a_constantinou

Hello everybody,

First time poster here, so sorry if this question has been asked many times before. I am seeking advice for an immigration query (leave to remain). I am a British citizen currently living in the UK, and my wife of three years is American (we have no children). We plan to apply for her to settle in the UK.

My question is regard to the financial requirements for applying for a spousal visa. Currently I meet the requirements through a combination of savings (£33,000 in my account for over 6 months) and rental income (> £11,600 per year). I am currently living in the UK but not in this property and have no plans of living there in the future i.e. I will keep receiving this rent and this property will not become my family home. Also, this rental income is my only source of income as I am currently a full-time student.

My main concern is that this is a rather unconventional way of meeting the financial requirements. Has anyone on the forums successfully applied with a combination of savings and rental income? Does anyone have any tips for filling out the paperworks or advice for the type of evidences I should supply? I was obviously planning on submitting bank statements and rental contracts but is there anything else I should think about submitting?

Also my last question concerns the Visa4UK website. Am I right in thinking that the correct visa to choose in the options is Settlement>>Settlement>> Wife + Appendix 2 (physical form).

Thanks in advance everybody

SanDiegogirl

Read the following documents for information as to what evidence to show financial requirements are met via savings and rental income.

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

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

Other folks have applied via savings and rental income.

If I remember correctly one needs to show rental agreements, payments, and bank statements for a 12 month period for rental income

Yes, settlement, settlement, wife + Appendix 2

a_constantinou

Great! Thanks for the advice

Invisible

Hi you do not meet the financial requirements. You have a shortfall of £200 per year.

Only savings over £16,000 can be used so £33,000 - £16,000 = £17,000 That can be used. You then need to divide £17,000 by 2.5 which gives you £6,800.

You can now add the £6,800 to your rental income of £11,600 which gives you a total of £18,400 thus failing to meet the financial requirement of £18,600.

Also remember you must show proof of your rental income for the previous 12 months and the cash savings to be in account for over 6 months.

Cheers.

Pulaski

Any cash savings his wife has, that meet the "six months held" requirement, can be added. If she has any such amount I would strongly recommend that she continues to hold the sum where it is and not try to move it, risking breaking the "six months held" period.

Invisible

You have to be very thorough when checking you meet the financial requirements as the ECO has zero discretion on this.

I know of a case (and this is not anecdotal) and can indeed post the refusal letter here, where an individual was using cash savings to meet the requirements, the money had been held in the account for almost one year however a few months before the visa application was made she used paypal to make a purchase on ebay and instead of clicking on the credit card payment she mistakenly used money directly from her account thus taking her £36 under the threshold, she quickly realised what had happened and replaced the £36 after several days. The visa was rejected as because the account had dropped under the required amount by £36 for 3 days during the 6 months leading up to the visa application, this is a bank account that held over £50,000 in it.

Be very careful!

Pulaski

This is correct, the money must be held seamlessly, you cannot have access to/ use the funds even for a day. ...... Which is exactly why I recommended (post #5, above), continuing to hold additional funds where they currently are (if they meet the "six months hold" requirement), rather than moving the money between accounts even though such a movement is technically permitted without breaking the "six month hold" rule. Any movement of funds between accounts, and especially between banks and countries, there is a risk that you might be thought to have acessed the funds.

a_constantinou

Hi thanks for the replies.

I made a mistake when I wrote the amount of rent I receive. I actually get £12,960 per year. So along with the 33,000 that puts me at £19,760 a year. Thanks for the advice.