Question about cash savings
 

Hi all. My wife is going to apply for her visa in the coming weeks. We have been carefully preparing her application, but suddenly I have a concern about our financial evidence.

We will use cash savings for the financial part of the application. We have atleast £62,500 across a number of bank accounts, and have held the savings for at least 6 months.

However, after looking through our prepared bank statements, I realise that we have moved our cash savings around a little bit during this last 6 months. The total amount of cash savings has never dropped below the £62,500 theshold during this time, but has not always been in the same bank account. For example, in October 2021 (6 months ago), bank account A held £10,000 and bank account B held £10,000. In January 2022, for better interest rates, I moved £8,000 from bank account A to B, leaving £2,000 in bank account A and £18,000 in B. The total amount hasn't changed, just the bank account holding the cash savings has changed. So my question/sudden worry - does this matter? Do my cash savings need to have remained in the same account for at least 6 months? Or is it okay as the savings have always remained in my name?

The guidance from the government states:
"The applicant and/or their partner must confirm that the money, which cannot be borrowed, is under their control and evidence that it has been held in their bank account for at least the 6 months prior to the date of application."
(Sorry, I can't post a link to this guidance, because I haven't posted enough times on the forum to be allowed to do so, but you can find it via google)

I'm not sure how to interpret the guidance in relation to my question.

Does anyone have any similar experiences and could offer guidance/reassurance? Anything would be much appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Re: Question about cash savings
 

My understanding of the rules, and 20 years reading and posting on BE, is that the savings can be transferred between banks, even in different countries and currencies, but transfers must be seamless, so there cannot be any sort of gap between the debit from one account and the credit to another, other than the funds being in transit between the two accounts.

If that is all you have done then you should be OK, but it sounds like you might have to take some effort to make sure that you have documented each transfer, and make certain that you have proved that there is no "gap" between accounts where you had access to the funds.

Re: Question about cash savings
 

Thank you very much for your response.

The bank statements clearly the money leaving one account and entering the other on the same day, with a clear reference to where the money has been transfered from/to. Would you think any other 'proof' is needed? Should I reference the transfer in a letter/statement as part of the application?

Also, could you offer any insight in how to fill out the online application form. The visa application form asks:

"What amount of savings are held in this account in GBP?(Required)
Only include funds that have been in your account for the last 6 months or where you have liquidated or transferred eligible assets or funds that you have owned and controlled for 6 months."

One could interpret this to mean 'enter the lowest amount that the account savings have got to over the last 6 months', however this wouldn't give an accurate overall picture. Should I enter the amount from 6 months ago, or from now?

Again, thank you very much for any information.

Re: Question about cash savings
 

Since our countdown started as soon as the threshold was reached (62.5k) we just put 62,500 as that was in the account for the entire 6 months regardless of any additional funds going in.

You need to put a statement letter in regarding source of cash, so you can document the transfers and reasoning in that. We didn’t move the cash around, as wanted to make it as simple as possible for the person processing the application to avoid complications as the whole process was stressful enough, but I’ve read other people have much more complicated arrangements than you so you should be ok!

Re: Question about cash savings
 

I just looked back at my wife's spouse visa application in 2016. We used cash savings, the situation was a bit different from yours since we used funds from a pension policy that I cashed in, but we still had a transfer between accounts. I checked what we submitted and one document was a summary of the movement of funds from the pension fund to my bank account (showing dates, amounts, charges deducted, so that everything tied back to the underlying pension and bank statements). In our case, there was a two day gap between the transfer from Zurich Assurance and the receipt of the funds in my bank account. The application was approved with no problem, so I am thinking that showing the funds leaving one account and arriving in the other demonstrates that they were still your funds despite the gap.

Not sure that this helps much, but just thought I would mention it!

Re: Question about cash savings
 

Thank you, your reply is indeed helpful and reassuring.