KKB

Hello.

My husband and two boys have to apply for extension of family visa (FLR) this year. While their BRP expires mid June, we are planning to relocate in the summer due to secondary school admission. Because of this, we are thinking of applying for the renewal in March. They are on a 5 year route to apply for ILR. The initial visa was for 33 months and we now need to apply for an extension.

We used a lawyer when we first applied for the family visa. This time round, we are planning on working on it ourselves and I am a little lost and overwhelmed. I would highly appreciate all advice and tips from this forum.

For starters, where should we be looking for advice on applying for the extension? So far I have read up here https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-uk-form-flrfp and https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa

I wanted to check a few things and would really appreciate any advice.

1. Does applying in advance, as we are planning to, have any negative implications?

2. What will be the implications of this statement in our case - If you’re extending to stay with the same family member, you’ll only get up to 28 days left on your current stay added to your new visa.

3. Should we mention in the application the reason for an early renewal? Is an explanation needed or helpful in any way?

4. For proof of relationship, we have a joint bank account and the rental contract is in both our names. Will these two suffice or do we need more documents?

a. Water, Electricity & gas, Council tax & Tv connection are in my husband’s name. I have letters from NHS, Electoral registration correspondence and our National Insurance number correspondence in our respective names. These are from over the two years we lived in the UK.

5. With regards to proof of income, my husband was employed from mid August last year. If we are to apply in March, we will be able to show pay slips for probably 7 months only. Will this suffice? As we will be applying for my husband and two children, do the pat slips we show have to add up to the £24,800 or is that the annual income we should be earning.

6. With regards to the English test, we read some where that since my husband will have to apply for the ILR in 30 months or so, he should sit a B1 test now itself. Would you recommend the same?

Thank you in advance for your advice.

SanDiegogirl

1. The following gives details as to the optimum time to apply for FLR(M)
If you are here on family route (as spouse or unmarried partner), and you entered UK on 33-month visa, then the earliest you can apply to renew your leave on form FLR(M) is on the 30-month anniversary of your UK entry (not from 'valid from' date on your visa, unless you arrived here on the first day of validity), minus 28 days. So for example, if you arrived in UK on your settlement visa on 17th June 2015, you can apply on 17th December 2017 (30-month anniversary), minus 28 days which will be 19th November 2017.
You CAN apply earlier but then might have issues when applying for ILR in that you fall short of the 60 months needed to qualify.
2. If you apply more than 28 days prior to your visa ending, only 28 days gets added to your current visa end date.
3. Not really
4.Proof of relationship .... Documents showing you have lived together for 2 years or more. 6 pieces showing joint names from 3 sources. 12 pieces for individual names
5. Same financial requirements as for initial visa. If you are going for Cat A then only 6 months of payslips are needed - they need to show that you earn the equivalent of 24,800 GBP or above, per annum i.e take the lowest monthly amount and multiply by 12.
6. Sorry don't know.

Website for extending visa:

https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa

DernierVirage

6. Yes you can. My wife took B1 for FLR and used the same test result for ILR.

KKB

Thank you SanDiegogirl.

With regards to proof of relationship I have a few questions.
1. Can I submit a combination of joint and individual name documents? for example , our rental contract (1 doc) and bank statements (5 doc) + some individual name documents?
2. Incase we can only submit individual name documents, do we need to provide 12 pieces in my husbands name and 12 in my name? Can I submit documents in my name from multiple sources , for eg. Electoral registration doc - 1 pcs + NHS correspondence with me - 3-4 docs + NI correspondence - 2 docs etc?
3. Does one need to submit photos or communication records ( I recall seeing posts about sharing whatsapp records I think)?
4. Our rental contract was e-signed , so will it be ok to simply print the same and submit that or is it needed on a real estate agencies letter head?

As my husband started working in the middle of the month, we will not use the first (calendar) month pay slip. So, we will use the next full months salary slip and use that as a basis to calculate the annual income.
My husband is still in the probation period. Does this have any implications on the application? Are we required to ask the employer to state this or if it is best avoided, to as them not state it, if possible? apologies for any silly questions...

thank you once again for your inputs. Much appreciated.

KKB

thank you!

DernierVirage

Just on your latest question - for FLR (and ILR), we only had council tax in our joint names. We send this, plus 5 documents for each of us. We chose a range of senders and spread evenly over the time period. As for photos/chat logs etc., nothi g is needed for FLR or ILR.

KKB

Thank you for your inputs.
Do all the documents have to be signed and stamped or submitted as they are? I recall from our first visa application, all our bank statements were signed and stamped. Other than that, I think all other documents like house purchase contract, utilities bills were not signed and stamped.

DernierVirage

For the proof of cohabitation, nothing was signed or certified. As regards bank statements used to prove income or savings, we submitted our statements with no certification either for ILR. I know that it is stated that online bank statements must be certified, but our statements online are indistinguishable from paper versions, so we just uploaded what we had downloaded from our online banking platform (HSBC).

KKB

Hi.

I need advice on our rental contract as well. Our current contract (assured short hold tenancy) ends on 1st march and the rental agency has not issued a new contract to us, saying that it is rolling over. The last signed contract states it is a 12 month period , ending 1st march 2022.
There is a line under General Notes in the contract which states 'Where the tenancy becomes a periodic tenancy at the end of the fixed term period the tenant is required to give at least 28 days’ notice (or one month in the case of a monthly tenancy) in writing to end the tenancy' .

I want to check whether I can use the 2021-22 contract , highlight the statement in the general notes and attach the email from the real estate agent stating that the contract has rolled over when I submit the renewal application? Will this be acceptable as proof of accommodation in the UK?

Thanks in advance for any inputs.

SanDiegogirl

Yes ....