chunkvoy

Hi there. Hope this question isn't too obvious, but I have a concern about my wife's visa application. When it comes to proving our relationship, are we required to show evidence of having lived together previously? We have plenty of photos (wedding included), emails, cards and all that jazz, but no real proof of having lived together before.

As it happens we did live together in Australia for a year, but didn't keep hold of any utility bills etc. from the time. All we have are a few travel booking confirmation emails listing both of our names under the same address, but this hardly seems official. We might be able to find a couple of bank statements on which our addresses are the same if that would be better.

Will this be a problem? Is proof of living together before a deal breaker, or would it merely strengthen her application? I'm a little worried...

BritInParis

Arranged marriages are commonplace so proving that you lived together for a significant period of time before or after your wedding is not necessary. However the ECO will still need to be satisfied that yours is a genuine marriage and not contrived for immigration purposes. How long have you been married?

chunkvoy

Thanks for the response! That's quite reassuring to hear. We've only been married since January but in a relationship since 2009. Have sadly only spent a couple of weeks together since getting married due to the lack of visa plus work commitments.

It's pretty clear from our photos that we've done a lot of travelling together - I wonder if this might work in our favour, since it's unlikely a sham couple would go as far as touring the world together. Could it be a good idea to include some shared travel docs - for example, 1-month interrail passes with identical itineraries - as part of our proof?