I am a romanian national married to an american and would like to settle in the UK so i need the family permit for my wife (we got married in Romania).
We've been in the UK for about 4 months , we flew in together and she was allowed in as a tourist ( so 6 months visa, not family member related). The IO gave us a hard time at first especially since she didn't have a return ticket ( the solicitor we spoke to days before we made the trip told us that we wouldn't need anything since she was my wife from a non-visa country and i was EU). Also, she had a denied UK entry stamp from last year when she tried to join me in the UK (we got bad advice from various people and solicitors and decided to lie about why she was coming here, thinking she'd be sent back had she told immigration she was visiting her boyfriend on a tourist visa).
Our situation is a little different since I play online poker for a living and although I can show UK bank statements for the last 15 months or so I am not sure how the authorities will look at this. I mean some poker sites are monitored by independent sites that show how much any player is up or down, it's not really hard to figure out. The other thing we would need is private health insurance but that's not a real issue.
Should I get a solicitor to do this or could we do it ourselves? From what I know the fee can be as high as 2.000 £ but would it be worth it? Anyone here with similar experiences? How long does it take to get the permit if you apply from inside the UK (also I don't have a residence permit here and I think we would need to apply for that too at the same time)?
Thanks for any input !!
