Best approach?

Hi there,

My beloved b/f and I are thinking of moving from London to the US. There are a number of reasons, but primarily that my job is coming to an end here, he wants to change his, and we want to move house. We've realised that selling our flat here will only mean taking on a bigger mortage if we buy a bigger place, but by moving to the US we could buy a place outright, or at least make a substantial downpayment and have very little mortgage. Very temtping! Additionally, I am struggling being so far from everyone now that a relative is very ill, another is starting a family, etc.

I am 35, he is 42 and we would have money from the sale of our flat and some savings to tide us over. If life in the US goes horribly wrong or we are unhappy after a year, then we would consider coming back here.

We would probably rent a place in the US for the short-term and buy once we had jobs. My BIL runs a real estate company so will help us on that front. I kept a US bank account and credit card so that we have some sort of credit history.

I have ILR here and have been here 5 years. My questions to you are:

1) is it possible for him to come over with me and be able to work without us going the fiancee or marriage route? We will marry someday, but I don't know that we need to focus on so many life changes at once.
        Should I have him look into getting a visa on his on, as he would do if I wasn't in the picture? His brother (English) and sister in law live in the US.

2) does is make a difference if we have a job or not? I could potentially get transferred back to my US company, but I don't particularly want to unless it helps us. (i.e if I am being transferred is it easier to bring him along?)

3) what is the ballpark timeline for financee visa, should we decide this is the right step for us? How many months do we allow?

4) Do we need sponsors? If yes, what is their role?

I appreciate any and all help. I'll also be going through the pages here for info, but I thought I'd start my own thread, too.

Many thanks,
Jen

I've never gone the fiancee visa route from the UK to the US myself, so hopefully someone will step up here to answer. If not, then the Visa & Immigration section gets quite a lot more traffic and can hopefully find some information for you, so you may want to post in there as well.

I can tell you that as for as you are concerned, it doesn't matter if you have a job or not. But to bring him over... he's definitely need some kind of visa to come with you, fiancee or spouse visa... unless he goes over on his own. You said some of his family live there... how did they move? What kind of visas are they on?

Unless he'll be moving with you as a fiancee or spouse - you'll likely get better help in the visa section, as you'd be looking into getting him into the US on his own.

Good luck in whatever you decide!

Slight change of subject, but are you eligible to apply for British citizenship yet?  It might make things easier for you should you decide to move back to the UK from the US after a number of years have passed.  Seems like there's only a limited amount of time you can be out of the UK and still have your ILR be valid, but I could be wrong.  I'm sure someone out there has the answer....

My ILR says if I am out of the country for more than 2 yrs I have to apply again to gain entry back here...........

Hi there,

Many thanks for the feedback. I'll check out the immigration section, and we've just ordered 2 books on immigration from Amazon so that we can look at all of our options!

His brother and SIL live in the US--they were transferred via her job and settled there about 2 years ago. His brother is english and the SIL is Asian (Vietnam born but grew up in Australia) and they have since helped her brother move to the US. We'll see them at Christmas and hopefully get some details as we don't know many specifics (they are quite reserved and don't say much).

You are correct on the ILR--it's good for 2 years and then one must re-apply. It took me too long to get it with my work permit so I don't want to let it go! I'll be eligilble for citizenship this winter and plan to apply, for exactly the reason you suggest: it makes it easy to come back if we decide the US isn't the life for us. (I planned on applying anyway, as I would like to be able to vote and feel more a part of society if we stay here).

Many thanks for your help. I'll pop a note up in the immigration site and check out the news there.

Jen