A.Cameron

Hi All!

I know I’ve seen a good amount of post of people that are applying for UK spouse visa checklists, but I figured I’d put mine up to DOUBLE check that I’m doing the right thing. I am a US citizen applying for the spouse visa to be with my British Citizen Husband.

A little bit about us:
My husband and I met when I was studying abroad in Scotland in September 2015. I had to leave Scotland in January 2016 because my visa had ended. Since then we have been flying back and forth between the US and UK to see each other. We got an apartment in August 2016 however I have not been able to live there permanently for I need to make money in the US. We got married in March of this year and I am now beginning the Visa process…

So far this is what I have:

• My US passport
• Copy of Sponsor’s UK passport (Just the photo page)
o I’ve heard that it might be more beneficial to have copies of the pages with his flight history???
• My US birth certificate
• My Social Security Card
• Copy of Sponsor’s UK birth certificate
• Copy of Sponsor’s National Insurance Card
• Marriage Certificate
• Copy of our tenant agreement with Both our names on it
• Copy of Council Tax Billings with both our names on it
• Copy of Sponsor’s P60 (Making over the 18.6 minimum)
• Copy of Sponsor’s pay slips in the past 6 months
• Financial Requirement Form???...I’ve seen that this might be required but am not entirely sure???
• Copy of my bank statements (I am hesitant to put my husband’s bank statements because they are significantly low, being that he pays most of our bills) Should I still include a copy???
• Copies of all Western Union money transfer Receipts between the two of us
• Copies of ALL Flight itineraries from all of our visitations in the UK and US.
• Copies of emails between the two of us
• Copies of call logs and messages
• Photos of us
• Screenshots of facebook posts and pictures to prove the dates
• Sponsorship form…is this needed???
• Letters of recommendation from our family and friends to prove the validity of our relationship and marriage

SanDiegogirl

You need to include:

Appendix 2 - a vital document to show details of your financials.
Print off, complete and include with your documents.

- husband's bank statements for past 6 months to show his income deposits. If copies of bank statements then they must be stamped by Bank. (Your bank statements are not relevant)

- the receipt/number relating to your payment of the NHS surcharge

You do not need:

- husband's birth certificate - you have included copy of his passport bio page.

- husband's NI card
- your bank statements as your income is not relevant
- sponsorship form
- letters from family and friends - no relevance.

You seem to be including lots of copies of relevant documents i.e payslips, bank statements, tenancy agreements, tax billings etc

You need to include original documents and copies of these documents. The originals will be returned to you.



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spouse of scouse

Hi. Just a couple of things that jumped out at me from your list. The joint tenancy agreement and Council tax in both names - a while back it became mandatory for landlords to conduct Right to Rent checks before offering a tenancy. If you were just visiting the UK, your landlord should not have added you to the tenancy agreement and he/she has actually broken the law. I don't know if this has any bearing on your application.

Sponsor's passport - it can be useful relationship proof to provide copies of all pages, if the sponsor's travel movements match those of the applicant. However, if you have kept flight tickets of any joint overseas holidays then that becomes less important.

Copy of your sponsor's birth certificate - I thought this had to be an original, but others will correct me if not.

Sponsor's bank account - again, others will be more knowledgeable on this but I believe it's important for the sponsor to provide original copies of bank statements to verify his/her salary being paid into the account. Withdrawals from the account don't matter, as long as it shows the salary credits. If you're meeting the financial requirements through your husband's employment, neither yours nor his bank balances are relevant.

If by financial requirements form you mean Appendix 2, then yes you most definitely have to complete it! Your application would be refused outright without it.

You seem to have good evidence of your relationship, so that's good

spouse of scouse

Thanks SanDiegogirl, you cleared up a couple of my bloopers - I should have just waited for you to come along!

What do you think about the OP being on a tenancy agreement and paying Council tax while not legally a UK resident though?

Edit - although Right to Rent checks have been mandatory for landlords of properties in England for some time, the scheme has yet to be implemented in Scotland, although mooted for later this year. Sorry if I gave you a coronary, OP!!

A.Cameron

Hi there!

Thank you for the vital information, it is good to know that i should have original copies of these things. Also good to know that I won't be needing those extra documents I was going to include...much less stress

A.Cameron

Thank you for this vital information! Yes I was a bit worried about having to fix that landlord mishap. I did some research myself. Both your insights have been very helpful!

SanDiegogirl

The following document are excellent in detailing what you need to produce for financial requirements:

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

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigrat...ified-evidence

A.Cameron

Thank you for the links super helpful! My husband certainly makes enough annually to be qualified. We just need Original signed documents from his employer is what I'm seeing, which I didn't realize before.

-Tax statements
-Wage slips
-A letter from the employer(s) who issued the wage slips confirming:
the person's employment and gross annual salary;
the length of their employment;
the period over which they have been or were paid the level of salary relied upon in the application; and
the type of employment (permanent, fixed-term contract or agency).
A signed contract of employment for employment currently held.
Monthly personal bank statements corresponding to the same period(s) as the wage slips, showing that the salary has been paid into an account in your name or in joint names with your spouse.

My husband has been with the same company for four years now so that shouldn't be a problem.

My next concern is how he should obtain his bank statements from the past year. I know that you can certainly just get a .pdf copy on his online account, but would that be considered an official copy? I suggested he phone his bank and ask them to mail him his bank statements?

SanDiegogirl

Good catch with the employment letter/contract !

If you are applying under Cat A - with employer more than 6 months - you only need 6 months of payslips and bank statements.

If you get copies of bank statements i.e just printed off, then you need to get the bank to officially stamp them. Otherwise, yes, contact bank to get official bank statements.

I'm going to add to include a couple of introduction letters, one from you, one from husband, giving brief details of your relationship: meeting, time together marrying, moving to UK et cetc

A.Cameron

Okay perfect that would be great if we didn't have to do more than 6 months of statements. Thank you all for the help I'm gonna get this list back together and do some more research and I'll post my final (hopefully) list.
Just waiting to get my passport back with my new surname on it and then I'll be sending the application out. Just saw that it went up in price a good amount last week so that's great -_-