scottydog357

Hi all

Trying to find out if my wife can sit the test when we go back for a holiday in a few weeks? We intend to apply for spouse visa and ILR later in the year as we have been married several years and meet the (current ) criteria for ILR.
Our agent seems to think it's possible, but the Life In UK website says my wife needs to provide evidence of UK postcode when she goes to sit the test. If you live overseas contact UKBA. She is Australian and we currently reside in Oz.

Anyone experienced this before and what was the outcome?

Thanks in advance.

roaringmouse

Without the evidence of the address she probably won't be able to take the test. In any case, the rules may have changed by the time you apply - there's no clear indication of when it will happen, but there won't be too much notice.

You & your wife might need to consider applying sooner rather than later, and requesting the KOL Req endorsement - which basically means she can take the test once in the UK and has evidence of the address. There would be no need to wait the normal 2 years (soon to be 5 most likely) before applying for ILR. Yes this would mean another application fee.

If you don't apply sooner rather than later, then you run the risk of your wife having temporary residency for 5 years - presuming you meet the new financial requirements, whatever they will turn out to be.

Tr1boy

We qualified (in theory) for ILR but didn't have the LITUK test either. We were in Oz. Entered on a Spouse Visa and that ran for 2yrs, then Mrs TB took the test (obviously we were fully living in the UK then), and we applied for ILR and paid the £1350.

I documented our experiences elsewhere, but each time came to the same conlusion, that it seems virtually impossible to achieve without a perm address in the UK.

Ironically, Mrs TB could have taken it on one of our many holidays in the UK as she had a UK bank acct and NI number for a few years. Unfortunately we didn't think that far ahead.

good luck

englishguygoinghome

We took it on a trip to the UK as we had bank statements sent to my parents in the UK anyway.

In theory you could get the test using a foreign address but:
a) if you registered using a foreign address it only offered you the 5 centres nearest to the coast. ie nearest to you!
b) if you registered with a (fake or otherwise) UK address and then changed your address in the system then the centre didn't get the info and wouldn't let you take the test.

As for doing the 2-stage process and going for ILE subject to KOL: we did that and only paid once - we took the KOL while waiting for our appeal and the judge recommended that we get the full ILE when the appeal was finally processed.