Alpha_Flight

Hello everyone,

This is now my second post, nice to "meet" you all.

I apologise if these questions have been answered somewhere in this section, however I thought I would start a new thread to keep track of my process to come.

I am actually not a British expat, however my wife is. A little history about us:

My wife and I have been together for 10 years, married for 7 and have two small children. We met in Canada, got married, hired an immigration consultant and acquired her permanent residency just shy of 7 years ago.

Life has been somewhat "dull" here in Canada. My family is not close, I have no siblings and our children don't have any cousins here in Canada. They don't see much of their grandparents (My parents), and we don't really have any kind of support grid. Saying all this, we have decided that we want to move to the UK as my wife has a large, close-knit family. We would have a fantastic support grid with lots of family and friends around.

This leads to my next question.... Where do we begin?

I have printed out the "Family Visa" form from the UK Immigration website, as well as the financial requirements. There is mention of having either 18,600 pounds in the bank to move, with extra amounts required for any dependant. Or, a job lined up in the UK that grants 18,600 pounds a year or more. However, does this apply to us if my wife is a UK citizen and my children hold both a Canadian and UK passport?

I have called immigration consultants here in Canada, but none of them deal with emigrating to another country. Would it be best to call a UK agency?

If any fine folks here could grant some insight, it would be so very appreciated. Better yet, if anyone knows a clear path with the financial requirements for each step, please do tell

Thank you all!

HKG3

The answer is yes - you will need to apply for an UK spouse visa and in order to get one, your wife will need to meet the financial requirement set out by the Home Office. You can also meet the financial requirement if you have cash savings worth £62,500 within the last six months. The six months rule can be waived if you can prove the money comes from a house sale.

Other points -

1) As a Canadian, you may be entitle to an UK Ancestry visa if you had a grandparent born in the UK. Please see link below for details -

https://www.gov.uk/ancestry-visa/overview

2) Are you entitle to any EU passport via your parents or grandparents? If you can get your hands on an EU passport, then it can make life a lot easier.

3) Your British wife should consider applying for Canadian citizenship before returning to the UK if not already done so.

4) You can try and open an UK bank account in Canada before moving over to the UK. HSBC offers this kind of service in Canada, please see link below -

https://www.hsbc.ca/1/2/personal/new...banking-centre

SanDiegogirl

Your wife, as the Brit needs to sponsor you, the non Brit (and presumably non EU citizen). If your children are eligible for UK passports then they don't need to be sponsored.

If depending on income she needs to have the current and/or job in the UK.

Read the following document carefully to see how you can qualify:

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...equirement.pdf

Basically you qualify using either income/savings/pensions. If savings alone
you need 62,500 GBP to qualify.