Fiance Visa to FLR (M) Questions

Hello Everyone!
I'm currently in the UK on a fiance visa (which I received thanks in large part to the support from everyone here so thank you again). I've been here since early January and we're getting married at the end of the March--  later than I wanted, but the only date I could be married on if I wanted my sisters or parents to be able to take time off to travel here, so here we are. I'm trying to get our next visa application ready to go immediately after the wedding, but I'm  getting a little (or a lot) confused by the process of it and am wondering if anyone could give me some advice?  Here are some of my questions,

1. Can I start the ball rolling on this now, before we are married?  We'll have our wedding certificate by 30 March so all documents will be ready by 2 April. What should I be doing right now, application-wise? Can I fill in an online/paper application and pay my IHS and visa fees before the wedding?

2. Is it too late to get an in-person application date at a visa processing centre before the dreaded fee raise on 6th April? Is there any way to find out about the availability of appointments? I looked into booking an appointment but there seemed to be no way to view availability until I paid my fees, and I wasn't sure if I was permitted to do that before our wedding. I'd like to be able to attend my PhD convocation in North America on the first week of June. If we submit by the first week of April, my convocation will be juuuust under 10 weeks (9 weeks, four days ish) away. Is this too close a timeline to be thinking about mailing in our application on the 2nd April?

3. I've written down my checklist of documents I have, or that I'm currently gathering, to support my application. Do I need any others or is this good to go once it's all collected together?

Application Form
** I haven't completed one yet. As I mentioned, I wasn't sure what route to pick and what application (online vs. paper). Any suggestions on this are welcome!

Applicant
1. current passport with fiance visa
2. all previous passports
3. 2x passport photos
4. UK marriage certificate

Sponsor
1. certified copy of biometric page of current passport and photocopies of all pages of the current passport + 1x passport photo
2. photocopies of all pages of one previous passport
3. letter from employer attesting to full-time employment
4. six months certified payslips
5. six months certified bank statements with covering letter from bank
6. ** I have seen that some people send in a P60 in addition to all the above documents. My fiance does not have one, is it necessary?

Accommodation
1. lease (which lists me as a permitted occupant)
2. letter from landlord confirming our tenancy
3. ** the FLR (M) Appendix 1.7a detailing what counts as evidence of accommodation mentions a rent book, which we do not have. Have others had to send this in? Will our letter from the landlord and lease suffice to prove accomodation?

Correspondence
1. Council tax bill (addressed to both)
2. Energy bill (addressed to both)
3. Water bill (addressed to partner but with my name listed as an additional account holder
4-5. Bank statement (one addressed to my fiance and one to me)
** should we be trying to get any more official documents together? I have only been here a couple of months and am thinking of just including a letter explaining that is why we don't have six yet and noting that my name also appears as an permitted occupant on the tenancy agreement we are including as proof of accommodation.

Proof of Marriage
1. UK wedding certificate
2. a selection of photos from our wedding
3. a wedding invitation/ wedding cards
4. correspondence with registry office officials

Proof of relationship
1. a selection of photographs
2. Skype video chat logs
3. WhatsApp message and phone logs
4. Flight itineraries and boarding passes
5. Receipts from events attended together


Thank you for any advice you might have! I would really appreciate it. Between getting settled here, coordinating my family's flights/hotels/tourist goals, planning the wedding (and dealing with what feels like 1,000 outside opinions on each wedding decision I make), my stress-level is reaching a new high. Even just writing this all down in an organized list as helped.

Best to all of you, my full support to everyone going through visa applications right now!!

- Caty




 

Hey,

1. Can I start the ball rolling on this now, before we are married?  We'll have our wedding certificate by 30 March so all documents will be ready by 2 April. What should I be doing right now, application-wise? Can I fill in an online/paper application and pay my IHS and visa fees before the wedding?

If you are applying by post, you need to be married before you apply and pay the fees, however, you can start filling out the form and preparing your documents now.

If you are applying in person, you can book your appointment/pay the fees at any time, as long as the appointment is after your wedding date.

I would not recommend using the online form as there are a number of issues with it. Also, the questions are different from the paper form and we can't see it, so we can't help you fill it out.

2. Is it too late to get an in-person application date at a visa processing centre before the dreaded fee raise on 6th April?
Is there any way to find out about the availability of appointments?

Yep, just register on the site and see what's available. If they have an appointment before April 6th, you can go ahead and book it.

