Hi guys,

I’m American trying to move to the UK where my British husband currently is. We have a bit of a complex financial situation and I’m hoping someone can help us make heads or tails of it - basically we’re trying to use 3 jobs over the past 12 months to make the £18,600.

Job 1: Started June 2018, laid off March 2019 (got married in February so were originally going to apply just after he got laid off). Annual salary £22,000

Job 2: 0-hour contract for April and May 2019 (technically still employed but no income aside from those two months). Income ~£800 for the two months

Job 3: Started June 2019, income £19,000 and raised to £20,000 in August.

So here’s the situation: We want to apply at the end of this month, otherwise because of how the numbers work out we won’t be able to apply again until he’s worked at his current job for 6 months, so December. The only problem is we’re about £400 short. He spoke to his employers today about potentially working overtime to make that up, but unfortunately they weren’t able to go for that.

What they did suggest, though, was ‘borrowing’ some of his salary from future months to make up that amount. His annual salary would be the same, so are we allowed to do that?

And just an additional question to make sure I dot my t’s and cross my i’s, I know that I’ll need a letter from each employer confirming the validity of his payslips, but do all three have to be dated within 28 days of the application?

Thanks for the help!

There’s no urgent issue aside from the point that we’ve now been separated for two years, no. But we’ll be able to show that both 1) his current salary is above £18,600, and 2) that his gross income for the past 12 months is also above £18,600. If necessary, he can even have a pay raise written in at the contract level and then decreased for the following months.

I do understand that it would be more straightforward to apply in December, but I think we’re at the emotional point now where we’d rather take the risk unless someone here will tell me straight out that we can’t do it that way.

Thank you for your reply, and thank you for being straightforward! It’s absolutely not my intent to commit fraud or ruin my chances of future entry to the country.

Just as a clarifying question, even if his salary was changed at the contract level and was therefore a legitimate pay rise (and subsequent legitimate pay cut), would that still be considered fraud and be grounds for denial?

I appreciate the honesty! I think our emotions and impatience got the better of us and we needed to hear it from an impartial source.

We will go ahead and wait until December to apply. One final question, and I can make another thread if you don’t personally know, but if he started his job on June 12th do we apply on December 12th or later, or could we apply at the end of November when we have 6 months of payslips (one of which wouldn’t be a full month’s pay)?

Thank you for your help!

No, his family is all British and I’m full American, met when I went over for Uni. The only thing we have are some British friends who now live in France but I don’t think that helps us.

Okay, I am sure you’re sick of me by now, but I just want to make absolutely sure I’m exhausting all of my available options before I resign myself to applying at the end of the year. I’m a fairly single-minded person lol.

If my husband works overtime this month and takes a pay cut in future months, is that still in the same boat? I recognize that it’s functionally the exact same thing but without artificially raising his salary in order to meet the requirement, so I thought it would be worth asking if that could be a legitimate way to approach it. His employer has already shot down overtime, but not with the stipulation of a pay cut afterwards so that question could be posed.

I promise this is my last attempt at this, thank you!