one this should not be an issue you married last year, but you must demonstrate to the ECO your relationship is subsisting and you can meet maintenance and accommodation requirements.

Both applications can be submitted at the same time with a separate fee for each applicant.

Sole responsibility

A sole custody document should be available from her local Amphur.

If you are unemployed hopefully you will be in employment before you submit the application however third party support is acceptable.

If you require professional help with this application feel free to contact me I'm currently in Thailand working in our Thai office.

Paul

Paul,

Thanks for your reply. I have read the children and settlement links you posted and know that I need the Koh Bar 14 paper from the local amphur as regards sole custody. We are currently waiting on this. However, my question related to sole responsibility and how to prove it. Would a signed letter from her ex-husband help support it? We will obviously detail where her son has lived, how we've brought him up, etc.

As regards submission thankyou for confirming we need to make two separate submissions and the first point.

[sumrit]

1. Does it matter how long you and your wife have been married before you apply? We met in late 2007 and spent time together but I then returned to England for one year. I returned in April 2009 and we married in Dec 2009. I returned to England last month. Would this suffice? Do we need to have been boyfriend and girlfriend the whole time I have known her or is it okay just from May 2009 as I was intending to put in my application that the relationship only got serious in May 2009. Note she has never visited me in England before but was refused a visitors visa to visit me in June 2008 due to insufficient proof of relationship. Unfortunately we don't have the refusal documents for this so can't put the previous visa application number on the new form - will this cause us problems?

It doesn't matter how long you've been married, the important thing is to prove that during the time you have known each other a genuine and lasting relationship has developed and grown between you. You will need to show your time spent together in Thailand supported by photos, visa/immigration stamps in your passport, hotel bills, etc, to cover ALL the time you have known each other, not just 'after it got serious'. Then while you were back in the UK proof that your relationship continued with regular phone calls (provide ALL phone bills/banana cards,etc, not just a sample),all emails, letters, money transfers to support your wife, etc, etc.

It's not important that she hasn't visited you in the UK but be honest about the refusal and if you can't give the reference number give them as much information as possible (date, reason for refusal, etc).

2. Secondly, I have read about sole responsibility and whilst my wife meets the criteria how do we go about proving it? Do we need a signed letter from her ex-husband attesting to the fact that that he has had no involvement in his son's upbringing? I must admit I feel this is a difficult one to prove. We are currently awaiting the sole custody order (as when they divorced it was amicable) and nobody asked for sole custody. However, the ex husband has had no i baan nvolvement in over 2 years. He doesn't want any involvement either, hence he is supporting our petition for sole custody.

Sole custody isn't a problem, especially if the father agrees. Sole responsibility is always the tricky one. My wife, stepdaughter and I had all lived together in Thailand for over four years when we applied for visas and it's surprising how little documentary evidence we had that had of 'day to day responsibility'. We supplied a copy of the tabien baan to show she was registered at our house, a letter from her school confirming that we paid the fees and made all the decisions for her school life, and things like her medical bills with our address on, etc.

There's also a Thai document called a Por Kor 14 which is useful to add. Baically it's a statement that your wife, along with two responsible witnesses, would make at her local Amphur in front of a local government official (it's similar to making a sworn statement in front of a solicitor in the UK). It's a history of the child's life saying when, where and with whom they have lived during their life, what school(s) they attended and who paid any fees, made the decisions about schooling etc, who was/is financially responsible for their day to day living costs, what contact there is between mother and child if they don't live together, in fact it can include anything that shows who is/has been responsible for the child's upbringing.

3. When we submit the application for settlement visa for my wife and her son, must we make two separate applications or can this be dealt with on one application with two fee's paid?

Yes, unfortunately, you must fill in two separate application forms and submit them at the same time with two fees, but you only need one set of supporting documents.

4. Finally, having recently returned from a year in Thailand I am currently unemployed but actively searching for a job. I do have a house and £8,000 in my bank. Will these funds be sufficient? I know from experience it will take me about 2 or 3 months to get a job and thus our application will show I'm unemployed. I do have a lot of equity in my house too which I can use should the need for money arise. Will these factors suffice?

You can use salary, savings or a combination of both to show you can support your family without them having recourse to public funds (although you can claim benefits for yourself and YOU can claim tax credits for you AND your family if you qualify). What you MUST show is that you have adequate finance available when you submit the applications.

