Hey folks, hoping to get some advice Coming to grips with the affidavit of support form and slightly stumbling over the income section, so just want to double check my understanding!

For income it asks current annual income and I've had a look at the instructions which says "Enter your current individual annual earned or retirement annual income that you are using to meet the requirements of this form and indicate the total on this line". To me this means that any UK income that will not continue when I move to the US cannot be considered. Therefore unless I've got proof from my employer that they'll be transferring me, the number there should be 0? Is my understanding correct?

My employer has agreed to transfer me, however I'm not sure I'll be able to get a contract in time for hubby's interview so in the meantime I'm prepping the form based on assets so that plan B is ready in case the contract isn't ready in time But want to make sure I fill it in correctly!

Thanks folks!

No. If you are currently earning income, go ahead and put that on the I-864 (expressed in USD).

If you have that much in assets, just show a letter from your employer showing their intent to transfer you, with all the details of location, position, and salary. It's probably OK that a formal contract hasn't been developed yet.

Rene

Haven't got anything other than maybe an email. My manager is over from the US at the end of the month so suspect she'll want to suss out details then! Will try to get a letter at least - I know they're looking into exactly what the salary would be, if the letter were to say 'salary would be comparable' would that suffice? Considering my current salary is significantly higher than it needs to be for the purpose of the visa?

Thanks!

Only the ConOff will know if that's enough or not. If you have enough in assets, your income won't matter anyway. You mentioned using assets...

Rene

Yes - our house more than covers it. The house is in both our names - do I need to half the value of the house on the form? Half also more than covers it for us (there's only the two of us)? Paranoid I'm not going to fill in something correctly and hubby not getting the visa over something ridiculous!

Thanks

Since you are married, your assets are joint, so full equity in the house can be used. Keep in mind assets need to be 3x what is lacking in income. Cash in the bank works best. Property can be used if the officer is satisfied that the property can be liquidated at that same value for 1 year.

Rene

Fab, that's good to know it's all joint and don't need to worry about splitting anything.

I've got about half the required amount in cash and shares (bearing in mind it's of course 3x the income) and then the house more than covers the rest. I'm hoping to also get some form of letter from my employer stating they're transferring me but just want to cover all bases in case the letter doesn't come through in time.

Keep in mind that you can only use the equity in the house... not the full value of the house (unless, of course, there's no mortgage). So, if the house is worth $200,000 and you still owe $155,000 - then you can only use $45,000 for the asset amount - which equates to $15,000 of income.

You don't want to get caught short.

Ian

Good point Ian! Thanks! Thankfully our mortgage isn't too big and we got lucky when we bought our house. It was a repossession so got it for a steal (though in hindsight not entirely sure the hassle of buying a repossessed house was entirely worth, but you live and learn!). Suppose we're reaping the rewards when we sell!

-Saskia