Information on my spouse/dependent child - successful category F visa application.

DISCLAIMER.
All immigration cases are different and the information contained on this post should not be relied upon to be suitable for your particular case. Immigration rules change and this post may well be out of date and completely irrelevant. Consequently please verify any information you gain from here from UK government sources.
This is not a definitive 'contents page' that is guaranteed to work for your particular case.

BACKGROUND
One fiancee and two under eighteen children in the Philippines. My Fiancee had never been married. One (divorced) British born male running a business in the UK. We had been in relationship for four years. I wanted my fiancee and the children with me in the UK. How did I go about it? I have posted this information in the hope that it may contain some helpful situation for people in a similar situation to myself.

Firstly I was advised that because children were involved, the application would be easier if I was married. So I travelled to the Philippines to marry. This involved two trips. The first trip to obtain an 'affidavit of marital status' from the British Embassy and then to register the intention to marry at City Hall. The second Trip a month later (because there has to be about a month gap <officially I know it's supposed to take 10 working days in our case it actually took about 15 working days>) where I actually married in the Philippines. We then applied for and received the official NSO marriage certificate. Secondly, I was advised that I required a full year of company records and that I should apply immediately after the end of the company accounting period.

We therefore waited until the end of the company accounting year (which is not the same as the British financial year) before submitting the application.

We then applied for 'family of settled person' visa under Appendix FM of the immigration rules. I would suggest the reader reads 'Appendix FM' of the rules, 'Part 8' of the rules and 'Appendix FM-SE', and all the relevant guidance notes for the user, and the relevant guidance notes for immigration officers, and any further, different or other legislation that may be relevant. This is not a definitive list.

APPLICATION CONTENT
With that in hand the following documents were prepared. None of the documents were more than 28 days old. The contents pages are below. When the documents were submitted to VFS in manila every documentation 'pack' had one copy. Hence we submitted six individual bundles of documentation. Three 'original' document packs (one for each applicant) and three 'copies' (one copy for each applicant).

We were able to make a 'premium lounge' appointment at VFS (you pay on the VFS website separately) at a small cost per applicant. This allows quicker access, less standing in line, and a more pleasant experience. I enquired about 'priority service' but this was not available for settlement visa applications made in the Philippines.

Edit (November 2015)
We also obtained IHS reference numbers and make the payment for the immigration health surcharge. These numbers were written on the application form of each application and of each copy. I believe that the process for this has now changed, and that the IHS payment is now made as part of the online visa process. This is one area that you are advised to look at carefully since it seems a bit confusing at times.

Main applicant (spouse)

1. REGARDING APPLICANT
1.1 Completed VA4FA
1.2 Completed VA4FA Appendix 2
1.3 Applicant Letter of Introduction
1.4 Current Passport of Applicant
1.5 Birth Certificate of Applicant
1.6 Previous Passport of Applicant
1.7 [UK specification] Passport Photo of applicant
1.8 TB Certificate of applicant
1.9 IELTS Language Test Certificate of applicant
1.10 Proof of NHS Payment of applicant

2. REGARDING SPONSOR
2.1 Letter of introduction from sponsor.
2.2 Copy of Sponsor Passport.
2.3 Copy of Sponsor Birth Certificate.
2.4 Copy of Judgment of divorce of sponsor.

3. Regarding Financial requirement – Category F
3.1 HMRC CT600 corporation tax return
3.2 Certificate of incorporation of company
3.3 Unaudited accounts
3.4 Accountant certificate of confirmation.
3.5 Company bank account statements and covering letter.
3.6 Current appointment report from Companies House.
3.7 Certificate of VAT registration.
3.8 Latest VAT return.
3.9 Payslips from company
3.10 P60 from company
3.11 Personal bank statements of sponsor and covering letter
3.12 Dividend vouchers for all dividends
3.13 Letter from HMRC evidencing registration for PAYE

