Terryanne

Hi All,
First time on this forum and I must say there is a lot of good materials here.
We are getting ready to start our spouse visa application, however the applicant had overstayed her student visa that was issued 16 years ago, then returned home voluntarily without any brush with the law, and didn't get caught and bought her own ticket and has had no biometrics ever taken.
given that the application asks for the last 10 years would not declaring the overstay affect her application and what's the chances of HO finding out she overstayed given that she never had any biometrics taken and didn't go through any exit checks?
thank you good people.

BritInParis

Fairly certain the form asks you to list any overstay, not just the last ten years. If it does then you should definitely give that information. Declaring it won’t have a negative effect on a spouse visa application but not declaring it could very likely cause you a problem.

Terryanne

Thank you Briton Paris.
We are worried declaring might get the visa refused as she did work illegally and fulltime as well till she returned home. Someone is telling us not to complicate the application as she never had any bios taken nor caught and she has had new passport as well and HO would'nt know when she returned as she never had any exit checks. She also returned on a new passport that was issued by the embassy. The passport has since been exchanged for a biometric one which she will use to apply for visa.
The other question is would they barn her from entering UK considering that it's now more than 5 years since she returned home voluntary.

Have anybody been in this situation before
pls advise as we are scared.

SanDiegogirl

Was she given the choice of voluntary return by the Immigration authorities or did she just decide to leave? (ie no correspondence or contact with the Immigration people)

How long did she overstay?

Terryanne

HI SanDiegoGirl,
There was no correspondence from home office at all and didn't get into any trouble. She bought her own ticket and returned.
There was no contact with immigration and didn't have biometrics on her visa as there was none that time
She overstayed for 7 years from 2007 when visa run out. Visa was issued 2003
pls advise

christmasoompa

SanDiegogirl

So she overstayed from 2007 to 2014..... a very long time

While one does not go through immigration as such on leaving the UK, that does not mean that your information is not taken and your departure date noted.

The following document gives some interesting information as to how you can still be tracked when leaving the UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...cks-fact-sheet

The document highlights the new procedures for collecting the info of those leaving from April 2015, but there was a procedure already in place from 2010.

Personally, I would not take the risk that the authorities don't already have info about your spouse's stay (and overstay) in the UK.

BritInParis

Overstaying in and of itself cannot be used to refuse a spouse visa application but deception can be. It's better to tell the truth than lie and be banned from the UK.

Terryanne

The bit that scares us is that she worked all that time so would automatically be banned from entering UK.
I have seen flight data are kept for 5 years. We are confused on which is lesser evil.
Surely there must be someone here who has been through this?
pls let me know your thoughts.

BritInParis

No-one is going to recommend you break the law. Moreover it's the wrong move to make in any case.

spouse of scouse

Even if anyone else who posts here had overstayed by that length of time and then applied for a spouse visa, I doubt they'd be willing to discuss it. If your wife want to live with you in the UK then she needs to apply for a spouse visa and be honest in answering all questions. There's no way around it.

Dorothy

The bit that would scare me is the bit where she's convicted of immigration fraud for lying about the overstay and banned from the UK.

As has been said, nobody here is going to advocate dishonesty. If you're looking for someone to tell you to lie and cover up her overstay then you need a different forum.

MartynK

Terryanne

Just answer the questions on the application truthfully. You don't need to volunteer anything that's not asked for, but don't lie.

I doubt if this will have any impact on an application for a spouse visa, but lying to obtain it might have future consequences. Apart from anything else, you'd create a potential Sword of Damocles situation. The fact that your wife didn't 'didn't get caught and bought her own ticket and has had no biometrics ever taken' is irrelevant.

Terryanne

Thank you all for the good insight. We will mention the overstay in the cover letter and fingers crossed, pray that they won't reject it on basis of working illegally.

christmasoompa

Good plan. I suspect you'll find that they already know about the overstay (no exit checks means nothing, countries share data, as do airlines etc) so being honest will be the best thing to do. If you lie and commit immigration fraud, then that's a whole new scale of trouble.