Building a fund

Hi - this is my first post here.

I am a UK citizen, engaged to a woman in the US. We will be getting married in April in the US, and hopefully she will move here several months later after applying for a Marriage Visa.

Before she arrives, we are aware that the job market is and will be bad, and so wish to build a joint fund together to cater for any problems. We have looked into opening a joint bank account with either a physical or internet bank, but it seems like this is not possible, after making several investigations with Barclays, HSBC, egg.com, and ing.com. Transferring from one account to another on a regular basis, as funds to save become available, would be expensive, therefore we would prefer to avoid that if possible. Lastly, as she will be moving here, we want to have the fund, in whatever form it takes, based here.

Does anybody know of a way to build such a joint fund?

You won't be able to open a joint account in the UK until she is living there because they'll require proof of her ID and permission to live in the UK (her passport and visa) as well as her proof of UK address (usually in the form of a utility bill with her name on it). I've also seen here on the forum that several people have not been able to add their US partner to a UK account even when they are both living in the UK and instead their partner has found it easier to open their own separate UK account.

If you're not going to be using the money in the account until after she has moved, why do you need to have all the money in the UK account right away? You could just keep the fund in 2 separate accounts until she comes to the UK and then just transfer all her money into a UK account in a few months time (i.e. she can save in the US, you can save in the UK and then you can put the money together into one account when she moves).