BritSwiss

Hi , I'm new to this forum and have just signed up. Thanks everyone for running this its a great source of info.
Whilst I find the GOV.UK website informative to a point I regularly seem to end up going in circles clicking links .
I'm British (and Swiss) I plan to come back to the UK next year with my Swiss wife. I will be 65 and she 64 . No plans to work just to live here and see our children more often.
I haven't lived in the UK for 40 years, so we plan to buy a house, deposit a £500,000 or so live of our pensions and apply for my wife to stay.
Question: can she apply from the UK or does it have to be where we are living at the moment? (this is one of the questions that I seem to go round in circles on the UK gov website).

Thanks for any other info that I should be award of.

BritInParis

Presuming your wife doesn’t already have pre-existing status in the UK then she’ll need to apply from Switzerland or another country where she is a legal resident. She cannot enter the UK as a visitor and apply for leave to remain as a spouse.

BritSwiss

Thanks for the reply BritinParis , just to clarify, she would have to apply for a spousal visa before we can go the ILR route, do you mean that she has to apply for the spousal visa from our current place of residence?
Thanks

BritInParis

That’s correct. The initial spouse visa application from your current country of residence which is valid for 33 months and a second application from within the UK for an additional 30 months. After five years she’ll be eligible for ILR and then British citizenship directly afterwards.

BritSwiss

Thanks, all clear now