Sibart

we want to move to Dubai and we are able to get a visa. We have been together 10 years and have a son 5 years. we are unmarried
We found out we are going to have a problem with immigration trying to sponsor him.
Please anyone in the know can you advise how we get round this problem. we have been together 10 years so don't mind getting married... but will this even help as the date of the birth certificate is prior to getting married married. So worried as we can get in the country but we can't get our son in? All help and advice appreciated

carcajou

Can you advise, who told you this would be a problem?

I am not sure it actually will be.

IKnowNothing

The mother (or father) on their own can sponsor the child.

Millhouse

Get married and all is well.

My son was out of wedlock and has a different surname to both of us. There was no issue with the visa.

CeeBee

If you're not married how can "we" get a visa? You're either on a married status visa or you have individual work visas.

Living together will be illegal by the way (without being married). It does make life easier but you should want to get married rather than feel forced into doing it for the sake of a visa. Having said that you wouldn't be on your own. There are plenty here that have done so.

DXBtoDOH

As someone else asked, what do you mean 'we' can get a visa?

The partner who is employed gets the employment visa from his employer, and can use that status to sponsor his/her *married* partner and children. He/she will not be able to sponsor an unmarried partner. Whether he/she can sponsor the child is a complicated subject and variable and dependent on circumstances and paperwork (I know single women who sponsored children they adopted but they did have to jump through many more hoops, I know of divorced parents sponsoring a child without problems once they received a no-objection letter from the other parent).

While you can do visa runs on a UK passport, the reason for getting the residency visa is not only it gives you security, but without the visa you can't get health insurance nor will your child be able to enrol in school/nursery.

In your case, the simplest thing is to get married and everything will be fine. It won't be an issue sponsoring you or your child once you have the marriage certificate.

DXBtoDOH

How is this possible? Hyphenated or a wholly different surname?

Sibart

The company we used to open our new company in the free zone we paid 30k aed to to then tell us whoops you can't sponsor your son without being married.

Sibart

My son has the same surname as his father my name surname is entirely different as we are not married

Sibart

Only problem is that we don't have typical employment like this. My partner opened a company in the free zone paid 30k aed for this and now they are saying that we need to be married for him to sponsor our son. we also received advice from somebody that even if we get married this won't alter thing as he was still born out of wedlock. He is 5 years old. We are hearing that many thing we don't know what to believe. We are in touch with an expatriate lawyer as well. As soon as we find out the facts we will post. With the company stage we are up to receiving the establishment card. We didn't want to submit the visa application knowing that there's a possibility of it getting rejected. We want to know which way will get approved if any. I wasn't going to get a job initially until I figured out Ltd school runs etc but now I am looking into this. My question then though is if I sponsor my son with a no objections letter from his father will we then be committing a crime as we will be living together. We do plan to get married yes imminently. We have been together ten years.

DXBtoDOH

'My question then though is if I sponsor my son with a no objections letter from his father will we then be committing a crime as we will be living together.'

Yes. You are committing a crime. Out of wedlock cohabiting is a crime. No ifs and buts about it.

It will not be easy for you, as a 'single' mother with a child out of wedlock, to get sponsorship approval for your child, even with a NOC letter. It has happened but generally only if a lot of wasta and influence is involved. The immigration officials will be able to put two and two together and figure out that this is an unmarried couple trying to manipulate the laws to their benefit, and something quite different from a single mother adopting a baby from Ethiopia. Especially if the the father issuing the NOC is the same name as the man starting the business that's providing you with the sponsorship

Get married. Problem sorted.

Sibart

thanks for your advice and it won't be a problem no that he was still born out of wedlock? even if we get married tomorrow marriage certificate still is 5 years after birth of child. Cheers for advice it's like a battlefield trying to get him sponsored

Millhouse

It will not be a problem.

My son was 8months when he got a visa. We had been married 1.

DXBtoDOH

No it's not.

Get married. Problem sorted. This has been said a number of times trying to go any other route is the battlefield.

Remember, despite the veneers of modernity Dubai gives off through clever tourism marketing, it is still a Muslim country and the western liberal concept that we can do anything we want and get anything we want all of the time doesn't quite apply. They are sticklers for social conventions and those surrounding families are perhaps the most important.

scrubbedexpat141

'Get married' is thrown around far too easily. I can't be the only person left on this forum who doesn't see it solely as a contract?