Tips + tricks to help get your wife settled legally in the UK

[nigelandjan]

This is a thread I have been thinking about for a while aimed to help others going through all the hoops and hurdles and some mabe who are thinking of going through all the rigmarole and what it all entails .

I have put it in the lounge area so good discussion and a bit of laugh can be had to try to lighten up the tedious part of it .

If you go the whole hog for your missus and get her ILTR and a UK passport like I have IMHO its more than worth it .


So if anyone has any questions , tips or tricks come on down !

In the meantime I will kick it off with a few basic tips for any of you lads just setting off on this journey having just recently met the new love of your life in Thailand .


Rule number 1 .

Right from the very beginning in any relationship try to keep and preserve ANY evidence you have i.e. photos , emails etc relating to both of you

Keep it ALL .

Rule number 2.

Start keeping all your wage slips / utility bills / bank statements / current + savings accounts .

File away neatly for the next 2 or 3 years ALL these bloody documents the UKBA love paperwork .

You WILL need it , you will need evidence to support your evidence .

There are hundreds of tips + tricks so i will leave for others to add and help

but I will just add one thing at the moment for those further up the line

IF you are close to your wifes FLTR ,,, DO IT YOURSELF !

Get off your arses and spend a day at Lunar house in Croydon

DO NOT USE A SOLICITOR !

[baldrick]

DO I have to be english to ship the missus off to pommyland ?

[pseudolus]

DO I have to be english to ship the missus off to pommyland ?

no. but you need to go as well, so I guess that means you won't be bothering.

[Chittychangchang]

It's not easy anymore!
In the last ten years it's gone from pay the fee and show a few bills to
Test, tests, fees, more fees and the ins and outs of a ducks ass(no offence to PRIKkus)

If your partner/wife etc is serious then they will have to learn to read, write and speak English to a reasonable standard.
So get them on a course sooner rather than later!!!

[nigelandjan]

If your partner/wife etc is serious then they will have to learn to read, write and speak English to a reasonable standard.
So get them on a course sooner rather than later!!!

Top tips triple C .

There are people who will be just setting out on this venture and I hope this thread will be of some use to them.

I know I had wished that I had a far better knowledge of what to do at the beginning at the time I was eating out.

It seems unfortunately some of those who have had an axe to grind have jumped on board here to unload their misfortune on the thread , but this is not really a thread about how you may or may not have been rinsed out by some old trout .

[Chittychangchang]

There are people who will be just setting out on this venture and I hope this thread will be of some use to them.

Good idea, hopefully others can learn from our mistakes.

We did it the hard way!

Here's a brief history of the rigmarole we went through...

Married 2003
Tried to get her back to the U.K soon after, was refused and told to come back in 6 months with more evidence of a relationship and paperwork etc

Returned to UK alone, sorted out a place to live/bank statements/ kept records off the contact between us etc

4 months later after i had everything in place i printed off the 6 month tourist visa application from the Bangkok embassy website and filled it in as the missus could not write English well enough. I sent all the paperwork to her house and she took it in to the embassy and paid the fee, same day she got her 6 month visa

I bought a ticket and sent it over to her, only Turkish Airlines would send the ticket to me first. I bought a one year open return from Thailand to Manchester for £400.

She received the ticket from me one week later and was on her way.
tbc

[Chittychangchang]

At this point my friends and family didn't believe i was married.

So off i pop to the airport to pick the wife up trying to remember what she looked like and wondering how it would all go as we'd only been married a month before i had to return.

Bunch off flowers in hand reduced from the petrol station en route(Nige will love that touch). I get a phone call from the Border agency saying they've detained my wife blah,blah.
It was my best mates bird winding me up
Then i get the real phone call 10 mins later from a real U.K Border Agency immigration Officer who i promptly tell to take his face for a shit and hang up.
He phones back quite bemused and once i'd straightened things out with the humorless twat as he fails to see the funny side.
He states categorically that my wife must leave before the six months.
I reply"Yes, i know!She's only coming for a holiday that's why she's got a return ticket"

They let her in!

Fast forward 6 months and she is pregnant and i apply to the Home office to extend her leave on the grounds that pregnant women can not fly whilst 6 months pregnant because off the risk of DVT .
I even get my local MP involved and the immigration advisory service.
We fought the Home Office on Article 8 - The right to family life.
The Home office took time to reply and by then we have number 1 child.
It actually takes nearly 3 years to get in front off the Home Office immigration Judge at court and by then we have number 2 child.
The Judge was sympathetic to our plight but said we must return to Thailand to go through the correct procedure and gain the settlement visa.
However she said the "deemed leave" my wife had been on for the past few years had served us well(she had a point).

