Just wondering what hurdles we’ll have to jump through before I go looking on the various government websites.

I’m British my GF is Brazilian, I’m employed full time and she’s got a masters from a British uni in English, which I think negates the English/history test.

Thanks I’m off for a run

Munrobiker is your man.

I’m British my GF is Brazilian,

Well……has she ?

Photos or its not true 😉

i have a friend, she is Brazilian i don’t know the whole back story, but she was here then did self financed degree and then got a job (CIMA accountant so fairly good money) eventually she applied for UK citizenship but i think that was because she has been resident for so long and it was little things like going to Europe on holiday that were an issue.

Now married to a brit and has two kids.

Get married first.

Your case will be even stronger if you two have children together.

If you earn more than £28k income (check actual amount).

Then follow up with the rest of the paper works … not sure what nowadays.

Not yet. The wife is Scottish, so it won’t be long now.

I will soon (still!) be an eu citizen married to a non-eu british citizen.
Perhaps it will be easier for both of us if we just bog off to Canada. 😉

I’m British my GF is Brazilian, I’m employed full time and she’s got a masters from a British uni in English, which I think negates the English/history test.

are you sure about that?
my GF is Polish but with indefinite leave to remain and has an MA from Central St Martins and been paying tax here for over 15 years, also has an english teaching qualification but still has to do the life in the u.k. test to get a U.K. passport.
(doing so means she will be able to claim her state pension after contributing as a higher rate tax payer for years)

Get married first.

Your case will be even stronger if you two have children together.

not everyone wants to conform to societies norms, why get married and breed if you don’t want to?

not everyone wants to conform to societies norms, why get married and breed if you don’t want to?

Because she is from Non-EU which makes it much easier to remain if she is married. Otherwise, her only status is Student which means she has no right to stay longer once her stay expires. She can apply to stay but chances are unless she has tie to UK, she will be asked to leave. GF means nothing in immigration.

Your GF is from EU which means she does not even have to worry about her legal stay, unlike non-EU where plenty of headaches will happen even with a wrong paper works in place or short overstay.

For non-EU if they make a mistake in application etc or put in a foot wrong, they will face major headache.

Once she is married etc and given time to remain then she can start the process of turning herself British. She still need to take the Life in UK exam.

tails – Member
Just wondering what hurdles we’ll have to jump through…

You jump over hurdles or through hoops.
Are you sure you’re British? 😉

Had a friend in a similar situation. They had to prove their relationship. So this was emails, letters, co habitation etc. Then get married and finally he had to earn more than a certain amount to prove he could support her… Once this was done she could get her visa to stay…
It was a bit of a pain but I guess the system is to stop visa marriages and just catches everyone else.

Getting married to get the visa is something that will set off alarms…
a strong relationship with history should get through as well as a marriage and getting married would not impact it. Simple terms if it’s not obvious speak to a professional. Did my entire Oz one without help but it was incredibly intuitive.

You need people who have done it recently.

I would suggest being married outside the UK first, although there is an EU law about the right to marry that I know one person has used to get their Cuban fiance into the UK for their wedding before leaving.

We moved back in 2009, having been married 2 years, together for nearly 6, we had money in the bank, home to go to, so the hoop jumping was easy enough, but the money was considerably less compared to now.

They want to know she won’t be a burden on the state.

Don’t get an agent to do it for you, join expat forums and read through what they have to say, be prepared for some long waits.

You could do a ESOL exam in the past as well, may have cracked down on that, but it negated the life in the UK test.

My BiL is Indian, consultant plastic surgeon so safely > £28k, has been resident in the UK for many many years and married to my sister and it was still a class 1 pita for him.

Multiple tests and endless paperwork.

They’ve let him in though…

I am married to a non EU citizen. All we had to do was go to the embassy and get a visa that lasted for 5 years. Stay out of trouble for 5 years then we got infinite leave to remain.

She isn’t a British citizen and doesn’t have a British passport, but neither of those things stops you having indefinite leave. Or at least it didn’t when we got married in 2004.

I don’t recognize the hassle people have, but we didn’t get married in the UK, and I had to prove I had money etc.

I’m pretty sure things have changed.

Its 18.5k per year for the financial requirement, you need photos together with different clothes on, proof of where you are going to stay including a surveyor report to check if it is suitable and printouts of conversations. I suggest getting married…I havent heard of anyone doing it kn a cohabiting basis…..and having kids will bump up the financial requirement about 2.5k per kid. if the gf is in the uk already as a student…then any work they have done can count towards it.

You will also be asked to give a reason as to why you cant **** off to your wifes country and you will also need to show that you have visited her country to see family. I think.

