RioB

I'll try and explain everything in a nutshell. I'm sorry I couldn't find a thread to answer my questions!

My husband is British and I am American. We currently live in USA but have been wanting to go back to the UK! It's been so difficult to find anyone willing to interview my husband via Skype. It's been such a disheartening experience and although we have some savings here in the US, it's nothing close to meeting the UK savings requirements. My husband works as a retail manager in the US earning (after conversion rates) 36,000 pounds salary. He has been employed at the same company for over a year now.
He has been sending off applications for the same role in the UK for ages now. It's insane that we are struggling considering what he earns here! Anyway, we finally had some luck and he found a company that wants to hire him located in the UK. However, they aren't sure they can pay him the minimum requirement of 18,600 yet. If they can then here are my questions:

1. He can use his payslips here for his US job in the application right? As long as he has a job offer in the UK that he can begin shortly. So we don't need to wait for 6 months of his new jobs payslips before applying? I hope I worded that ok.

2. Accommodation! His mother would give us a room until we got settled in. She has plenty of space. She lives alone in a council house with a spare bedroom (she pays rent), however she does receive disability benefits. Is this a problem?
We spoke to a UK immigration advisor when we were visiting in July and she told us it was fine as long as his mother wasn't charging us rent.

3. Do you think it would be possible for us to get a rent agreement before we get out there?

We just want to be sure everything would work out smoothly before he quits his good job here! It would also be great if we could apply for the visa ASAP before he even gets over there. We don't want to throw it away if this is all for naught. I wish I had more of a part to play in this than just being the non EU spouse.

Thank you so much for your patience and advice! -Rio

SanDiegogirl

1. Yes

2. Yes you could put your mother in law's home as your intended accommodation as long as you had the approval of the renting authority and his mother. You would need to show there would not be overcrowding.

3. Pretty difficult, but others have done it.

RioB

Thank you

quiltman

Job offer must be to start within 3 months of landing. does not matter a jot what he earns in the States so long as it's over £18,600 and the job offer in the UK is for at least £18,600. I believe you can make up the shortfall with savings - there's a mathematical formula somewhere! What is the UK offering to start? Then I'm sure one of our experienced people such as Brit in Paris will be along with the answer.

RioB

We are currently waiting to hear back to see what they can pay him.

Novocastrian

Yes, he can do that so long as the UK job starts within 3 months and pays £18600 per year. You're waiting for the salary offer, but if you give us an idea of how much you (jointly) have in savings, we could tell you how far below the £18.6k would work for you.

RioB

We have roughly 22,000 GBP saved up.

Novocastrian

OK. The threshold for savings to matter is £16k and the formula is (S - 16000)/2.5 to calculate the required annual salary, so with £22k in savings you'd need £16200 pa to qualify.

(£16k is the cutoff for eligibility for means tested benefits).

quiltman

There RioB , told you someone would know! thanks novocastrian.

RioB

Thank you very much! That's good to know if they offer him a lower price.