4. Regarding Proof of Genuine and Subsisting relationship
4.1 Marriage Certificate of sponsor to applicant
4.1b Wedding Photographs of applicant.
4.2 Western Union Money transfer receipts for support
4.3 Photographs of sponsor and applicant together
4.4 Flight E-tickets for all visits to the Philippines
4.5 Six months Skype call log print out.
4.6 Representative Yahoo messenger print out (over 4 years)

5. Regarding Accomodation
5.1 Current Tenancy Agreement
5.2 Current Council Tax Bill
5.3 Recent Utility Bill
5.4 Photographs of the property where the applicant & sponsor will live.
5.5 Surveyors report confirming suitability under housing act.
5.6 Letter from landlord confirming permission to stay.

6. Regarding Sole Parental Responsibility
6.1 Memorandum of law and affidavit in support.
6.2 Affidavits in support from third parties.
6.3 Medical & educational record.


Sub applicants (one for each child)

1. REGARDING APPLICANT
1.1 Completed VA4FA
1.2 Completed VA4FA Appendix 2
1.3 Letter of Introduction from mother
1.4 Current Passport of Applicant
1.5 Birth Certificate of Applicant
1.6 [UK specification] Passport Photo of applicant
1.7 TB Certificate of applicant
1.8 Birth Certificate & Passport of Mother
1.9 Proof of NHS Payment of applicant

2. REGARDING SPONSOR
2.1 Letter of introduction from sponsor.
2.2 Copy of Sponsor Passport.
2.3 Copy of Sponsor Birth Certificate.
2.4 Copy of Judgment of divorce of sponsor.

3. Regarding Financial requirement – Category F
3.1 HMRC CT600 corporation tax return
3.2 Certificate of incorporation of company
3.3 Unaudited accounts
3.4 Accountant certificate of confirmation.
3.5 Company bank account statements and covering letter.
3.6 Current appointment report from Companies House.
3.7 Certificate of VAT registration.
3.8 Latest VAT return.
3.9 Payslips from company
3.10 P60 from company
3.11 Personal bank statements of sponsor and covering letter
3.12 Dividend vouchers for all dividends
3.13 Letter from HMRC evidencing registration for PAYE

4. Regarding Proof of Genuine and Subsisting relationship
4.1 Marriage Certificate of sponsor to primary applicant (mother)
4.1b Wedding Photographs of sponsor & primary applicant.
4.2 Western Union Money transfer receipts for support
4.3 Photos of sponsor & applicants together
4.4 Flight E-tickets for all visits to the Philippines
4.5 Six months Skype call log print out.
4.6 Representative Yahoo messenger print out (over 4 years)

5. Regarding Accommodation
5.1 Current Tenancy Agreement
5.2 Current Council Tax Bill
5.3 Recent Utility Bill
5.4 Photographs of the property where the family & sponsor will live.
5.5 Surveyors report confirming suitability under housing act.
5.6 Letter from landlord confirming permission to stay.

6. Regarding Parental Responsibility
6.1 Memorandum of law.
6.2 Affidavits in support from third parties.medical & educational record.

---------------------------------end----------------------------------

Addendum
I have had queries about exactly what was in the 'memorandum of law and affidavit in support' section. My understanding is that the rules stipulate that for an application under appendix FM such as this one, the parent needs to have sole responsibility for the child and also needs to demonstrate that they have been exercising her right to sole responsibility.
The memorandum of law contained details of the legislation in the Philippines and some things on the immigration rules which gave the basis in law for sole responsibility. The affidavits in support were signed and notarized documents by schools, doctors and independent witnesses that noted that the mother had been exercising her right so sole responsibility and that the father of the children was not present, was not in contact, and was not part of any decision making process and so forth.

