wootme

Hello all,

New guy around here, long time reader. I thought I'd introduce myself real quick before I start bothering the nice people in here with my questions/experience.

I'm in New Zealand living with my partner of 9 years and planning to move to the UK (London hopefully) by the end of the year/beginning of 2016.

I was in shock at the changes introduced in 2012 and after getting our affairs in order we have come up with a plan to fulfil the Financial requirements just with savings, I believe £65k would be enough.

On the accommodation side, well, we're looking at the rentals and since we don't have any job prospects yet we don't want to commit to a rental far from our potential jobs. So we were planning on asking his daughter and her husband, who own a property in Southhampton (they're living here in NZ too, but they still have that property, leased at the moment) to write a letter for us explaining they'll let us live there and attach whatever evidence they can provide us with. They've been here for 5 years and I don't know if they'll have recent documents. Can anybody see any potential problems with such evidence to fulfil the requirement?

One more question is, I've been browsing jobs in my field (Software Engineering) and I see some great opportunities I'd like to apply for, but I'm not sure if I'm legally allowed to do such a thing. Anybody got any experience doing this, as the foreign partner? I can explain to the companies that I'm in the process of getting my settlement visa, but I also checked the form for the visa application (VAF4A) and in one of the sections it asks if I plan to work in the UK and to provide details.

My concern would be, if I get a job offer before submitting the application, and I respond yes, would I be then required to provide proof of my plans? Such as a letter from the company?

Last question of the day, excuse the wall of text already, is... Assuming that the visa is approved, I believe that the next step is to travel to the UK before it expires and collect the Biometric Residence Permit from the designated Post Office. Once I get that card, am I allowed to travel in and out of the UK? Is there any amount of time that we need to spend in the UK before applying for the second permit? (Further Leave to Remain, I believe it's called)

We're thinking of getting it all sorted before the Xmas holidays, so we thought we might just use the visa, go in together and collect the card, then come back to NZ to spend time with the family and then make the permanent move after that.

That's it for now, thanks in advance and best of luck to all of us.

michali

I always hesitate to give information that might be incorrect so I hope someone more knowledgable will answer too!

Once your savings of over £62500 have been held for over six months and you have immediate access to them, you can apply at any time. The funds must not have dipped below that amount at any time in the previous six months.

As to accommodation, a letter from the owners would suffice. A copy of the deeds of the property is available from the Land Registry website for £3 and is quite acceptable to prove ownership. If your friends have any other document to show ownership, that would be helpful. Our flat here was rented out before we returned so we had no bills but we did have a few pieces of correspondence that indicated our ownership. If you are to live there alone with your partner, no inspection to ensure there would be no overcrowding would be necessary. However, if you are sharing, an inspection is advised.

I am not sure how far you can advance on obtaining employment before you are issued the visa. Certainly you can say in that section that you intend to work and give some information but not sure if you are supposed to actually secure an actual job. Hope someone else can help on that.

Lastly, yes, you can collect the BRP and leave to spend a limited time with family.

All the best!

wootme

Thank you michali!

Well, we had the savings required to apply now in New Zealand dollars over 2 accounts, but we decided to just open a Sterling Pound account to put them in there and... this has reset our application timer to 6 months.

One final question for now: when using the just savings for the Financial Requirement, do we have to provide letters of employment (or evidence of self employment in our case) as well?

michali

I don't think so but there is a question on the form about the applicants work situation. It was a fairly new question when we applied and we provided only details of my husbands job but no evidence. Hopefully someone else will help here. The forms do change from time to time!

HKG3

I think you should also look into the following points -

1) Your British partner - is he / she also a citizen of New Zealand? If the answer is no, may be it is time to look into getting New Zealand Citizenship. By becoming a New Zealand Citizen, your partner can come back to New Zealand with you at any time (without the need to apply for a spouse visa) if your move to the UK does not work out.

2) Do you have British ancestry? Having a grandparent born in the UK and being a Commonwealth Citizen (New Zealand), you can apply for an UK Ancestry visa. This five year visa would enable you to work in the UK and you can apply for settlement in the UK later.

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

wootme

Hi HKG3 thanks for the notes, a few comments:

1) We're both New Zealand Citizens, we moved here when we decided to live together 8 years ago, we had both been working in large countries and wanted to take a break from all that. So NZ was our choice and we became citizens eventually. Now we want to get back to the buzz, isolation didn't work for us.

2) I don't have British ancestry, my heritage is Spanish/Mexican. Sadly I've lost all connection with my Spanish side of the family and never got around getting a EU passport, BUT, doing my research for the UK I found a possible SS-like route for Latin nationals:

If you're a British citizen wanting to sponsor a Latin American spouse, it seems that you can relocate to Spain and claim residency as with other EU countries. If you don't have a job in Spain you can claim you'll fund your living with savings and the amount Spain requires you to prove is around 24,000 euros (a fraction of the UK route). There are other ways to claim your rights in Spain, much easier than the UK ones.

At the same time you file for your residency permit (which can be as soon as you land in Spain) you can add your Latin spouse and they'll get a Residency Card. Now, the deal is: Spain grants citizenship to Latin American citizens after just 2 years of residency in the country. So in theory it would be easier for the now EU citizen spouse to join you in the UK.

I've contacted a Spanish solicitor to check if the residency granted to spouses of EU citizens would count towards this requirement and I haven't heard back from them. Once I do I might start a new thread letting people know and providing the exact details as for the requirements.

My concern with this is that the UK government could potentially impose harsher restrictions to other EU citizens, we keep hearing about the whole EU referendum and the anti immigrant sentiment in the country. So going to Spain could not be the safest route, just like they're trying to tackle the SS "backdoor"

FlyingDutchman6666

Are you eligible for a Spanish passport? If so, get one and use that. It's a no-brainer really.

BritInParis

How far back does your Spanish heritage go? If it's through your parents or grandparents then I agree with FlyingDutchman6666 - obtaining your Spanish passport would be a far simpler and cheaper option especially if you plan to work for the next five years until you are eligible for permanent residence status.