Hi everyone!

I am an expat living in Southern California, while I have loved my time over here I am looking into moving back to the UK in the next few years with my husband and son. We are looking at the paperwork involved and getting pretty confused.

Where do we start? One of the things we are also concerned about is how much money do we need to have in order to get him a visa for a family with 1 child (and for how much for a family with 2 children because we will probably be trying for a second in the next year). My parents are very excited and willing to be co-sponsors. My Mum is retired due to medical conditions, but my Dad still works the same job that he did when me and my three siblings lived at home. So if we need him to be our co-sponsor, we should be fine. We will also be staying with them when we move over until we get on our feet.

Really, I am wondering if any of you can offer some advice on how best to prepare for this move. We also have a dog and a parrot to move with us, so if anyone has advice on that we'd really appreciate it as well. Especially if anyone had moved with a bird before.

I have just done this and regarded it is a two stage process. That is dismantling your old life in the US and setting up your new life in the UK. Somewhere in the middle, you will need to get the cash in the bank and get it transferred. You need to start with a checklist for stage one which may include selling your house, visas, shipping pets, selling/shipping furniture, etc. Then do a checklist for stage 2.

Here is the UK DEFRA site for shipping pets:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/pets/travel/pets/

You will get plenty of advice from this forum. Take it at a step at a time in a logical process otherwise your brain may explode.

Thanks, John. We actually don't have a house (tried buying last year when the prices were low, but too many investors were buying up the houses to fix up and sell/rent). So really all we need to do is save, save, save. We just don't know how much they expect us to have. We can't find any details about it.

The biggest thing will be shipping the pets, I think.

I used to work in foreign exchange, so transferring money will not be a problem for me.

If you are a UKC born not by descent then the children will need their UK passports and maybe get consular birth registrations from Washington DC while you are at it.
other than that your USC hubby will need a visa.
Theres a lot of info about spouses moving at www.uk-yankee.com

Thanks, Mummy in the foothills. I will definitely check out the other forum. I was born in the UK, so like you said it is merely a matter of getting a passport. We will probably get their births registered as well.