FL(M)- Extension: Application Questions

Hello! I'm back on the board again, this time with questions relating to my FL(M) extension.  After first holding a fiance visa (late 2019- Spring 2018), I received my first FL(M) visa in May 2018, and now, 2.5 years later, am applying for my extension.

I've been trying to scour this board to find answers to my questions up until now in an attempt to save all the amazing experts from having to repeat themselves, but I have a couple of questions I couldn't find previous answers to and I'd appreciate any thoughts you have!

I'm currently filling in the online application and am stumbling for the right way to approach two questions:

1) In the financial section, regarding accommodation: the application asks if I a) own my home b) rent or c) neither own nor rent.

Although my husband and I live in our own home, legally it is under my husband's name, as is the mortgage.

If I choose option a), the form asks me how much I pay in mortgage, and asks me to provide evidence of council tax costs (which are in both of our names).

If I choose option c) it asks me to explain who provides me with accommodation and requests that I send in proof of property ownership from the owner, a copy of the owner's ID document; and a letter from the owner stating that I have permission to live at the property.

I'm stuck between option A and C.  I feel like A best fits my situation, even though I didn't buy this house, we're married and it's our home. For the amount of mortgage "I" pay, I would just then add in the monthly mortgage billed to my husband.  Would this be correct? 

My other question is also in the Financial section, regarding how we'll meet the financial requirement.  My husband's employment income fully covers this, and his employer is great to work with in terms of getting all the supporting documents together, so we've planned to just use his employment income.  The only issue is, in doing that, I'm not sure where else in the form I would explain that I also work full-time.  So my questions here are:

1) If we're only using my husband's employment income, do I need to explain elsewhere that I also work full-time?

2) If we're only using my husband's employment income, should I/do I need to provide any financial documents (payslips, banks statements, contract etc) or any other documents (HR letter?) to explain that I also work full-time? 


Again, thank you so much for any thoughts.  You all coached my through my first two applications, and I'm so happy you're still here.

Hello! I'm back on the board again, this time with questions relating to my FL(M) extension.  After first holding a fiance visa (late 2019- Spring 2018), I received my first FL(M) visa in May 2018, and now, 2.5 years later, am applying for my extension.

Welcome back .

1) In the financial section, regarding accommodation: the application asks if I a) own my home b) rent or c) neither own nor rent.

Although my husband and I live in our own home, legally it is under my husband's name, as is the mortgage.

If I choose option a), the form asks me how much I pay in mortgage, and asks me to provide evidence of council tax costs (which are in both of our names).

If I choose option c) it asks me to explain who provides me with accommodation and requests that I send in proof of property ownership from the owner, a copy of the owner's ID document; and a letter from the owner stating that I have permission to live at the property.

I'm stuck between option A and C.  I feel like A best fits my situation, even though I didn't buy this house, we're married and it's our home. For the amount of mortgage "I" pay, I would just then add in the monthly mortgage billed to my husband.  Would this be correct? 

This question is not asking about you as an individual, it is asking about you and your spouse as a couple.

You choose option A: I own.

The 3 options are:

I own = you and/or your spouse own the house you live in

I rent = you and your spouse rent the house you live in

I neither own nor rent = you live with family or friends in a house that THEY own, meaning you are a guest in someone else's home

My other question is also in the Financial section, regarding how we'll meet the financial requirement.  My husband's employment income fully covers this, and his employer is great to work with in terms of getting all the supporting documents together, so we've planned to just use his employment income.  The only issue is, in doing that, I'm not sure where else in the form I would explain that I also work full-time.  So my questions here are:

1) If we're only using my husband's employment income, do I need to explain elsewhere that I also work full-time?

2) If we're only using my husband's employment income, should I/do I need to provide any financial documents (payslips, banks statements, contract etc) or any other documents (HR letter?) to explain that I also work full-time? 

You do not mention your employment anywhere in the application and you DO NOT provide any financial documents of your own. For the purpose of the visa, you fill out the form as if you are unemployed and have no income.

The only time you would include your income as well would be if your husband's employment did not meet the requirements and you had to combine your incomes to meet the £18,600 minimum.

As his income meets the requirement, you only mention his income on the form and not yours.

ksand24- Thank you so much for the advice! I so appreciated it and forged ahead with the online application.  I've now submitted it, and booked my biometrics appointment for later this month.

