Sponsor letter - UK settlement visa

Hello, I was hoping someone could offer feedback on my supporting letter. I'm sponsoring my wife's settlement visa application. I think we have all the required documentation. The end part about my dad's health issues was suggested by UK immigration as a reason they may prioritise my case. I assumed this was the correct place to include it. Any thoughts are very welcome.


Dear Sir or Madam,

Re: Application for a UK Settlement Visa –
I am writing to confirm my sponsorship of my wife, - in her visa application to settle with me in the United Kingdom.
I am a UK national who has been living in Australia for the last three years. I work as a doctor at ------. ------ is a paediatric physiotherapist also working at ------. She is applying for this visa so we can return to the UK as my father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Prior to moving to Australia I lived in London. I met ----- in a pub in Soho in April 2014, she was on a two year working visa in the UK, she is Australian. We began a dating a few weeks later and started a relationship. We had a 12 month break in our relationship from October 2015 to October 2016 but were still in regular contact, we resumed the relationship in November 2016 and have been living together in -------- since April 2017. We married in September this year.
------- and I intend on permanently settling in the UK. We intend to live with my parents in York sharing a five bedroom house with them.
We are meeting the financial requirements by the cash savings route. We have included all the relevant bank statements for the last six months. They are from multiple banks as we had not planned to move back to the UK at this time, so our savings were not in one place ready to apply for the visa. We intend to work on returning to the UK but do not currently have jobs in place as we plan to spend time with my family over the coming months.
My father was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in May this year. Initially the prognosis was several years. Unfortunately, the cancer has spread more quickly than hoped. I have included my father’s most recent discharge summaries from ---------- and ----------------- as suggested from my email correspondence with the immigration service. My parents were in Australia for our wedding when he became unwell. I do not have any clinic letters at this time from his appointments with his oncologist with a prognosis included. The summaries do include the diagnosis of metastatic melanoma with multiple brain metastases.
Please consider our circumstances when reviewing our application. I appreciate the bank statements across multiple banks is confusing but we were not planning to apply at this time so had not moved all out savings into one account.


Regards

------------------

Okay, your sponsor letter is a bit too focused on unnecessary information and not enough on how you meet each requirement. I would refine it a bit. Also, I wouldn’t be so detailed with the information about your father - they don’t need all that info.

Also, the immigration service is notorious for giving incorrect information and bad advice, so while you would certainly mention your father’s health, I don’t know that UKVI would even look at his medical records.

Given that it is your father who is ill, and you are a U.K. citizen, there is nothing stopping you from returning to the UK to be with him while your wife waits for her visa, so they may not even consider the circumstances to be serious enough to rush the application. Not to mention, the majority of the processing time will involve your application sitting in line with no one having seen it yet, so likely no one will know that you have compassionate circumstances until the day the visa is issued.

For example,

To The Entry Clearance Officer,

I am writing to confirm my sponsorship of my wife [name] in her visa application to settle with me in the United Kingdom. I am a UK national who was born in the UK but I have been living in Australia for the last three years and I now wish to return to the UK with my wife.

We will be meeting the financial requirements using Category D: Cash Savings of £X amount. These savings are spread across X bank accounts and I am including 6 months of statements from each one.

Once the visa has been granted, we will be living at [address], which is a 5-bedroom house owned by my parents. In total, there will be Y people living in the property and so will not be overcrowded. I am including a letter of invitation from my parents along with their Land Registry document and their latest original mortgage statement [if applicable]

My wife and I met in a pub in Soho, London in April 2014, while she was on a [state exact visa type] in the UK. We entered into a relationship on X date. However, we had a 12 month break in our relationship from October 2015 to October 2016 [give reason why], but were still in regular contact. We then resumed the relationship in November 2016 [give reason why] and have been living together in [city, country] since April 2017. We got engaged on X date and got married on Y date in Z city, country.

We are returning to the UK because my father was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in May this year and unfortunately, the cancer has spread more quickly than hoped. I have included my father’s most recent discharge summaries from ---------- and ----------------- as suggested from my email correspondence with the immigration service.

