Pollyana

The "sham marriage" thing seems to be the real problem. I don't know if every council is the same but I have a friend who recently booked a marriage with a London council. Her intended spouse is British but currently living in Australia. They went to the interview required when booking the wedding and she said to me that she was amazed at how easy it was. Beyond knowing each others names there were no questions about how well do you know each other. and the woman doing the interview even said that if they didn't know anyone to have as witnesses then they could just go out on the street and get two strangers - apparently that happens a lot. She was stunned it was so easy. Obviously in their case its irrelevant, the guy is moving back home and is British anyway, but the if thats the way it happens everywhere its frightening!

Englishmum

How about this one?

My mum is 72 years old. A couple of years ago one of her friends (she knows him through her church activities) who is around the same age as my mum became a widower. He had a much younger wife who died at 49 from lung cancer.

He was devastated. She died at home and he couldn't face staying in his own house - for weeks and weeks after she died he went and stayed with various friends. He even asked my mum (a widow) if he could stay at her house but she refused; he was very needy, not coping well and my mum thought she would never get him to leave and didn't want people to think he was her 'fancy man' .

Anyway, somehow he was befriended by a Pastor (church minister) from Nigeria. (That should have set alarm bells ringing ). This pastor must have some powers of persuasion, as my mum's friend somehow ended up paying for a flight to Nigeria for himself *and* the pastor.

The next thing was that my mum's friend ended up getting married to the pastor's sister during his trip there! He had never met her before, never corresponded with her, but as soon as she met him she was telling him that she loved him. Btw she is in her 40s with a young adult son and had an 8 year old daughter! (Not sure why she was single).

It's pretty obvious to me why the Nigerian woman married my mum's friend; she's after residency in the UK for herself and her daughter, free healthcare, free education for the child etc. I told my mum that she will probably fleece her friend of all his money (and his house) or/and will clear off after getting a British passport. I also said that it's possible that the 'pastor' might not even be who he seems to be, he could be a scam artist, preying on a gullible, grief-stricken and needy man who basically wants a woman to care for him.

He was supposed to fly out to see her last week but cancelled at the last moment. My mum thought there was some problem with trying to arrange a visa for his new wife. I reckon that the consular staff at the British Embassy in Lagos (now officially named Abuja) are not convinced that it is a genuine marriage.

He of course has no intention of moving to Nigeria.....he says it's horrible there and he can't stand the food

feelbritish

what a dreadful story! hope they don't allow her in and he wakes up - very sad for him as well - read in papers today that a pastor from Church of England in Forest Gate (?) was marrying people for 140 pounds and he and his male partner were holidaying on the money! Anyway he got a jail sentance but have they looked up all the marriages and seen who is still together?

ozzieeagle

Thats totally incorrect for retiriing couples at least.

Your able as a couple to get a full Australian pension and earn 264 dollars per fortnight, the means test then applies on a sliding scale and you lose state pension at 77,000 dollars income per year. You are also allowed to have somewhere between 600 to 800K in liquid assetts plus own your own home.

So I would say most retiring Aus couples would qualify for most of the Australian government Pension. It's how you set yourself up at retirement where it becomes important... some as cash and some as annunity.

We've had blokes retiring with well over 500K in Super, fully owning their 1,000,000K homes in places like Northcote and still get the full pension.

http://www.superguide.com.au/superan...3-times-a-year.

Just checked and you can now have 891,500 Dollars in liquid assetts Plus your own home and still get the full age pension in Aus. It's downsizing houses where people can hit problems.

babsi

Question: Is the income based on what the UK citizen earns? It doesn't make any difference what the spouse earns?

And if anyone has any info about Belgium, I would be really interested in that.

nun

Amazing how these stories are never directly witnessed. I'm not saying such abuses don't happen, just that I always take third and fourth party stories with a grain of salt. It's amazing how a few incidents can be hyped up by certain newspapers resulting in some UK citizens who genuinely marry non-EU spouses being denied spousal visas.

As a UK citizen I should not have to enter the UK with my non-EU spouse through Belgium and I and my family should be entitled to exactly the same benefits as any other UK resident. This sort of restriction of benefits through anger, fear and resentment is a slippery slope.

ozzieeagle

Another facet.... what happens if your non brit partner is in a profession the UK needs like nursing, or a ticketed tradesman ?

Are the Authorities going to insist that the potentially lower income earning Brit gets a Job to support the potentially higher income non Brit ?

Pollyana

I have no assets at all, will be on minimum super cos I can't afford to pay extra into it, and only have 18 years of UK State pension. Yet I'm told that will make me ineligible for an Aussie State Pension. i'm just hoping I pop my clogs before then!!

As for this current mess, at least if I ever marry another Aussie I will have the get out of jail clause of "I'm going home but you aren't allowed to come"

guyb

Announced now:-

• Anyone wanting to sponsor a partner to settle in the UK will have to have a minimum income of £18,600. If they have a child, the threshold will be £22,400. For every extra child, the threshold will rise by £2,400.

• Anyone who wants to sponsor a dependent relative requiring care to come to the UK will have to show that they can look after their relative without recourse to public funds.

• People will only be allowed to sponsor close relatives - parents, grandparents, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters - to come to the UK this way. Aunts and uncles will no longer be able to use the family route. And applications will have to be made from abroad, not while relatives are in the UK as a visitor.

• Applicants wanting to settle in the UK will, from October 2013, have to pass the "life in the UK" test. And they will also have to pass an English language test at an intermediate level.

• The minimum probationary period for new spouses and partners will go up from two years to five years.

• New guidance will be issued to caseworkers to help them identify sham marriages.

• The full right of appeal for people denied a family visa will be removed.

• The new immigration rules will come into effect on 9 July.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/b...an-rights-live

Family life in the UK is now being means tested in other words...

nun

So many more reasons not to vote Tory. But I fear that the policy under Labour would be similar. So it looks like the LibDems...... But who votes for them anymore. So I'm left with UKIP and the Greens. UKIP would probably extend the law to stop single expats returning because they were un patriotic enough the live abroad. So the Greens have my vote from now on.

civilservant

Am I the only one thinking this is not quite as bad as it could have been? I suppose that may be influenced by the fact I would have been ruled out by £25700, but not by £18,900.

dunroving

They all seem to be cut from the same cloth to me these days.

Until non-toffs can rise through a decent education system and go to a decent university and break into politics, I can't see much changing whoever is in government.

nun

I've been thinking about returning to the UK for a while, I wasn't going to even try to claim any benefits on my return because I assume I'll be over the asset/income limits and I don't qualify for job seekers allowance because I pay Class2 Voluntary NI, but now I'll apply out of spite and let them figure out what I'm entitled to

guyb

I am rarely in agreement with the Daily Mail but sometimes egregious policies make strange bedfellows:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...sian-love.html

Also:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...uk-theresa-may

dunroving

She had me up to the part where she said Dizzee Rascal was a source of inspiration.