My Brother is married to a Russain. They’ve been living in various locations around the world with his job, but have been in the UK for a good 4 or so years now and they started proceedings to get her dual nationality. They’ve been married for 10 years (were married in the UK) and have a child together. Boy are they having to jump through hoops. Can’t tell you any details but it seems a long and laborious process. To be fair I’m sure they’re not pursuing it in as focussed way as they could be. I think things are coming to a head soon though because her current visa expires and she’ll be kicked out if they don’t get her dual nationality sorted by then.

You dont need dual citizenship not to get kicked out, on a marriage visa you renew evey 2.5 years. On the second renewal it is for permanent residence. Applying for citizenship is optional.

(doing so means she will be able to claim her state pension after contributing as a higher rate tax payer for years)

Citizenship has no effect on State Pension entitlements – it is purely based on contributions (partly how many years and partly, up to 2016, an the amount of contributions). Secondly, paying higher rate tax is irrelevant – NI contributons which affect the earnings related part are only counted up to approximately the higher tax threshold and the threshold for the non earnings-related part is much lower. And it will be paid even if she is not in the U.K. at ‘retirement’.

It really isn’t worth getting British citizenship if that’s the reason – other reasons might make sense, but as Poland is in the EU, and there have been promises that current residents from other EU countries will be allowed to remain post Brexit, I would think the Polish citizenship might be more ‘valuable’.

Tom_W1987 – Member
You dont need dual citizenship not to get kicked out, on a marriage visa you renew evey 2.5 years. On the second renewal it is for permanent residence. Applying for citizenship is optional.

^^^ This advice.

Never Overstay even for a day or you will be deep trouble.

Do Not get a criminal record … speeding ticket is fine but if you beat up the parking warden and got a criminal record, you’re out.

pyranha – Member
… I would think the Polish citizenship might be more ‘valuable’.

Actually ALL of them are valuable as long as you are happy with that location/country etc and can blend into the society.

It is happiness that will root you down.

I have a Hungarian friend who works in a university (having studied there) towards making the education there more open to white working class citizens (think the east of Sheffield rather than the leafy west for an example – though I guess it’s always the east and west sides of cities which are more deprived and luckier), and black and ethnic minority people, and she has recently had her UK citizenship request okayed. She isn’t married or in a long term relationship, and wasn’t in any I don’t think at the time of applying or it. I’m guessing it was her job and the history/length of her time spent over here which clinched it for her. I could try and ask if you like?

Oops! Pardon my not absorbing the topic title properly.

Wife is currently on a British national Overseas passport (Hong Kongness) and we were looking at getting her a full strength, John Bull, Bread and Butter pudding, sunday roast British Passport but it seems like a lot of hassle and as she wants to stay in HK for the next 10-15 years at least due to work and parents the BNO suffices for visits to the UK/Europe (currently!).
Have you considered consulting with an immigration lawyer to get an idea of how they would resolve this, this was going to be my first action if the wife decided to change her mind?

My wife, who is American, and I did it from her on a student visa. We got married 3 months after Theresa May very helpfully made the laws much stricter.

Everything Tom says is correct, although I understand you don’t actually have to have the survey of your house.

Visas are around £800 a go for a postal application, plus £500 for her to use the NHS. This is for 2.5 years and you will need three, one after you get married or from when her current visa runs out, one after 2.5 years and one after 5 years.

We got married then got our first visa three months later. To ensure we absolutely definitely got it right we went through a company to get an in person appointment at a Home Office visa office, our nearest was Sheffield. This was expensive but I could really recommend it, it meant provided we met the criteria we were pretty much guaranteed approval with no kick backs or reapplication.

The main obstacle is the income requirement of £18.6k. We just managed to make this between us at the time. If you make that you are probably fine, Ms May’s main stipulations in the justification document for the 2012 law were that the income requirement trumped everything and without it nothing else would be considered.

We had to provide photos of us together in our home countries and with each other ‘s families.

You will need a letter from your employer confirming you work for them, have worked for them for 6 months and confirming your salary.

You will need 6 months or so of at least two different bills with both your names on. Set them up ASAP. We use electric and water. You will also need to supply 6 months of bank statements for your first visa, 2.5 years worth of them and bills for the next two.

It’s stressful, time confusing and you’ll often feel like you are banging your head against a wall. My email is in my profile if you need more advice.

Doesn’t have to be both your names, it has to be either three in both of your names – or 6 if you don’t share anything – but all have to be registered to the same address. I’m pretty sure that is right anyway.