Please consider our circumstances when reviewing our application, as it is important for us to be able to be with my father in the U.K. as soon as possible.

Yours Faithfully,

Your Name


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As your wife is highly skilled, has she looked at getting a Tier 2 (General) visa from the NHS? The highly skilled visas are usually very quick at coming through. The employer would pay her fees.

If she isn't doing a job on the SOL (Shortage Occupation List) there would likely be a 28 Resident Labour Market Test for that job. Then the NHS would apply for her COE by the 5th of the month, with the board sitting on about  the 11th of that month to award the COE.

https://www.gov.uk/tier-2-general

It's the same 5 years to ILR as will be on a spouse visa, but she won't be paying the fees. She doesn't have to stay with the same Trust as she can just get another Trust to continue her sponsorship on a Tier 2 (General) visa and they will all count towards her 5 years.


For ILR, those on the skilled visas must have a higher earnings (their own earnings) for ILR, than the low financial amount needed (which can be joint earnings) for those on a spouse visa. The exception to that is if the  job is on the SOL or they are doing a certain PhD level job.

Ksand24 thank you for the very thorough reply. I wasn’t aware the email information was unreliable and had assumed it was quite the opposite. It did feel redundant writing all the details about my dad’s health so I will trim that down. I appreciate the feedback on the rest of the letter too. It is difficult to know how to pitch it.

Would you know if I need the latest mortgage statement from my parents? I had been advised this wasn’t required, just the land registry document and a letter from them. Im aware other applications have included council tax bills and copies of parents passports but have been advised this was also unnecessary.

Sirius, thanks for your reply. She has had a tier 2 visa previously sponsored by the nhs. Currently there isn’t a vacancy in the area shed like to work in where we’ll be living.
When she was sponsored before I think she found it quite difficult as I think it makes getting jobs a little bit more difficult.

Ksand24 thank you for the very thorough reply. I wasn’t aware the email information was unreliable and had assumed it was quite the opposite. It did feel redundant writing all the details about my dad’s health so I will trim that down. I appreciate the feedback on the rest of the letter too. It is difficult to know how to pitch it.

No problem - as I said, by all means, mention his health, as it may help with showing compassionate circumstances, but the details are not relevant, as their only concern is whether you and your wife meet the requirements or not.

Would you know if I need the latest mortgage statement from my parents? I had been advised this wasn’t required, just the land registry document and a letter from them. Im aware other applications have included council tax bills and copies of parents passports but have been advised this was also unnecessary.

The mortgage statement is not a requirement, but we just suggest it as an optional extra just to show they are paying it off and won't default on the payments.

You should never include council tax bills, as they do not prove homeownership, and there is no reason why you would need to include copies of parents' passports either, as they are not applying for a visa, and are not sponsoring a visa.

The accommodation requirement is that:
- you have somewhere to live that won't be overcrowded
- you have permission from the landlord or homeowner to live there
That's it.

From the official accommodation requirements. Note there is no mention of council tax bills, passports or anything like that:

10. MAA10 Legally owned or exclusively occupied
The ECO should consider the basis of the availability and security of tenure of the accommodation. Factors to be taken into account will include:

- the ownership of the property and/or the duration of a lease
- whether any lease enables the tenant to sublet to the couple or take them in as lodgers.

If the accommodation is not owned by the couple (or one of them), the Rules require that there be adequate accommodation which is for their exclusive use. This need not be as elaborate as a self-contained flat. It is acceptable for a couple to live in an existing household, for example, that of a parent, uncle, aunt, sibling or friend, as long as they have at least a bedroom for their exclusive use.

If the couple have children with them there must be additional adequate accommodation for them (see MAA134 for maximum numbers of persons allowed).

11. MAA11 Adequacy of accommodation
The ECO’s judgement should be based on the evidence from the applicant. If the ECO is not sure of the credibility of the applicant, he / she should ask to see a letter from the owner of the property (which may be a housing authority, housing association, landlord or a building society). This should confirm particulars of tenure and occupation of the dwelling, together with a description of the accommodation and, if rented, a copy of the lease.

The onus is on the applicant to provide confirmation that there is no objection to an additional resident moving into the accommodation.