nlb65

Hi all,



I've been going through the threads and am really impressed with all the valuable information out there.



I am in the process of working out a sequence of events and timeline for relocating my family back to the UK. I am a British / French citizen, I have 2 children who British / French / Korean citizens, while my wife is Korean. I have been an expat in South Korea for 9 years.



From my understanding, relocating for my children and I is very easy as we are all British, but it is more difficult for my wife as she is Korean.



Is it possible for me to do the following:



1. Borrow money from a family member in the UK to get the 65k needed to sponsor my wife.

2. Transfer the money to a bank in my name in the UK

3. Wait 6 months and then have my wife make an application from Korea.

4. Wait for acceptance (it looks like about 2 months is the waiting time?) and then all travel back the UK together.

5. Arrive in the UK (and live at my parents) and then my wife and I both start looking for jobs.



The main attraction of the above scenario is that my family is not separated as we would all stay in Korea together until she is accepted.



Thanks for any advice you may have! Please let me know if there are any steps that I have missed.

mikelincs

Welcome to BE.

Please have a quick read of the site rules, beige bar at the top, and should you have any site related problems please contact one of the moderators, names in bold at the bottom of the forum page.

You can't have a 'loan' from family members it MUST be a 'gift' otherwise what you say is correct, except the waiting time is somewhat longer at the moment due to all applications going to Sheffield and they are somewhat understaffed at the moment, perhaps that will have improved by the time you apply.

nlb65

Thank you for the quick reply!

Tr1boy

How do your children have multiple citizenships when Korea does not allow dual? (or have they changed that rule?)

BritInParis

The law was changed in 2011 to permit dual citizenship in certain circumstances. From what the OP has written his children would be able to retain all three citizenships. Prior to 2011 they would have to choose once they turned 21.

Tr1boy

Oh wow thanks, I didn't know that. Mrs TB had to give up her Korean passport when she became an Australian citizen. She also holds British citizenship now but I wonder if she could get her Korean passport back?

(sorry for the hi-jack)

nlb65

@Tr1boy, BritinParis is correct. It was not easy to sort out all the nationalities, but it is fine for Korean citizens to now have multiple nationalities. I do not know if Mrs TB could get the nationality back, but she would definitely be allowed an F4 visa (residency), as she could prove Korean heritage.

Regarding my original post, I have a few follow up questions:

1. How do they calculate the 6 months?
a. Is it in days e.g. 180 days
b. whatever day the money comes into the account plus 6 months e.g. money comes in on Sept 20th 2017, 6 months is then counted as past on March 20th.

2. I have some credit card debt in the UK, will this be counted against the 65K needed? Would it be prudent to clear my debt or does it not matter?

3. If I decide to leave with my family earlier than expected, is it possible to make the application from the UK (rather than Korea)? If so, would it be worth bringing over my whole family before the 6 month period and going to one of the premium application centers?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

mikelincs

The visa must be applied from from the applicants home country, it isn't possible to apply from the UK on a visit visa. The debt shouldn't cause any problems.