I now have a question about my supporting documents. I've been told that they can be scanned ahead of my appointment, but that I also must bring "all...original supporting documents" with me to my biometrics appointment.

This is becoming a worry for me when it comes to supporting documents from my husband's work:  at the moment, they are refusing to send us physical letters of support, and are only offering  a)digitally singed letters on letterhead,  and b)physically signed and then scanned letters (the originals of which they are not willing to send).

We're asking his work to provide the following letters:

1) A letter from HR confirming employment/position/salary etc (Central HR is located in North America and will only provide a physically signed and scanned copy,  and the local HR branch refuses to produce a physical letter as "they hope the Home Office understands that people are working from home and don't have printers"..... ).

2) A letter from Payroll confirming that the company no longer offers printed payslips and authenticating my husband's digital ones (Payroll are only offering a digitally signed letter-- and maybe not even that, they're honestly still going back and forth about whether they'll provide anything).


Our only option seems to be to print off these letters to bring with us to the appointment, but they will be copies, not originals. 

We think that our only option will be to have the letter writer in each case formally state, within the letter, that they are unable to send my husband the original, and then have them provide direct contact details and note that they the Home Office can contact them directly if there are further questions.

Do you think that option would suffice?  I'm really fed up, as this back and forth has been going on since last week.  It is largely Covid's fault---- my husband was working for the same company over our last two visas and was able to e-mail HR/Payroll for the letters and then go pick up the original copies within less than 48 hours. For our past visas, Payroll even printed off and authenticated each digital payslip, but we've been told they are unable to do so now. Their office building is completely shut down and no one is allowed in, everyone is working remotely.

All that to say, any thoughts you have on how to navigate this would be appreciated. 

- Caty

I now have a question about my supporting documents. I've been told that they can be scanned ahead of my appointment, but that I also must bring "all...original supporting documents" with me to my biometrics appointment.

You can either scan and upload your documents to the UKVCAS website before your appointment for free, or if you want the documents to be scanned and uploaded by UKVCAS at the appointment, you will need to add the 'Document Scanning' service to your biometrics appointment for £50 on the UKVCAS website.

Even if you upload before the appointment, it's a good idea to take all the documents with you anyway, just in case something didn't upload properly and it needs to be scanned again.

This is becoming a worry for me when it comes to supporting documents from my husband's work:  at the moment, they are refusing to send us physical letters of support, and are only offering  a)digitally singed letters on letterhead,  and b)physically signed and then scanned letters (the originals of which they are not willing to send).

For the employer letter, either a digitally signed letter, or a handsigned and scanned letter is fine if a physical letter can't be issued due to Covid. So, nothing to worry about there . If the employer can confirm the reason for being unable to provide a physical letter, that's even better.

They are allowing some leniency with the documents if there are issues getting them because of Covid.

See here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for-uk-visa-applicants-and-temporary-uk-residents

We're asking his work to provide the following letters:

1) A letter from HR confirming employment/position/salary etc (Central HR is located in North America and will only provide a physically signed and scanned copy,  and the local HR branch refuses to produce a physical letter as "they hope the Home Office understands that people are working from home and don't have printers"..... ).

2) A letter from Payroll confirming that the company no longer offers printed payslips and authenticating my husband's digital ones (Payroll are only offering a digitally signed letter-- and maybe not even that, they're honestly still going back and forth about whether they'll provide anything).

Our only option seems to be to print off these letters to bring with us to the appointment, but they will be copies, not originals. 

We think that our only option will be to have the letter writer in each case formally state, within the letter, that they are unable to send my husband the original, and then have them provide direct contact details and note that they the Home Office can contact them directly if there are further questions.

That's all fine. It's exactly what you should be doing .

ksand24- Thank you so much for your help (and calming words  ) regarding the employer documents.  We're still going back and forth a bit, but hoping to get it all sorted out this upcoming week.