2006 the kids and i on 3 month tourist visas and the missus on her Thai passport return to start the settlement process.
If we had applied for settlement instead of a poxy tourist visa then she would have had ILR and a British passport within the three years as the rules stood back then.

You live and learn and plans change..
tbc

[nigelandjan]

Blimey mate ! thats a story

I personally wouldn't recommend others trying that route , especially now as things have got a lot tighter

[buriramboy]

Fuck going through the shit now with the changes that have been made, but luckily I'd been married over 4 years living abroad so didn't have to wait for 2 years after returning to the UK on a settlement visa before she could apply for ILR and then a British passport something that used to be free (ILR) and basically a right for a British citizen. You're basically fuked now if living in Thailand and trying to return to the UK together as all the old loopholes have been closed, basically you have to return on your own, find a job earning x amount more if have kids then apply for a settlement visa. I do have sympathy for people trying it now but anyone been in a relationship for 5+ years has had ample warning as they've tightened up year after year and if didn't heed the warnings only themselves to blame. Bizarre isn't it, anyone from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria etc. can just freely come into the UK with their whole families yet a British citizen has to jump through hoops to get their legally married partner back to the UK if they are from outside the EU.

[nigelandjan]

Bizarre isn't it, anyone from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria etc. can just freely come into the UK with their whole families yet a British citizen has to jump through hoops to get their legally married partner back to the UK if they are from outside the EU.

Yup ,, the English guy in the partnership can go back to where the family tree started and it still counts for jack shit , yet any of these old ex eastern blockers can bring the family over and get straight into everything .

Let alone the thousands of non EU Syrians at £24k per person annually are also to be welcomed and given ILTR

[Chittychangchang]

2006 we put the settlement visa application in to the Bangkok British Embassy via their outsourcing centre, forget the name.
Had a 6 week minimum wait so headed down to Phuket for a the duration and chilled.

Did a bit of sight seeing and tourist stuff then headed back to Bangkok for the finale.
Stayed in a hotel in sukumvit .
I ended up being a free visa consultant for the many Brits trying to get their girl friends over to the UK. Some funny stories, but that's for another thread.

Had the interview in the embassy eventually with the Cockney black FCO officer who was looking for a fight.
She wouldn't let me in the interview, but i barged in with the babies in each arm and said"They need their mum" and walked out to let them get on with interogating the wife.
The "DVT" angle was our trump card along with a letter from the Home Office judge saying our application should go smoothly in Bangkok.
This the officer was pissed off about as she wanted to refuse my missus for overstaying by 3 years. It was deemed leave and not overstaying so her hands where tied and she granted the visa.
The Embassy staff were obnoxious b'stards and we gave them as good as they gave us.
The Thai receptionist behind the counter came out to have a word with me saying it was better if i took the kids back to the hotel and wait.
I said we are not going anywhere unless together as a family and with the wife and visa.
I let the babies scream near her microphone on the protective glass and watched with amusement as her serene demure evaporated.
Even the Gurkha security guard hung around fiddling with his strap on his khukuri.

We left and celebrated, returning to the U.K after 3 months and £10k lighter.

When the settlement ran out in 2008 my wife has not completed the Life in the U.K test so we applied for Further Leave to remain.
Because of family life and our work commitments 2010 came around quickly and child 3 had been born.
So another 2 year FLR was applied for.
The kids started school and nursery the wife got stuck in to the revision for the LITUK Test and passed.
We applied for Indefinate leave to remain and then British Citizenship.

2013 my wife was the proudest person swearing allegience to the Queen and finally becoming a British Citizen.

She had her passport 6 weeks later

Ten years it took from start to finish!

We may have done it the hard way, but it was worth it!

[kingwilly]

Wow. What a story. Cheers ccc

[nigelandjan]

Congrats to both of you triple C

Allthough our story ended up with the same result , the journey was nowhere near as traumatic .

However anyone setting out down this route should be under no illusion , it aint gonna be easy , take nothing for granted that it will have a happy ending .

One of my best mates here now is going through hell with it all with his wife trying to get her ILTR . It has been under appeal with the home office now for 2 years , and all this time the home office keep both their passports !

They WILL let them have the passports back BUT they have told them they will have to start the appeal all over again when they come back , her Mum is very ill in Burriram and he has just lost his Mum here last week , poor buggers both of them work every bloody hour that is sent , its just mental torture .