You shouldn't have to pay the fees first... because what happens if you pay and there are no appointments?

Several people here on the forum have been checking appointment availability for the last few weeks and they can't even book their appointment for another month or two.

If we submit by the first week of April, my convocation will be juuuust under 10 weeks (9 weeks, four days ish) away. Is this too close a timeline to be thinking about mailing in our application on the 2nd April?

Current postal applications are taking about 5-7 weeks, so hopefully you'll get it in time, but there's no guarantee, so if you're worried about it, go for the in-person appointment.

Just going to rearrange your documents a little into the correct sections for the application (my additions in blue):

Applicant
1. FLR(M) application form
2. IHS surcharge receipt
3. current passport with fiance visa
4. all previous passports (not sure if these are needed but can't hurt to send them)
5. 2x passport photos with your full name on the back


Sponsor
If applying by post
1. Regular photocopy of every page of his current UK passport
2. 1 passport photo with his full name on the back

If applying in person:
1. His actual UK passport
2. 1 passport photo with his full name on the back

Finances - which category?
1. six months certified payslips - must be at least £1,550 before tax on each one
2.six months certified bank statements showing the deposit of every single payslip with covering letter from bank
3. letter from employer stating ALL of the following:
i) current employment and salary
ii) length of employment
iii) length of time earning current salary
iv) type of employment

Optional but recommended:
- original job contract
- latest P60 (April 2017) - only if he has one. If he doesn't, then you can't send it.

Accommodation
- original tenancy agreement in both your names

Relationship
1. Marriage certificate
2. 1 photo of you together
Your 6 correspondence documents:
1) Energy bill (addressed to both)
2) Water bill (addressed to partner but with my name listed as an additional account holder
3) Bank statement (one addressed to my fiance and one to me)

If you don't have all 6 documents, or you don't have 3 sources, you must write a letter of explanation as to why you cannot provide them (i.e. you are on a fiance visa and have only recently moved to the UK

You don't need any of the other relationship documents in your list as those are only needed for the initial fiance visa. Instead, you send your marriage certificate and evidence of living together.

Yep, just register on the site and see what's available. If they have an appointment before April 6th, you can go ahead and book it.

You shouldn't have to pay the fees first... because what happens if you pay and there are no appointments?

Several people here on the forum have been checking appointment availability for the last few weeks and they can't even book their appointment for another month or two.

Thank you for your response!! And for going over and rearranging my document checklist!

ksand24, or anyone else who has been checking for potential appointment dates, do you know what site I should be going to so I can check availability and book my in person appointment? I have been following the UK government's Visa-Immigration website's directions on how to apply for a premium appointment up to the point where I click a green button on the bottom of this page (**link at end of my post) that reads "Book now." I've gone through all the steps to register, but it won't let me see any available dates without first paying the IHS fee, at the very least. Or rather, it won't let me move on to see available dates until I've entered my IHS number, which I can't get without paying the fees.

Am I going to the wrong website? Even if I can't book an appointment for the next couple of months, I want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. If I am going the right website, should I be paying the IHS fee now (before the wedding). At the very least, the IHS number would work equally for a mail-in application.

https://visas-immigration.service.gov.uk/product/premium-service-appointment-booking

https://visas-immigration.service.gov.uk/next

I can see appointments when following this.

So long as you PAY before the increase, your appointment can be after April 6 if need be.

That's the correct website and link to it. You can pay the IHS at any time, so that won't be an issue if it makes you pay it before doing anything else, since you'll need to pay it regardless.

Okay, I've just managed to get to the appointment availability page by putting in a fake IHS number, just to see what would happen.

The earliest appointment dates currently on there are:
- 16th April (Sheffield)
- 17th April (Glasgow)
- 19th April (Belfast)

The other premium centres say they have no available appointments in the next 45 days... though this may not actually be true. Sometimes appointments just randomly appear, and there are sometimes cancellations as well.

Thank you so much for checking! I'll just register and keep trying for appointments while also prepping everything in case I end up having to mail the application in.

I'm back with a few more questions as I approach my in-person appointment, mainly about filling in the paper application form. I would love to gain any wisdom you could share about this process!