I've been continuing to work away at our documents, and have a few more questions, mostly to do with the dating of our documents:

1) This is to do with the dating of financial documents-- we submitted our application on 1 November 2020, but my biometrics appointment isn't until Monday, 30 November.  I realised today that we've been working back against the 1 November 2020 date for our financial proofs, but am a bit worried that they actually expect us to count from the 30 November biometrics appointment date.  Is it fine to use 1 November, or am I expected to use the 30 November deadline? I'm worried about having to use the 30 November because of timing-- my husband gets paid on the 28 November and there won't be enough time to get original bank statements and letters from his work to verify that most recent payslip.  Currently, we have the work letters and bank letter/statements verifying payslips from the 28 October 2020 backwards over the past six months. I was just so relieved to find a biometrics appointment in my area that I didn't fully think through what that would mean for the payslip/bank statement timing. Do you have any suggestions for what to do here? 

2) This is to do with the sequencing/dating of our correspondence:  I realised today that when I put these documents in order a few weeks ago, I was assuming we'd submit our application by the end of October 2020, but I actually submitted on 1 November.  I decided to try to go back through our documents and organise them on a November-July-March pattern instead, but  I found that we have just one piece of shared mail for those months across the past two years, and my partner doesn't have enough mail addressed individually to him to cover this period.

The October-June-February pattern works much better, except in one instance: we don't have anything for October 2018, the closest we could find was the one piece of shared mail we have for November 2018.  Do you think the below pattern would be acceptable? And do we need to include a note of explanation as to why there's nothing for October 2018 (I think the reason is that in October 2018 we were buying our house and so my stress levels were off the charts, and my usual file-away-the-mail reflexes fell by the wayside--but I'm not sure how to phrase that ). Our pattern goes as follows:

November 2018 (shared bill)
February 2019 (shared bill)
June 2019 (shared council tax)
October 2019 (bank statement for me, payslip for husband)
February 2020 (bank statement for me, bank statement for husband)
June 2020 (bank statement for me, HMRC letter for husband)
**should we include anything for October 2020 (if so, I believe it's another bank statement for me, and bank letter for husband)

Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated! (and now back to scanning passports and bank statements...what a weekend!).

1) This is to do with the dating of financial documents-- we submitted our application on 1 November 2020, but my biometrics appointment isn't until Monday, 30 November.  I realised today that we've been working back against the 1 November 2020 date for our financial proofs, but am a bit worried that they actually expect us to count from the 30 November biometrics appointment date.  Is it fine to use 1 November, or am I expected to use the 30 November deadline? I'm worried about having to use the 30 November because of timing-- my husband gets paid on the 28 November and there won't be enough time to get original bank statements and letters from his work to verify that most recent payslip.  Currently, we have the work letters and bank letter/statements verifying payslips from the 28 October 2020 backwards over the past six months. I was just so relieved to find a biometrics appointment in my area that I didn't fully think through what that would mean for the payslip/bank statement timing. Do you have any suggestions for what to do here? 

For your documents, the ONLY date that matters is the date you submitted the online application: November 1st, as that is your official application date. Therefore, all the documents you provide must be dated BEFORE November 1st.

The latest payslip, latest bank statement and the employer letter must be dated no earlier than 4th October (28 days before November 1st) and no later than November 1st.

Also, your payslips and bank statements must cover every single day of the 6 months. So, if the latest payslip is dated 28th October, the 6 months you must cover are:
28th April to 28th October inclusive.

If your April payslip is dated 28th April, then you include April to October payslips. However if your April payslip is dated 29th or 30th April, you must include the March payslip and bank statement as well... in order to cover the actual day of 28th April.

2) This is to do with the sequencing/dating of our correspondence:  I realised today that when I put these documents in order a few weeks ago, I was assuming we'd submit our application by the end of October 2020, but I actually submitted on 1 November.  I decided to try to go back through our documents and organise them on a November-July-March pattern instead, but  I found that we have just one piece of shared mail for those months across the past two years, and my partner doesn't have enough mail addressed individually to him to cover this period.

No, you should be covering October 2018 to October 2020, because all your documents must be dated BEFORE November 1st 2020.

You likely won't have received any November mail on November 1st itself yet, so no need to bother using November 2018 to November 2020. Even if you had submitted halfway through November, I would still recommend using Oct 2018 to Oct 2020 for the same reason: that you likely wouldn't have mail from November 2020 yet.