There seems to me no rhyme or reason for this other than to eventually break people down so they give up and go back to Thailand

BTW this case is being dealt with costing a fortune via a solicitor , which personally I DONT recommend

[Dillinger]

take nothing for granted that it will have a happy ending .

No I better not

[bankao dreamer]

We went through all the hoops for a spouse visa when we were married in England, but because we decided to live in Thailand sooner than we originally planned, the wife never got citizenship.
The new rules caught us out when we decided we had had enough of Thailand, as Nigel has said ok if you're an EU citizen you can bring a non EU spouse in no problem.

This is resulting in a lot of expats who just want to go home with their families not able to do so.

If you are wanting to go home but struggling to meet the criteria there is a way.
It's called the Surinder Singh route, EU freedom of movement, EU directive 2004/38.

There are FB pages for Spain and Portugal which have a lot of info and support. I know one guy who left Thailand with his Thai wife recently and moved to Spain.

Doing this is perfectly legal and considerably cheaper. If it's ok for a Polish plumber to bring his non EU spouse into the UK then why should we be penalised for not meeting the UK financial requirements.

There are also a few websites that deal with this method, sorry I can't get my tablet to post links.

[nigelandjan]

I'm guessing this is the one you want mate



https://www.gov.uk/family-permit/surinder-singh

[Dillinger]

^ interesting.

sorry I can't get my tablet to post links.

Hold your thumb on the address bar for 2 seconds

[bankao dreamer]

There's a couple of independent ones as well mate, one deals with Ireland. I know another guy who did the Ireland route with his Thai wife. I'm also corresponding with a Uk woman who is married to a Burmese, they are currently in Bangkok and the Spanish embassy were being dicks so they went to the Swedish embassy. They have a visa for Sweden now but because the visa covers the Shengen zone they will use it to travel to Spain in a couple of weeks.


Ta Dil I'll try it I'm a thick twat with technology

[bankao dreamer]

The Surinder Singh Immigration Route | Your guidance resource to applying the 'Surinder Singh Route' to your case.

I tried ! Fook it works

[DrB0b]

Doing this is perfectly legal and considerably cheaper. If it's ok for a Polish plumber to bring his non EU spouse into the UK then why should we be penalised for not meeting the UK financial requirements.

You're not being penalised by the EU, you have the same rights as any other EU citizen to bring your non-EU spouse to a country you're exercising your treaty rights in. You don't have treaty rights in your home country so you're being fucked over by your own Government , not the EU.

[bankao dreamer]

Err I'm not the brightest Bob but I didn't write that it was the EU penalising UK citizens, I know it's the UK government being twats.

That's why we will be in Belgium soon

[pseudolus]

The Surinder Singh Immigration Route | Your guidance resource to applying the 'Surinder Singh Route' to your case.

I tried ! Fook it works

I reckon they will close this loop hole soon though. In theory now, with a recent change, you do not even have to "center of life" in another country, but just be there long enough for the other half to to pick up her little card saying free movement.

[taxexile]

jeez, its changed a lot since the good old days.

we came back from thailand to the uk (my future wife and myself) in 1989, my wife on a one year student visa obtained through the thai government, which at that time regulated overseas students. the thai embassy in london were in regular contact with her to make sure she was still studying and all money sent over to her from thailand had to pass through the thai embassy.

we married 6 months later at a registry office in london, her visa status was never even queried, and after one year she applied for UK citizenship, 6 months later, after we both had to go through a comical 10 minute interview to show that it was not a marriage of convenience, at lunar house in croydon, she received her citizenship certificate and was able to apply for a british passport, which she duly obtained a few weeks later.

total cost = whatever they charged for passports at that time plus tube and bus fares down to croydon from north london.

[Seekingasylum]

The Surinder Singh Immigration Route | Your guidance resource to applying the 'Surinder Singh Route' to your case.

I tried ! Fook it works

I reckon they will close this loop hole soon though. In theory now, with a recent change, you do not even have to "center of life" in another country, but just be there long enough for the other half to to pick up her little card saying free movement.

This sort of thinking is typical of the British attitude to the EU which generally resolves to incomprehension on the part of the average citizen and in the case of our governments, a resentment that national immigration law should be superseded by EU law.

The Surinder Singh judgment wasn't a loophole but a necessary interpretation of a core value of the Community entailing free movement.

Teresa May chips away but fails all the time and rightly so.