1. In the paper application, section 6.8 asks for you to "write in all the addresses you and your sponsor have lived at in the two years preceding this application if you have lived at your current address with your sponsor for less than two years"

I'm a little confused by this. Do they want to know all the places we've been living together as a couple? Or do they want to know all the places we've lived separately over the past two years? Although we've been together for six years, we've only been officially living together on the fiance visa for four months. For the two years prior, he lived at our current address alone, and I lived at a few different apartments in Canada. Do I write in those three addresses then? There's nowhere on the application for me to specify whether the address was his or mine (although I guess if I write down "Canada" as part of the address, that makes it clear?)

2. Relatedly, in question 6.9, they ask "have you lived together permanently in the UK with your sponsor since your last grant of limited leave to remain as a partner?"

Does my fiance visa count as my 'last grant of limited leave to remain as a partner'?

3. Question 9.12/9.13 ask whether or not I've ever had my fingerprints taken as part of a previous UK visa application either in the UK or abroad. I'm not sure what to answer for this because I've had my fingerprints taken for two different UK visas- a Youth Mobility Visa in 2013 and then my Fiance visa in 2017. Which one do you think I should note, since they only leave space for one? I'm tempted to enter my 2017 biometric appointment, just because it's the most recent, and the office I went to in 2013 no longer exists (also, I assume that the UKVI office I went to in Canada is what the application is referring to when it asks 'Give details of the British diplomatic post(s) involved if the application(s) was or were made abroad'?).

4. Question 10.14 asks me to state what ties I have with my home country, including listing "any family or friends [in] that country." They only provide enough spaces for me to list my immediate family (if I were to include grandparents, and close family and friends, it would take another page at least). Do they really need an exhaustive list or is it fine just to write down parents and siblings there?

5. This isn't directly related to the application form, but I was wondering, the passport photographs of myself and my spouse are supposed to have our full names written on the back. Do we just do that ourselves or is the attendant at the photo shop supposed to write the name and then stamp and certify the back of the photo? (They do this in Canada, but haven't offered to do it in the UK and I wasn't sure if I should just write our names on myself, or if I should ask the attendant to do it when they take our photos).

Sorry for this long list. As is probably obvious, as it gets closer to the appointment, my stress is mounting... I would really appreciate your help, or even commiserations , with this.

6.8:  They want addresses you've lived at TOGETHER

6.9:  Yes

9.12/9.13:  They want both.  Put the most recent in the box, then the other in the "additional information" at the end of the application

10.14:  Simply "family and friends" is acceptable

For the photos, write the FULL names yourself (including any and all middle names)

KFdancer, thank you so much for your help!

I've had another issue come up: we're going to meet our financial requirement through option 7.3A- income from salaried employment. We had no issues getting my partner's payslips  authenticated by his work, and similarly we had no problem getting his work to write a letter confirming his employment, contract etc.  We've run into a problem with the bank. We applied for them to send us official copies of the six months of recent bank statements, and they have- except for the most recent one (super frustrating since we purposefully waited until this statement would be available to put in our request and clearly included it).

I've gone through various threads on here, though, and it seems that it will be fine for my partner to print off the most recent statement at the bank- should I have him note that he's done that in a cover letter?

Also, does anyone have any guidance on what the bank branch's cover letter accompanying his statements should say? We got this letter for our previous fiance visa and then the bank rep just knew what to do, but when we asked this time the employee seemed to have no idea such a letter could be written and wants guidance. As best I can remember (I unfortunately shredded our previous letter) the letter needs to be on branch letterhead and state:

1. The date
2. My partner's name
3. His account number
4. His current account balance

Ideally we'd like the letter to verify that the bank statements it accompanies are genuine, but my partner notes that they refused to do this last time. Also, neither the branch, nor the head office, will stamp the statements. The best we could do was have them sent to us, and now also print off the most recent one in-branch. Are the above 4 things good enough, or is there something else the letter should contain?

I'm not really looking forward to heading into the branch again. It really seems to depend on sheer luck that we connect with a rep there who knows that they can provide what we need and doesn't tell us it's impossible...

Thank you again for all the help!

Two options:

Have them print the statement in branch.  It does NOT need an accompanying letter if printed by the bank.

Or

Print the most recent statement at home, then request the branch write a letter that the statement is authentic OR stamp/sign each page.

You are making it a bit more difficult than it needs to be.   

You are making it a bit more difficult than it needs to be.   

I showed my husband your note and he burst out laughing and said "exactly." I'm an over-worrier anyways, but right now I have pretty much nothing else to do but get this sorted, so it just makes it all worse! So thank you for your help. I'm trying to (calmly...) put the whole package together tonight and double check it. I'll probably post a final checklist on here tomorrow to run it past some experienced eyes. Thank you again!

