Applying for a spouse visa having left UK before

Hi everybody!

Can I ask for some expert-but-obviously-not-legally-binding advice on the slightly tricky partner visa application that I (UK) and my wife (USA) are currently preparing? We both teach at universities, and have somewhat nomadic lives, which is making this tricky.

Here’s the skinny:
1.   We were in in a long distance relationship 2012-2015, and married in 2015.
2.   In October 2015 she applied for a partner visa, but was rejected on a technicality (she applied from within the UK, but should have applied outside the UK).
3.   In November 2015, she successfully applied for a partner visa, and moved to the UK.
4.   In August 2018, she was offered a job in the USA that was too good to turn down, and so moved back. We were long-distance again until August 2019.
5.   In August 2019, I took “research leave” from my University in the UK [i.e., paid sabbatical], and am visiting the USA (on a J-1, so non-resident).
6.   We want to return to the UK in the Summer of 2020.

So, here are the reasons we are a little worried, any advice would be v. welcome!

1) Because she left the UK before -- will this prejudice her case?

2) How to deal with accommodation -- I am currently out of the country, but do own my own flat in the UK. Right now, a friend is renting it from me, so I do not have a council tax bill for it. Will this make things trickier?

3) I will be in the USA when we are submitting the application – is that likely to be a problem?

I meet the financial requirements through my salary, so apart from the difficulty of getting bank statements when abroad, that should not be a major hurdle.

Oh, and here are our planned documents to support our case (many thanks for KSand24 who I cribbed the list from).

1. Applicant's Documents
[these are standard so not worried about them here]

2. Sponsor's documents:
- Photocopy of passport photo page [uncertified]
- Supporting cover letter that states how I meet the visa requirements, provides a short history of our relationship, explains our previous visa refusal in 2015, and explains why she left the UK in 2018 but wants to return now.

3. Financial Documents
Mandatory
- 6 months of original payslips showing > £18,600 before tax.
- 6 months of bank statements showing the deposit of each payslip
- UK employer letter stating
i) current employment and salary
ii) length of employment
iii) length of time earning current salary
iv) type of employment
v) confirmation that I am on paid “research leave” [academic sabbatical] in USA.

4. Evidence of accommodation [I own my flat]
- Land registry title
- Recent (Jan 2020) mortgage statement
- Signed letter from current tenant confirming that he will move out one month before our arrival.

5. Proof of relationship
- Original marriage certificate
- Photos of us together
- Printouts of airline etickets/itineraries from periods that we have lived apart
- Text messages for past 5 years
- E-mails for past 8 years
- Documentation of our co-habitation in USA since August.

Thanks in advance!!

Welcome to the forum .

To answer your questions:

1) No, it won't affect her case in the slightest. When she returned to live in the US, her previous spousal visa essentially became invalid, so now all you're doing is simply starting afresh with a new spousal visa.

2) Nope. A council tax bill is not required. All you need to do is provide your Land Registry document and latest mortgage statement (if you have a mortgage) to prove you own the property. I assume the friend is only living there while you are in the US? If so, I don't believe you need to include anything from him, because he will not be living there after the visa has been granted... i.e. UKVI will have no idea he is even there now.

3) Nope. Not at all.

So, all in all, your case is simple and not complicated at all.

The only thing that will make it non-straightforward is her previous visa refusal in 2015, but since she was successfully granted a spousal visa after that, it shouldn't be a problem.

In regards to your documents, my list is out of date now, because the application process has changed in the last few months, so I would list all of your documents anyway. For example, there is no Appendix 2 form anymore, as it has been incorporated into the online application and all your documents are now uploaded instead of being mailed.

For the relationship documents, you only need 2 photos of you together at most (usually we say one from early in the relationship and one recent) and you don't need texts/emails from the whole 5 years or 8 years, you only provide them for the time you were living apart.

So:
- If you lived apart between 2012 and 2015, you provide emails/texts for those 3 years.

- If you then lived together in the UK between November 2015 and August 2018, you provide evidence of living together for those 3 years

- If you lived apart between August 2018 and August 2019, you provide emails/texts from that 1 year

- If you have been living together since August 2019, you provide evidence of living together for the last few months.

So, that's approximately 4 years of evidence of living together and 4 years of evidence of communicating regularly while living apart.

Dang you are fast! Thank you so much for this!

Thanks again, and can I ask an extra question?
For documenting our relationship, how do you recommend documenting time together, and how detailed should it be? I have things like leases etc, and old council tax and bank statement bills addressed to us both. How many of these ought I to produce?

Thanks again, and can I ask an extra question?
For documenting our relationship, how do you recommend documenting time together, and how detailed should it be? I have things like leases etc, and old council tax and bank statement bills addressed to us both. How many of these ought I to produce?

Because the time you have lived together is relatively short, I'd be looking at providing at least 2 or 3 pieces of evidence per year.