They will also pretty much ignore this if it’s your first time applying – they’re looking for proof that you are going to live together not that you have been during the first application. I’d still recommend you do provide the documents though – but the basics they will be looking for are a signed joint tenacy. A survey report will help as well.

Speak to a lawyer.

Your situation is not that far removed from mine.
I am British from birth and UK passport holder, my partner in from NZ and we wish to both live in the UK and work in the UK (the work bit is key).

We are in the process of applying for the “Apply to join family member in the UK” (https://www.gov.uk/join-family-in-uk) visa. This is sometimes, incorrectly, referred to as a spouse visa. It covers couples who have been in a relationship for more than two years, married or not. It is expensive and the NHS surcharge is quite a lot (we are probably £2000 in so far) and the official .gov website is not helpful, nor are the phone lines (which you have to pay on credit card to use!).

As everyone says the key is basically to show your partner is not going to be accessing state support, for us a combo of savings and me being a homeowner is the basis of our application.

Get in touch if you have any questions I might be able to help with (see profile, if I’ve fixed it)

If you are legitimate the process is okay, but a major financial drain and general PITA.

My wife is non-EU and we married outside the EU.

The first thing that screwed us was the rules being changed, yet the Brits failing to update the website in time.

Mrs RL is now a UK citizen and the process took us about six years from arrival (and that’s with us her being from the Commonwealth, educated and in employment).

It also cost us close to £7k in visa fees, and all sorts of nonsense. What the Daily Wail and all of the anti-immigration nutters forget is that moving to another country can be massively expensive.

My wife is Canadian, I met her over here when she was “travelling” on a youth mobility visa, but working in a full time job.

Our experience was similar to Munrobiker. It was a royal PITA, we applied shortly after getting married and originally were working with a solicitor. However, it soon became apparent that the solicitor was next to useless and charging a fortune for telling us where to sign, so we ditched her and had a go ourselves. I seem to recall the application was about 70 pages.

Collecting anything that will support your application is key. We had letters from our best man/maid of honour, from the couple who’s wedding we met at, from our (at the time) housemate, photos from holidays, proof of joint residence, proof of joint bank account, pretty much anything that might prove that you’re not just doing it for the visa. We got married within 6 months of meeting, so there was a fair chance that they would see it as a bit dodgy, but if you have nothing to hide or ulterior motives, then nothing negative will come out.

At the time I was studying for my PGCE, which meant I had pretty much zero income, however we discovered that student grants count towards the joint income threshold, which was a massive help.

Take something to read when you go to the Visa office, we were waiting there for 3 hours.

One other pointer, be fastidious about the forms you submit. The forms get updated with a fresh code number every quarter and you have submit on that quarter’s forms – e.g. Form abc123.ab1 We submitted an abc123.ab1 when they had moved onto abc123.ab2 which was exactly the same form, just a dfferent code. Form was rejected, but they held onto the £875 submission fee and we had to pay again with the correct form. This was about 10 years ago when trying to get the wife into the UK. Grrrrrrr.

As everyone says the key is basically to show your partner is not going to be accessing state support,

The biggest swizz with that is that the visa, when it arrives, explicitly states that there is no entitlement to state funds.

Thanks for the advice, we pass some of these but not others. I earn over £18,600 before tax and slightly under after tax, she has been offered a job here so could possibly put that down, she also has a lot of savings. I have two tenancy agreements with our names in them, but no bills as they’ve been included. We have a card in my name that we both put money on to buy groceries, I could prove she pays into this account. My employer will write me a letter, I could also get letters from two doctors. We have a lot of photos etc.

We were planning on her coming back early next year and getting married within 6 months then applying, but from what Im reading we should get married ASAP as that strengthens our case.

Strange things these self imposed boarders we make.

Thanks

Be prepared for the cost of it all.

It was if I remember about 500 for the first one 1200 ILR and then similar again for citizenship, plus costs, all in I think we were close to 8k by the time we had finished it all up.

Which pisses me off since the whole wedding cost less than a fiver including lunch.

Thanks for the advice, we pass some of these but not others. I earn over £18,600 before tax and slightly under after tax, she has been offered a job here so could possibly put that down, she also has a lot of savings

Before tax is fine, you can’t count your wifes future employment though – even if she has signed a contract. The only way you could do so is either if she is in on a student visa which allows her to work part time, or if she’s on a two year work-holiday scheme like NZ, Australia, Japan, Canada and HK have with us.

But the government is perfectly happy to get rich **** in who dodge tax on a visa scheme called “The Great Club” and will even be offering them their own personal visa manager – but if plebs want to get married – you gotta jump through hoops.