I showed my husband your note and he burst out laughing and said "exactly." I'm an over-worrier anyways, but right now I have pretty much nothing else to do but get this sorted, so it just makes it all worse! So thank you for your help. I'm trying to (calmly...) put the whole package together tonight and double check it. I'll probably post a final checklist on here tomorrow to run it past some experienced eyes. Thank you again!

Do post a list.  You’ve got this.   

Here is our final checklist for our in-person appointment (followed by a few extra questions):

FORMS/ RECEIPTS
1. FLR(M) application form
2. IHS surcharge receipt
3. Premium Appointment Receipt
4. Application Receipt

APPLICANT
3. current passport with fiance visa
4. all previous passports (because the prior passport has my Tier 5 visa in it)
5. 2x passport photos with my full name on the back

SPONSOR
1. actual current UK passport
2. 1 passport photo with his full name on the back
3. Letter explaining why we don't have six items of jointly-addressed correspondence and outlining the details of my previous visas.

FINANCES - 7.3A
1. six months certified payslips
2. six months certified bank statements showing the deposit of every single payslip with covering letter from bank
3. letter from employer stating ALL of the following:
i) current employment and salary
ii) length of employment
iii) length of time earning current salary
iv) type of employment

ACCOMMODATION
1. original tenancy agreement in both our names
2. letter from landlady (I know it's not strictly necessary, but she'd already done one up so I figured it didn't hurt to include it)

RELATIONSHIP
1. marriage certificate
2. photos of our wedding and of us together

CORRESPONDENCE DOCUMENTS
1) Council tax bill (addressed to both)
2) Energy bill (addressed to both)
3) Council tax bill (addressed to both)
4) Water bill (addressed to partner even though it's a joint account, my name is immediately listed as the joint account holder after the address line)
5) Bank letter (addressed to me)
6) Bank statement (addressed to my husband)
7) Letter from DVLA (addressed to my husband)


Questions:

1) I'm still a bit worried over our six pieces of correspondence. I don't know if the water bill, for example, can count as 'joint' as my name isn't included on the address line. I spent a good two hours over two separate days trying to a) get my name included on the line or b) have our provider send me something confirming they knew my address was the same as my husband's but they refused. Apparently their system only lets them put one name on the address line, and it is against policy for them to send me anything to confirm my address. I was  "told"  (lectured to) that no bill from any sort of energy company should be used for proof of residency or address, and the employee was 'a bit shocked' when I read to them from the visa application that water/gas/energy bills were acceptable... As for items addressed just to me, I actually have two letters from my bank addressed to just me, but both were sent on the same day, should I submit both so at least I have two letters to include? I also have one from my County Council, which is 'government'...but it's from the library about my account. My husband is all for me including it (he argues that the library is a local gov. 'department', that I had to confirm I was on the council tax to get the account, and the letter is on official County Council letterhead)...but it feels like maybe too much of a stretch? All my other letters are from unacceptable sources (too bad, as I have five zillion jointly addressed ones from John Lewis dealing with our wedding registry).

**I should note that, as you previously advised, I'm including a separate letter where I explain that I'm on a fiance visa and have only lived here four months, meaning that it was not possible for us to get the full six jointly addressed items of correspondence together.

2. The in-person appointment checklist notes "You should bring photocopies of your documents, as this will help speed up the application process." Does anyone know if this means I should include photocopies of passports? And if it does, do I need to photocopy every page of each of my and my husband's passport being submitted, including the blank pages? Also, I'm assuming, aside from passports, this means "photocopy everything", including the application, all the other forms, and all the docs I'm including for accommodation/finances/relationship/correspondence? Does this also mean I should actually include 4 passport photos of me and 2 of my husband, and put the duplicates with the photocopied application pack?

I apologize because I know I'm deeply over analyzing this all at this point. I managed to stay *relatively* calm today until our washing machine decided to break. I may have then channeled my visa stress into a muttered rant to myself/my kitchen about how everyone assumes the appliance I'd miss most from back home is an "American sized" fridge when it's actually an "American sized" washing machine that I miss most because I never thought washing two towels or two sheets at once without throwing the machine into panic mode was a luxury until I moved here...

Best to all of you and thank you again for all your support and help.