The October-June-February pattern works much better, except in one instance: we don't have anything for October 2018, the closest we could find was the one piece of shared mail we have for November 2018.  Do you think the below pattern would be acceptable? And do we need to include a note of explanation as to why there's nothing for October 2018 (I think the reason is that in October 2018 we were buying our house and so my stress levels were off the charts, and my usual file-away-the-mail reflexes fell by the wayside--but I'm not sure how to phrase that ). Our pattern goes as follows:
November 2018 (shared bill)
February 2019 (shared bill)
June 2019 (shared council tax)
October 2019 (bank statement for me, payslip for husband)
February 2020 (bank statement for me, bank statement for husband)
June 2020 (bank statement for me, HMRC letter for husband)
**should we include anything for October 2020 (if so, I believe it's another bank statement for me, and bank letter for husband)

That document spacing looks okay, but you should include a note explaining why you don't have anything for October 2018. Just phrase it as the truth: you were in the middle of buying a house and some paperwork got mislaid in the process.

And yes, you should also include something from October 2020 as well, just to cover the full 2 years.

Thank you ksand24 again for the advice re: getting our documents in order.  We're just getting ready to upload everything to the UKVCAS website over the next days, and would appreciate it if you could read over the documents.  I've organised them in the categories set by the  UKCVAS upload.  I have also a few questions, which I've set out following this list.  Any document that I've put a * next to relates to those questions.

Proof of Identity & Travel History
1. Applicant BRP

2. Spouse Passport


Proof of Application
1. Applicant Passport

2. Spouse Declaration


Residence in the UK
1. Proof of Cohabitation Correspondence:
   *September 2018 (both)
   *November 2018  (both)
     February 2019 (both)
     June 2019 (both)
     October 2019 (one piece of mail each)
     Feb 2020 (one piece of mail each)
     June 2020 (one piece of mail each)
    October 2020 (one piece of mail each)

2.Proof of Residence
    Land Registry and Title Document
    Mortgage Statement (we've just included the most recent one we have, from Dec 2019, the next won't arrive until late Dec 2020)
    Council Tax (again, we're just including the most recent one we have, from Summer 2020)


3. Finances
1. *Letter from spouse's work confirming contract and pay
2. *Letter from spouse's payroll office confirming payslips now only available digitally
3. 7 months payslips (to cover the full six months)
4. 7 months banks statements mailed from the bank to us at home


Life Events
1. Marriage Certificate


After putting this all together, I have a few questions that I would really appreciate your advice on:

1) In at least one place that I know of, our documents need to fulfill two parts of the application-- for example, the only official mail my spouse got in October 2020 was his October bank statement, which we also need to include as part of his financial evidence.  How should I deal with this?


2) My biometrics appointment and document upload deadline is 30 November, but we submitted the online application 1 November. My spouse's original letter from his HR department confirming salary and contract came to us on 28 October 2020, but they then did us an amended letter (to confirm that they were working from home and unable to send an original, paper copy of the letter to us) on 5 November  and also the payroll letter likewise is dated 10 November.  Are these two latter letters admissible?  If not, my husband does have an e-mail from late 2019 confirming the switch to digital payslips, but it's obviously not on letter/signed.


3) For my first FLR(M) I included copies of all my previous passports that related to previous UK visas I've held (e.g. the fiance visa and an earlier student visa), do you think I should include these again?


4) I think I have read this elsewhere on this board, but want to double check: for this FLR(M) extension, is it correct that I no longer have to provide the following:
- Passport photographs of myself and spouse
- Boarding passes/plane tickets for every international trip my spouse and I have been on during the course of the previous visa
- Photographs covering the past 2.5 years (e.g. Christmas with family, anniversary, holiday photos etc.)


5) For my first FLR(M), I included a cover letter and list of documents,  should I do this for this application? I guess I could them upload it in the "other" category? I do need to include a note explaining why we have no mail to submit for October 2018 (which is why I'm including September and November 2018 correspondence), would this note be in a cover letter?


I know I've thrown a lot out here.  I've been saving up my questions to ask all at once! Any advice you have would be appreciated!

 



   

1) In at least one place that I know of, our documents need to fulfill two parts of the application-- for example, the only official mail my spouse got in October 2020 was his October bank statement, which we also need to include as part of his financial evidence.  How should I deal with this?

