1. Husband is paid weekly, a week in hand. His basic wage is £380 a week, however, for one of the weeks his salary was £342 due to coming home a few hours earlier, so I understand it is the lowest wage that is multiplied by 52, bringing the total to £17, 784. My husband regularly works overtime and when including this, (total amount of overtime divided by no of weeks multiplied by 52) the amount reaches almost £22,000. My question is as well as these overtime payments, Amazon pay holiday premium on overtime hours as well as some additional payments and bonuses during May/June due to Covid-19, can I include these payments when working out the total amount of overtime?
Is he salaried (fixed annual salary) or is he non-salaried (earning an hourly wage for a contracted number of hours per week)?
This will affect how his income is calculated.
If he is non-salaried and he has been employed by Amazon for at least 6 months, they will take his last 6 months of payslips, add them all together (before tax), divide by the number of weekly payslips and multiply by 52 weeks, to get his average annual income.
Overtime and bonuses can be considered for his previous 6 months of income, but cannot be considered toward future income... UNLESS Amazon can confirm in writing that he is guaranteed to earn enough in overtime/bonuses to make his income at least £18,600 per year every year in the future.
2. The payslips we will be using start from 14/02/2020 and I will wait for the 14/08/2020 payslip to arrive. This means exactly 27 payslips will be used. Is this okay?
If his latest payslip is 14/08/2020, then the 6 months you must cover is 14/02/2020 to 14/08/2020.
As long as they cover every single day between and including 14/02/2020 and 14/08/2020, this will be fine, but if they cover even 1 day less than this, the payslips won't meet the requirement.
It's probably a good idea to include the 07/02/2020 payslip as well, just in case.
And you will need corresponding bank statements showing the deposit of every single payslip, and covering the same period.
3. Can I use the same UK Naric certificates that I used last time for the English requirement. We have the Statement of Comparability and the English language assessment level of B1. I don't need to apply for new certificates do I?
I'm not sure, since we mainly deal with US citizen applicants here, who don't need to meet the English requirement - you'd have to check how long the certificates are valid for and whether they need to be renewed for the new application.
4. Items of correspondence- Can I double check that I only need to provide correspondence from the last 2 years, (Aug 2018-Aug 2020) or do the letters need to cover the full 2.5 years? I have read conflicting information online.
You cover 2 years for FLR(M) applications and 2.5 years for ILR applications... so, if he is applying for FLR(M), it's only 2 years.
If the former, this is our provisional list:
Aug 2018
Natwest Current Account Statement- Joint
Nov 2018
NEST Pension letter- Husband
HMRC Tax calculation- Me
Mar 2019
Natwest Current Account Statement- Joint
Jul 2019
HMRC Tax calculation- Husband
DBS Certficate- Me
Nov 2019 (was posted in Nov but has Dec election date- is this an issue?)
Polling Card- Husband
Polling Card- Me
Mar 2020
Natwest Savings Account Statement- Joint (Online version- do I need to get this stamped from the bank?)
Jul 2020
Lloyds Current Account statement- Husband
Talk Talk Bill- Me
I understand the months are not exactly spaced out...this is the best we can come up with so far!
Your spacing isn't too bad. However, you can't use any online statements, because the entire point is to provide evidence of mail that was POSTED to you in those months and years... to prove you were physically in the house to receive it on those dates.
So, you will need to find something else to use for March 2020. Also, you really need something from July 2018, rather than August 2018.
5. When scanning documents, do I need to include our son's passport and birth certificate? He was born in the UK in Oct 2018
You must include:
- his passport
- his birth certificate
- a letter dated in the last 90 days confirming his address (i.e. from his GP)
6. What are the latest updates with the visa centres and appointments? Can we opt for the priority/super priority service or is it just the standard service for all now?
The Super Priority service is not currently being offered, or at least, it hasn't been offered since March because of Covid. If it is available, it will be offered at the end of the online application, but I haven't seen anyone say that it is being offered yet.
As I mentioned in the post above, they are still working through all the applications from March, April, May, June and July... so I wouldn't expect this to be a quick process... I would allow up to a few months for the visa to be processed.
Once you have applied, you can register an account with UKVCAS, and you can upload your documents to the site if you like.
You will be emailed by UKVI when they get to the August applications, telling you when you will be allowed to book an appointment, or if you are eligible to have biometrics waived, meaning you can just submit a photo via an app (and upload the documents yourself) instead of attending an appointment. I don't believe the app has been launched yet though.