Now that I am no longer engaged to a Filipina I decided to sort through my old e-mails and delete those no longer relevant. But I thought I would post one of those e-mails here as it was a very honest e-mail from an immigration advisor who went to some lengths to highlight the pitfalls. It may be a stock letter they send to many potential clients but, at least, they weren't just after my money without thought of the chances of likely success.. Dear Mr. xxxxxx Thank you for the prompt response. I suggest that you should spend more time together in person prior to sponsoring xxxxx for a fiancée visa. For many years the British Consulate in the Manila has been extremely skeptical of couples with no extensive face-to-face meeting history prior to sponsorship. Their view (which you can argue with them until you are blue in the face but they won’t change) is that there cannot be a bona fide relationship if the couple don’t spend a reasonable amount of time together in person. Furthermore, I think you should know from the outset the British Consulate in Manila is are rather hostile to fiancée and marriage visas because the vast majority of UKBA officials tend to believe that most Filipino women who apply for a fiancée or marriage visa do so just for immigration purposes, rather than for romantic reasons. They can't typically point to any facts to justify this opinion, but they continue to maintain this attitude nonetheless. This basically means that the examining entry clearance officer at the Consulate is likely to start reviewing your case with an unofficial presumption against the romantic basis for you and especially xxxxx’s intent to live with you in a bona fide marriage. This presumption may be overcome, however, by a strong showing of the genuineness of your relationship. For this reason you need to spend some more time together ‘face-to-face’ prior to submitting the application to the British Consulate. We receive a tremendous amount of enquiries from unsuccessful “Do-It-Yourself” applicants who fail for one reason or another. As part of our free consultation, we routinely request and review the official UKBA refusal letters to determine whether we can help. Let me give you a few relevant examples to show how tough the examining officials can be on the “lack of time spent together in person” issue: Refusal #1. “… I note that you state you met your fiancé during his holiday to [EDITED] in October 2007. His passport shows that he was in [EDITED] for only 18 days on that occasion. You claim to have married in a traditional ceremony on [DATE], five days after your fiancé arrived in [EDITED] for a second trip. Therefore, if he had spent all his time with you during those two trips that would mean you had spent 23 days in his company before marrying. This does not demonstrate a genuine or subsisting relationship…” Refusal #2. "… The tradition in [EDITED] is for marriages to be arranged by parents within the extended family, between persons of a similar age, with no previous marriages, living in the same area for land ownership/inheritance purposes. However, the circumstance of your marriage goes against the cultural norms. You are younger than your wife who is a divorcee with a child from her previous marriage. You claim that you met over the internet and that your wife proposed to you after communicating for 4 months. Your wife then travelled to [EDITED], you met her at the airport and after 15 days got married. Your sponsor may fully intend to live with you in a subsisting marriage but it is your intentions that must be paramount in deciding this application. Whilst I note the unlikely scenario of a person entering into marriage solely for immigration purposes, I am bound by the immigration rules to consider, on the balance of probabilities whether this marriage is intended to be permanent and subsisting. I am led to conclude that the location of your spouse rather than your matrimonial relationship was pivotal in the decision to marry and therefore I am not satisfied that this marriage is intended to be permanent or that you will live together in the United Kingdom with your sponsor…” Refusal #3. “…You state you met in August 2008 in the UK when you were visiting there, you also state that you relationship started in September 2008 and claim to be in contact by phone, e-mail and internet chat. The only evidence you have provided of contact are some emails and phone bills all from just before your marriage in December 2009. It appears from the evidence provided that the only time you have seen your sponsor since you first met in 2008 is now at your marriage in December 2009 when your sponsor came to [EDITED] for 15 days. I am therefore not satisfied on balance of probabilities that you meet paragraph 281 (iii) of the Immigration Rules…” Hope this is helpful. Best regards xxxxxx xxxxxx Senir Immigration Consultant
That seems fine. The onus is on the applicant to prove that a genuine and subsisting relationship exists. We had to do just that. Senir.....is that your typo or theirs?
That advisory service should be commended for its professionalism and ethics! They make a good point too - about the need to prove that a relationship is genuine, permanent and subsisting. That too also has to be proven for 13a Visas for permanent residence in the Philippines. When we applied two years ago, we were given an appointment with the BI lawyer and advised to bring photos and any other evidence we could muster to demonstrate that our marriage was genuine. We were interviewed both separately and then together. The interviews weren't as gruelling as they could have been as the lawyer quickly established that we had been living together for more than 18 months prior to our wedding and, at the time of the 13a application, we'd been married for over 6 months. Nevertheless, our relationship was put under the magnifying glass - but I did pass and was granted a one year temporary visa which I was able to convert to permanent residents' a year later. Since then, BI has made it somewhat harder to obtain this visa not only by requiring additional documentation but also by increasing the temporary visa period from one to four years - with each temporary visa being valid for 12 months, with interviews at each stage. I have, in the past, suggested to couples who marry here and intend to apply for a UK settlement visa to obtain at least the first year's temporary 13a visa. Depending on the husband's employment circumstances, this may not be possible of course, but I do know of an instance where this has almost certainly helped - albeit it was before the earnings requirement was introduced last year. I think that suggestion may still be valid.
To convince the ECO in the manner described in the letter above we submitted the following evidence: Collection of photographs of us both together spread over time in a variety of settings. ( and not wearing the same clothes ) An abundance of YM and Skype chat logs. ( we selected good examples that didnt diss the UKBA in them and added weight to our application ) Example emails. Phone bill statement containing call and text itemisation. Joint statement containing our history and future intent. ( we made this a good one ) Marriage certificate. We regarded this as the weakest element of our application. Though of course the Spouse visa was granted. Despite some folklore on the internet, we did not submit birthday cards or pictures of gifts to each other as we were advised that they would not add any weight to our application.