Just scan it in and then upload it to both sections:
- upload once to the Finances section
- upload once to the Residence in the UK section

2) My biometrics appointment and document upload deadline is 30 November, but we submitted the online application 1 November. My spouse's original letter from his HR department confirming salary and contract came to us on 28 October 2020, but they then did us an amended letter (to confirm that they were working from home and unable to send an original, paper copy of the letter to us) on 5 November  and also the payroll letter likewise is dated 10 November.  Are these two latter letters admissible?  If not, my husband does have an e-mail from late 2019 confirming the switch to digital payslips, but it's obviously not on letter/signed.

The letters must be dated:
- no earlier than October 4th 2020
- no later than November 1st 2020

Though, it's probably worth including the November letters, just in case. But be aware, that they may not be able to consider them.

3) For my first FLR(M) I included copies of all my previous passports that related to previous UK visas I've held (e.g. the fiance visa and an earlier student visa), do you think I should include these again?

Yes, it's a requirement to include ALL passports you have held since moving to the UK,

4) I think I have read this elsewhere on this board, but want to double check: for this FLR(M) extension, is it correct that I no longer have to provide the following:
- Passport photographs of myself and spouse
- Boarding passes/plane tickets for every international trip my spouse and I have been on during the course of the previous visa
- Photographs covering the past 2.5 years (e.g. Christmas with family, anniversary, holiday photos etc.)

That's correct.

Passport photos are no longer required.

The other evidence has now been replaced by the 6 items of correspondence covering the last 2 years.

5) For my first FLR(M), I included a cover letter and list of documents,  should I do this for this application? I guess I could them upload it in the "other" category? I do need to include a note explaining why we have no mail to submit for October 2018 (which is why I'm including September and November 2018 correspondence), would this note be in a cover letter?

No, you don't need to include a cover letter or list of documents.

But if you have something to explain... like your lack of mail for October 2018, then you will need to write a letter explaining that... and upload it in the Residence in the UK section along with all your mail.

For your mail, I would include the following documents:
1. November 2018.... with an explanation for why it is not dated in October
2. February 2019 (both)
3. June 2019 (both)
4. October 2019 (one piece of mail each)
5. Feb 2020 (one piece of mail each)
6. June 2020 (one piece of mail each)
7. October 2020 (one piece of mail each)

Can you list exactly what type of documents you have for each month, so we can check if they meet the source requirements?

For your mail, I would include the following documents:
1. November 2018.... with an explanation for why it is not dated in October
2. February 2019 (both)
3. June 2019 (both)
4. October 2019 (one piece of mail each)
5. Feb 2020 (one piece of mail each)
6. June 2020 (one piece of mail each)
7. October 2020 (one piece of mail each)

Can you list exactly what type of documents you have for each month, so we can check if they meet the source requirements?

Thank you so much for reading this all over, and for your answers and help.  I can definitely list our documents, they are as follows:

October 2020: 1x Bank Statement (me)  1x Bank Statement (husband)
June 2020: 1x Bank Statement (me)  1x HMRC letter (husband)
February 2020: 1x Bank Statement (me)  1x Bank Statement (husband)
October 2019: 1x Bank Statement (me) 1x Payslip (husband)
June 2019:  1x Council Tax Letter (joint)
February 2019:  Electricity Bill (joint)
November 2018: Electricity Bill (joint)
September 2018: Electricity Summary (joint)

Do you think that the September 2018 document is unnecessary? I thought of it just so that the missing October 2018 month would be fully bracketed by two months where we do have admissible documents.

Thank you again!

October 2020: 1x Bank Statement (me)  1x Bank Statement (husband)
June 2020: 1x Bank Statement (me)  1x HMRC letter (husband)
February 2020: 1x Bank Statement (me)  1x Bank Statement (husband)
October 2019: 1x Bank Statement (me) 1x Payslip (husband)
June 2019:  1x Council Tax Letter (joint)
February 2019:  Electricity Bill (joint)
November 2018: Electricity Bill (joint)
September 2018: Electricity Summary (joint)

Those all look good - just wanted to check you had enough different sources and that they were suitable to use.

Do you think that the September 2018 document is unnecessary? I thought of it just so that the missing October 2018 month would be fully bracketed by two months where we do have admissible documents.

No, you only need 1 document in place of the October 2018 one. As you don't have one from October 2018, you want to provide the closest-dated document you have instead.

Since your application was submitted on November 1st, and you only need to cover a MAXIMUM of 2 years back with the documents, the September 2018 one is really dated a bit too early to be used. So, I think using November 2018 to October 2020 makes the most sense.