Although there is no set minimum figure and every application is treated on it's own individual merits, as a guideline, the ECO would find it very difficult to grant a visa if your income/finances were less than the current UK income support levels for the size of your family. If you don't have a job when you apply try and show your prospects for work are good, or try getting (temporary) part time work to subsidise your savings, every little bit helps.

I went though this last year so I Hope this helps and good luck.

Income_Support_Rates.pdf

Edited May 27, 2010 by sumrit

[the scouser]

As I've commented on various fora, what constitutes sole responsibility in the context of the immigration rules is set out by the Tribunal in TD 2006 UKAIT 00049.

This establishes that sole responsibility is a factual matter to be decided upon the actual circumstances of the child's upbringing, and not what legal documents may be held. It is also not only to be decided between the child's parents, but, in this instance, between the parent seeking to bring the child to the UK and his current carer; i.e. although the father may have abdicated responsibility for the child, it is possible that the person with whom he lives at the moment may have an element of responsibility, in which case responsibility is shared and not sole. In order to demonstrate sole responsibility, the sponsoring parent must show that it is s/he who, despite not having recently lived with the child, has continued to provide the direction and control in the child's life; i.e. that it is s/he who takes the major decisions about the child's care.

Possession of a Por Kor 14 does not constitute a factual matter and, notwithstanding this, is largely self-serving as it is a statement made before a local government official who makes no attempt to independently verify the contents. Consequently, the PK14 cannot be relied upon to fundamentally demonstrate sole responsibility. Likewise, an actual court order that grants a parent custody of the child shows only that s/he has legal custody, not that s/he has provided the direction and control in the child's life. Consequently, although submission of a PK14 won't undermine an application, the sponsoring parent needs additional evidence that it is s/he who continues to take the major decisions in respect of the child.

What is therefore relevant is, for example, evidence of continued contact and financial support, the length of time the sponsoring parent has been absent from the indigenous country balanced against the number of times s/he has returned to visit, to whom the child turns when in need of emotional/biological support, who chose the school the child attends and, if the sponsoring parent, whether that parent is known to the school, evidence of any letters from the sponsoring parent to the carer that instruct the carer in the manner of the child's care, and who decides when and where the child should have medical treatment.

Scouse.

[the scouser]

Apologies for misreading the OP. I now realise that in this case the sponsoring parent and the child are currently living together. Therefore ignore the bits in my post above that relate to the sponsoring parent being apart from the child.

Where the sponsoring parent and child live together, and in the absence of any indication to the contrary, there's a natural presumption that the s/he has responsibility for the child. However, I'd still submit any evidence you have, such as outlined in Sumrit's post, that shows the child to be living with the sponsoring parent.

Scouse.

[ThaiVisaExpress]

As has been said before the sole custody paper or Por Kor 14 does not demonstrate you have had sole responsibility of the child you must demonstrate this and satisfy the ECO.

The link inserted should give you some guidance on the matter and good luck.

Paul TVE

[sumrit]

Possession of a Por Kor 14 does not constitute a factual matter and, notwithstanding this, is largely self-serving as it is a statement made before a local government official who makes no attempt to independently verify the contents. Consequently, the PK14 cannot be relied upon to fundamentally demonstrate sole responsibility. Likewise, an actual court order that grants a parent custody of the child shows only that s/he has legal custody, not that s/he has provided the direction and control in the child's life. Consequently, although submission of a PK14 won't undermine an application, the sponsoring parent needs additional evidence that it is s/he who continues to take the major decisions in respect of the child.

Scouse.

While I agree with what you say about a PK14 Scouse, and it can only be used to support other (more important) information, the British Embassy do seem to recognize it now, and in some cases (usually when the child's parents were never legally married) they have actually contacted the applicant and asked for a PK14 to be forwarded to them if there wasn't one submitted with the application. I personally know of two people that this happened to last year and somebody else told me they were asked for one in 2003.

When the statement is given to the government official there must also be two witnesses there to confirm the statement and these should be responsible members of the community (eg; police officer, teacher, village elder, etc) who first of all has known the mother and child for all/most of the child's life, and secondly are recognized by the government official as being truthful people.

The Thai Passport Department insist on a KP14 being submitted as proof of custody if there is no formal custody document for the child, when the parents weren't legally married for example, before they will issue the child with a passport. To the Thai government a PK14 is a valid and important document.