Ddl

Hello everyone - I am an American woman who has met a wonderful UK man
via the internet. I am living with him in London now. I entered the
country in July on my passport, as a tourist. I can stay here until
Jan. 16 (6 mos. from date of entry). I am legally married but my US
divorce will be final in April.

Since Tony and I cannot marry, of course, until my divorce is final,
our most urgent dilemma is how to legally keep me in the UK until I am
free to marry. I am planning on going back to the US in November for a
couple of weeks to see my grandchildren - when I return to the UK,
will the 6-month "clock" begin again?

We have read every website there is concerning K1 and K3 visas and
frankly find it all very confusing. We want to live in the US, but
we're not sure where to start. The bottom line is, we don't want to be
physically separated at all during this process, so how should be
proceed? It doesn't matter to us whether we marry in the UK or the
States.

Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks a lot!

Trinity

I dont have any advice, but if you haven't you might ask this forum as well, since they deal with situations like yours of trying to stay in the UK and dealing with Home Office.


http://www.americanexpats.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl

girlyflyer

As far as the 6 month stamp, yes it begins again when you come back after your November trip. I did that several times over the last couple years. As this is my first engagement/marriage, I am sure there are other people on the board with more knowledge about the divorce issue. I do know, however, that one of the qustion on the K1 is are you "free to marry". And in your case it sounds like you are not until April. If you get married outside of the States then I believe you would file an I-130 (for spouse instead of finace). But again, there's a lot more people with more knowledge. I am merely playing the waiting game like everyone else. Separated and frustrated, but madly in love.

mstracy

When my wife (USC) came here, we had this problem too as we were both still married then (to other people). We managed to get her stay extended the first time as she suffered a back injury and couldn't travel, but subsequently she had to return home for a month before returning to receive a new 6 month stamp in her passport. Do be aware that using this method isn't foolproof. You can be denied entry to the UK if the immigration official figures out what you're doing. When my wife needed one more extension, we went to France on a motorcycle for the weekend. On our return, the officer at Dover figured it out and said that if we were at an airport, he would have put her on a plane home but as she was on the back of a motorcycle coming in from France, there wasn't much he could do but stamp her passport for another 6 months. I would suggest that you stay away for more than a couple of weeks to avoid problems if you can stand it.
I'm not sure where you want to live once you're married but getting in to the UK is a lot easier (and faster) than the US. Once my wife and I had obtained our divorce papers, I flew to NY and we were married in Niagra Falls. A week later (we had to wait for the marriage certificate to be notarized), we flew to NYC to the British embassy and got her entry visa for the UK. That only took a few hours and we flew out to England a few hours after that.

That was three years ago and we are now in the process of doing DCF to move to the US.

Good luck.

LuTziE

hi,
my fiance and i went the k1 route, this may not be for everyone, all experinces differ, but we found the k1 fiance visa route to be quite painless and fast.
if you want to live in the usa it will mean you sponsoring him to be there. if you are free to marry, and have no dependants(kids) and you earn enough $15,200 ish for you and he.
there are many ins and outs as to which way to go, but this forum and the links people post will eventually help you in your quest....good luck