UK Settlement visa but leaving the Uk implications

[Grindting]

Question:

My wife and I have been living together since 2011, married now for 1 year. We met when I was working abroad as an expat for my previous company. I am 30 she is 27, we are property owners in the UK. After returning to the UK to start a 'normal' life again in October 2014, I have been working for 6 months for a new company, and my wife has been with me here on a 6 month multi family visit visa since end of feb. This is her 4th visit visa since 2011. My wife will be returning to process her spouse settlement visa in July of this year.

My question is, our plan is to stay in the Uk and live a normal UK live; however, I have recieved a potential offer to go and work in Manila for potentially a minimum of 2 years, good money and good project. A formal offer has not been set in stone yet, and it will be a few good months down the line, but it would be silly of me not to consider it. I am on the fence, my wife is happy to either stay in the UK or move to the phillipines and live the expat life again.

However, because of the uncertainty we are goig to proceed with the settlement visa regardless. Should our circumstances change and we do decide to go abroad after hed settlement visa is granted, what will happen? Can she still freely visit the UK with me for holidays when we go back and use it as a extended multi entry? Or what? Will it affect future applications when we do finally settle when we have kids?

Note; it is not our plan to make an application knowing we are planning to leave. We literally have no idea what will happen yet but our path is settlement and stay in london, but this potential offer just cropped up out of nowhere and would like to know where we stand. Even if we left the UK say in a year from now half way through, it would be good to know our options

Thanks a lot

[7by7]

There is no limit on the number of times a person in the UK with a settlement visa can leave and re-enter the UK, nor for how long they can be absent from the UK.

However, the visa will be valid for 30 months and at the end of that time your wife will have to apply for Further Leave to Remain; which she must be in the UK to do. She will, in that application, need to show that she is a UK resident, which may be difficult to do if she has spent most of the past 30 months outside the UK. She will also need to show that she has been living with you for that time.

FLR is valid for a further 30 months, after which she applies for Indefinite Leave to Remain. Again she must be in the UK when she applies and will need to show that she has been a UK resident and living with you for the last 30 months.

There is flexibility in cases where the British spouse is temporarily posted abroad by their employer, but from what you say that doesn't cover your potential employment in Manila.

Once she has ILR, it will lapse if she spends a continuous period of two or more years outside the UK and once lapsed she will have to obtain the appropriate visa to enter the UK again. Furthermore, if it hasn't lapsed but immigration when she enters the UK discover she is not a UK resident but merely using her ILR for visits, then they will probably cancel it; though she would be admitted as a visitor on that occasion.

None of this would have a detrimental effect on any future applications.

If you do decide to take the job, I think that visit visas so she can accompany you to the UK for holiday visas etc., and then apply for settlement once you have decided to return to the UK to live indefinitely.

[Grindting]

Thank you sir for that reply

I take it that once she recieves the initial settlement visa, she will be able to use it for 30 months as and when. If we end up in Manila After she is granted settlement, then she will accompany me on trips back to the UK, and she will recieve a credit card statement to our home address etc (proof of address). However I think in that case once it comes to trying to get FLR, if we are still based in Manila they would check her passport and see that most of the last 30 months have not actually been in the UK. I take it on that basis, even if we are returned to the UK permanently before she applies for FLR, they would take into account the previous 24 months of which we have only spent a couple of months at best cumulatively within the UK, and refuse to entertain it? (Would we then at that point, Retrn to her home country and apply for a settlement visa all over agai and start from zero?)

Thanks again

[7by7]

If you are still based in Manila when she needs to apply for FLR she will be unable to do so. FLR, and ILR, can only be applied for from within the UK. One can't apply to remain in the UK if one is not actually there!

Which means she would need to start the whole settlement process all over again with a new settlement visa; which as she would be resident in Manila she could do there.

As for obtaining a settlement visa, moving to the UK*, then moving to Manila for 24 months and then moving back to the UK in time to apply for FLR/

For the reasons given above, I foresee problems with his; but each case is looked at individually. That she was out of the UK for such a lengthy period in order to accompany you would be a positive factor; but I cannot say whether it would be enough for FLR to be granted.

*She would have to move to the UK first as her 30 months residential qualifying period wouldn't start until she had done so. In addition, new rules mean she would need to do so within 30 days of the visa being granted; see here.

[Seekingasylum]

It really begs the question why on earth you would wish to spend £1,500 on an application which may well be redundant and for which your wife may not qualify - a requirement is that your spouse intends to live with you in the UK after making the application. Plainly, you have yet to form such an intention since you are merely awaiting confirmation of your job offer in the PI.

[Grindting]

Why would she not be qualified for it?

Her existing visa is going to run out soon, so we need to follow our original plan to stay in the UK so she will go back and process it. IF at some point during that time or shortly thereafter the LR is granted I get an offer I can't refuse, then I wanted to know what our options are. I'm not going to sit back and wait on something that may never happen so she will be going for the LR regardless.

If we did end up on manila after she recieved LR, we wouldn't be in manila for longer than 2 years anyway so we would be back in the UK for a good few months before we would need to extend the LR to FLR if we settled full time back in the UK at that point. And we would be / are always frequently returning to the UK regardless where we were / are as its our home. In manila we would be just in a bubble for work purposes, not exactly 'settling'. So it would be very handy for convinience sake to not have to Fk around creating a visa every time we want to pop back to the UK for a week or so as the LR is valid for so long and is a multi

[7by7]

As I said before, it may be that as she will have accompanied you to Manila while you were working there that this 2 year period of absence will not effect any FLR application; but there is no guarantee that it wont; unfortunately the only way I can think of to be sure is to apply and see what happens.

But remember, if you are still in Manila when her initial visa expires, she cannot apply for FLR there and to return to the UK to live she will have to start the whole process all over again by applying for another settlement visa.

Also, if you are back in the UK then when she makes her FLR application the financial requirement will, again, have to be met; although, for both FLR and ILR her income, if any, can be used as well as yours.

Will you be able to do that if for 24 of the previous 30 months you have been working abroad? See 5.2. Category A: With current employer for 6 months or more – overseas sponsor returning to the UK.

From what you say, if you do take this job in Manila then it will be starting soon. So I still think your best option is to put off any thoughts of UK settlement visas until that job is nearing completion and once in Manila she applies for a 2 year visit visa so she can visit the UK for the short periods you say you will want to while you are working there.

It may mean a short period of separation between her returning to Thailand when her current visit visa expires and the two of you moving to Manila; but you would have that separation anyway while she is in Thailand awaiting a decision on her settlement application; which could take as long as three months.

I know that is not what you want to hear, but the rules are not, unfortunately, designed for people in your situation and successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, have over the years made them more and more inflexible.