TIMELINE

Appointment British Embassy for addidavit no impediment - April 29th 2015
Applied marriage licence may 1 2015
Received license may 22 2015
Married in Philippines may 28 2015
NSO marriage certificate received June 27 2015

Online Submission of settlement visa application June 20, 2015
DHL drop off docs June 23 2015
DHL docs delivered Philippines June 27 2015
Biometrics and document physical submission: July 1, 2015
Email saying 'Decision has been made': August 10, 2015
Visas received from courier August 12, 2015
CFO Sticker appointment August 19th 2015
Entry to UK August 30th 2015

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I hope that some people find this information of interest.
Rgds
John

(because there has to be about a month gap

woah john----how do you arrive at a month ?

They said that the application to marry had to be 'posted' and it had to be up for about 3-4 weeks before the license would be granted to marry. A bit like in the UK - you have to post your intention to marry here too I think - in order for anyone to register an objection..

I don't know about that. I was told there had to be a decent gap. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly and it wasn't a month - maybe it was 3 weeks or something. It could have been ten days. I'll ask @BlueberryCheeseCake and edit if needed. I registered the intention at the very start of May and married at the very end of may. I didn't get the marriage license until at least 2 weeks later and I had to submit photographs and they were posted on a board in the town hall. I don't know how other people managed shorter times. That's why I made 2 trips because I didn't want to spend so long away.

Thank you very much for taking your time to posts all this information. I do really wish you and your family all the very best.

I will be soon applying a visa for my daughter and reading this is a lot of help to me.

I have notice that on the dependants sole responsibility documents you have an affidavit support and memorandum of law.
Is this only required if the parents of the children are separated?

My best regards to your family.

Thank you.
My understanding is that if the mother was not married to the father at the time of the birth of the children, and subsequently did not marry, the father (thus conferring legitimicy) and the children are not carrying the father's surname, the children are considered 'illegitimate' under Philippine Family law. Illegitimate children are under the sole care and responsibility of the mother. The memorandum of law quoted various articles of the Philippine and UK law to demonstrate that the mother had sole responsibility and had exercised the responsibility to which she was entitled under the law, and that certain aspects of the immigration rules did not apply in this case.

However, where the parents were married at the time of the the birth (or since) and subsequently separated, that is a different matter. In that case, sole parental responsibility does not vest with the mother.

IMPORTANT REMINDERS -Under the Perjury Act (1911) it is a criminal offence to knowingly make a false declaration. Offenders face the possibility of a fine and/or a jail sentence. -You should apply for a marriage licence from the Philippine local civil registrar once the affirmation/affidavit has been completed. The process normally takes 10 working days. -Please fulfil all other requirements set by the Philippine authorities. If your fiancé/e was previously married, s/he may be asked to submit complete divorce/annulment documents

/\ /\ copied from

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...the_Philippines_leaflet_as_of_2_July_2015.pdf

I think the waiting time to get a marriage licence in the Philippines is 10 WORKING DAYS and the licence is then valid for 120 days. That makes two trips sensible for a lot of people, rather than trying to cram everything in one visit, especially so if you have a church wedding.

John, is your wife's passport in her maiden or married name? I ask because I see foresee potential problems with having a maiden name passport as that means the Biometric Residence Permit would also be in a maiden name. As soon as I found out about the Biometric Residence Permit, I suggested to my wife that she should get a new passport in her married name.

No sooner had she done that, UKVI then made changes to their on-line application, meaning it was better to wait a few days and start the on-line application again, otherwise I could have ended up by paying for the NHS surcharge twice or (even worse) not paying it at all. I know Methersgate fell into this trap but his problems were further compounded because he did not attempt to pay for the application until one week after submission, when it has to be done immediately after submission. His wife also chose the wrong visa sub-category.

It really is very easy to make mistakes in the on-line application - I almost closed the window for paying the NHS Surcharge before paying it and I think if I had done that, there would have been no way to recover. The whole system is a mishmash of subsystems not welded together very well!

Thank you very much, John.

Your case is similar to ours, in that we have known each other for four and a half years, I am divorced and K has never married but has a small boy. We did not marry in the Philippines before applying.

