Visa Application

Hi Folks!

Lenny and I have filled out and paid our visa application (online in Jan), and I have gathered all the requirements/supporting documentation and sent it in a big file to Quezon City. She will make a VIP appt. with VFS for Tuesday to submit it all. However, I have a question about evidence for genuine and subsisting relationship. I sent a page of photos from Facebook, some Facebook posts including photos of our wedding, an example chat log (covering just one day), a couple of emails and boarding passes for 2 of my 4 trips since Jan 2013. I'm not sure this is going to be enough, can I have your views? Lenny has a chance to print more stuff out before we submit everything, can you suggest what might strengthen our application (if necessary)? Should I send her scans of the entry stamps in my passport? More chat logs (we chat every day without fail)?

Thanks,
Mark

I dont know if it makes a lot of difference but we added airline ticket stubs (if you have them) to show we went places together. We put in a range of about 40 photos of us in different circumstances together, with and without family, wedding pictures. Always wearing different clothes and in a variety of settings. I kind of wove our story in photos with the Joint Statement which included a potted history of our relationship.

And we submitted a cherry picked selction of Skype / YM logs. Not every single one of them.

Photocopies of visa or entry stamps yes.

Mark, we selected a days chat ( a few hours ) for each week. That seemed to work. Gives you a chance to weed out any with arguments in and any where you curse the UKBA in etc. We tryed to pick out the ones that might get the ECO to breakdown and reach for a tissue, if you see what i mean.

Slip a pack of Kleenex in with the application.

LOL @ Jon! That's a LOT of chat logs. Okay, we need to submit more than we have for sure, although I'm not sure we'll go to the extent you did One other question. I currently rent. I have sent the tenancy agreement, and an addendum showing Lenny's right to reside. However, the property is no described in detail. My assumption was that for 2 people, we would meet the requirements for the very minimum in accommodation (a single room over 50sqft) and a tenancy agreement alone should be sufficient to show that (plus the fact the rent is £1700 a month!!). It's actually a 3 bed town house, so plenty big enough for the 2 of us to rattle around in. Is my assumption reasonable?

Yes. Or need be, get the Landlord to write a letter specifying the no of rooms etc. Ie if the tenancy agreement falls short on that.
Do you have a copy of the estate agents flyer on the property?

It's best to get a proper survey done on where you will live. Might cost about 100 quid but worth doing.

Also make sure you have proper printed photos and not just Facebook pages.

Still include Facebook as well though. Don't cut any corners or they will have you.

A proper survey? This is the first I've heard of it. As far as I can gather I have met the requirements as set out in the guidance notes. As I said, I have a tenancy agreement and an addendum showing my wife as a permitted occupant. It's plainly obvious that at £1700 a month it's not a shoebox, but even if it were, there's only 2 of us anyway, and the UKBA guidance states that 1 room is sufficient for 2 people. I'm not sure it's possible to rent somewhere under assured shorthold tenancy that has zero rooms, given the law states it must be a dwelling. In my view it would be totally unreasonable (not to mention represent a complete lack of sense, common or otherwise) to refuse the application on the basis of accommodation.

Why proper printed photos? Hardly anyone uses those these days. A photo is a photo, regardless of whether it's "properly" printed or not, surely. Isn't it what's in the photo that's important, not the paper it's printed on? We can do that, it's not like we don't have the photos at a sufficient resolution to print them properly, but would that really add weight to an application?

What we did was to embed 3 photos into a page of A4. I seem to recall it was Word for Windows. I thought that might be too condensed but I was advised it would be okay. Which it was. So our 40 photos were embedded 3 to a page.

Some people do get surveys done. We didnt, we just got a letter from the landlord confirming overall floorspace and number of rooms.

Mark. Its a bit of a balancing act. One wants to add weight to ones application without adding too much weight to the parcel ones beloved has to lug into the UKBA

Indeed, she already has a pretty heavy file to take into VFS I'm sure we can come up with a scheme similar to yours regarding photos, and we are going to gather more of our chat logs, etc.

My income level is much more than adequate to support my wife and accommodate her, and this will be plainly clear to the ECO from my payslips, so I'm confident they won't query whether my rented property is sufficient for 2 people. Reading the legislation, this is the refusal wording for failing the accommodation test:

"... but [? in view of ...] the Secretary of State is not satisfied that there will be adequate accommodation for you and your [husband/wife] [and your dependants] without recourse to public funds in accommodation which you and your [husband/wife] own or occupy exclusively." Paragraph 286 of HC 395 with reference to 284(vii) of HC 395
{Refusal Code: Q3}

Clearly there is a close link between income and accommodation, and I guess being borderline on one aspect will lead to increased scrutiny on the other. But based on the above wording and the evidence showing my income level, there is no way they can claim we would need recourse to public funds.

It really is best to keep all avenues covered. We were unsuccesful first time and part of the reason for that was because, like you, I asumed certain things would be obvious. But they asdume nothing and refused us.

You may be ok without a survey or proper printed photos, but if I were you I'd assume nothing. I think you should print some photos and mske sure there are some with family or friends.

This is how i was advised second time and that time we were succesful.

Maharg has a point. Best to play it safe. Its a lot of money to waste. Most people are successful, evidently. But any one application can meet the wrong ECO on the wrong day.

In many respects you don't want to give em half a chance to fook it up for you. As it can be pretty demoralising. Appeals or the prospect of them are no fun either, even if the ECO is definitely wrong.

Mark,

What you have to remember is that the Government have made a vow to get immigration down and they are failing to do that. They can't do anything about EEC immigration and so are really getting strict on non-EEC immigration - including spousal visas. So they are, in my opinion, looking to fail people. So you need to be water tight.

Have you written a few pages about your relationship? How you met, things you've done, etc. If not, you should both do this. My first refusal notice specifically mentioned that we hadn't done this as one of the reasons.

Also, I would send all your flight tickets and itineries, not just a couple. Send every one you have.

With chat, I sent the most recent 6 months of chat, plus the first 3 months from after we first met. Certainly I'd send more than one day.

Also, you mention about sending scans of the entry stmps in your passport. you need to get a copy of your passport copied and certified by a solicitor. Get this done with all pages with stamps on plus the front page.

It may be that because you are going for a spousal visa and we went for a fiance visa that you need less evidence, but I'd take no chances.

When my wife went to VFS she commented that her application was quite a bit larger others that she had spoke with who were applying for spousal. Indeed one didn't even get the application past VFS due to insufficient documentation. As has already been said here, state the obvious even if you know that it anyone reviewing should understand it, provide indisputable evidence so they do.

Yes. This is what we knew as the joint statement. We made it into a short factual story of our relationship, from day 1. And our hopes for the future.

We have both written letters, and in mine I invited the ECO to read our story on Team Kaye. Guys, thanks for all the comments and advice. I've decided to go overboard! So I will spend today printing out another ream of paper (including a hard copy of the Team Kaye Blog which tells our story in some detail)

Nice one!

If only the ECO was allowed to watch videos on Vimeo!

Yeah. As in click on this link. Maybe one day.....