We got into a muddle with the online forms in two respects - we missed the "marriage" option in the settlement visa and we got the "intended date of travel" wrong. Now we shall just have to wait and see,

all my wife's documentation is in her maiden name including the visa. My main goal was for us to be together. I don't care about what names we use.

yes I saw that when I looked into it. But if you think about it, you have to have ten full working days between the application and the license being granted. Then you have to actually receive the license. And you need to factor in the slowness of the Philippine system. That means that even if everything went absolutely perfectly - you arrive on a sunday - you apply on a monday - the absolute earliest you could expect a license to be granted would be tuesday of week three. You would still need a three week trip and you would be flying by the seat of your pants with a great risk of something going wrong. If you needed to extend your trip past four weeks you would have the additional aggravation of going into manila to extend your tourist visa (which I've done - its not so bad - it takes a day). Factor into that the stress and the cost and trying to wing it on one trip seems like a bad idea to me.

When I applied beginning of May we didn't get the license until a good couple of weeks later . Since the affidavit of marital status that you fill in in the embassy must contain a date and a venue, and when we married at City Hall we found that we couldn't actually book the marriage until we had the license, then it made sense to have a gap of almost a month and make two trips since its considerably cheaper for me to make two trips than to lose income through not working. It's also less stress.

Hello John, I'm Cherie, a Filipina, engaged to a British guy.. Your list of documents is very helpful as I have tried searching for this for months from the other British forums.. Thank God, I found my way here.. I have a 4-year old daughter, that I want to take with me to uk under my fiancée visa, she's illegitimate. So I have the sole responsibility on her. My question regarding the sole responsibility are: where did you get the memorandum of law, and who provided it for u? Is it from a lawyer or a social worker. .because I'm planning to have a social worker make an assessment report for my child. Second question is, who is this "third party"? And is the medical record really required? Is the tb screening not enough? Hoping to receive a reply from u soon and regards .

Hi Cherie,

I am a British guy engaged to a Filipina with a seven year old illegitimate son. Both have got theirn UK Visas and the boy has got his CFO sticker, but my fiancee has to go back to the CFO for another document on Thursday. So until I see them at Heathrow I cannot say for 100% sure, but all we did was to say that the boy calls me Daddy and has done since he was two, and we stated that he has no other carer apart from his mother. We didn't take any other steps. A child does not undergo the TB chest X-ray but is just issued with a certificate. Same with the CFO if the child is under 13. And of course no English Language Test.

Hello Cherie.

I suspect we were over the top on our application but we wanted to be certain and you know what attorneys are like. They like things to be certain. The memorandum of law was drafted by an attorney - essentially it just clarified the Philippine law and the UK immigration law for the benefit of the caseworker. The third party affidavits were signed by unrelated friends in front of a notary to testify that the mother was not living with another person and that the father was absent. There was also another third party letter from the school documenting that all educational decisions were made by the mother and that she was recorded as being the sole parent in the school records.

As I understand it, if you were not married to the father at birth, and have never been married to the father at any time since the birth, then the child is considered illegimitate and hence you are conferred with sole parental responsibility under Philippine law. However, notwithstanding that, the UK law views these things differently and I believe that it would be difficult to remove a child whose father was actively involved in support and contact, hence the desire to provide documentation about that.

The medical (and education) record was provided again to document that sole medical decisions were made by the mother was therefore exercising the sole parental responsilibity that she was entitled to under the law.

Other people, [for example @Methersgate], have provided very little documentation regarding parental responsibility and have gotten away with it. All I can say is that I was informed that it would be harder to get a fiancee application approved with a child, and that the issue of parental responsiblity was one to consider. I was advised to marry in the Phils to make it easier, so I did. Your circumstances may be different.

Thank u so much. I really appreciate your reply. As I can remember, you're also the guy who posted a thread regarding IHS..so if the mother as a fiancée is exempted from paying it, and the cild is not, how much did u pay for the child? And what visa route on the online application did u tick? As for fiancée, it's settlement>settlement>marriage, right? How about for the child?
Regarding CFO , does the child also need to attend that?coz that's an orientation for immigrants, right?