Questions about uploading documents on VFS for fiancé(e) visa

My fiancée is applying to come to the UK so we can get married later this year. At the beginning of the process we bought a checklist from a law firm that explained all the documents that we need. We have gathered all of the documents in the checklist plus a couple of others that we've seen people suggest on here, and have now applied and paid our fee on the UK government website.

The next step is to upload our documents to the VFS website and I have some questions about this.

I was under the impression that my fiancée (the applicant) had to scan her whole passport from front to back and submit that as one of the documents AND submit her physical passport in the post to New York, as that is what our checklist said to do. But the checklist we got from the UK government site after applying says nothing about scanning her passport, and there doesn't seem to be a section on the uploading page that calls for it either. Their isn't even an "applicant" section at all.

I just wanted to ask if this is necessary because I've also read that there is a limit to the amount of documents you can upload and some of our sections are already getting quite full, so I'm not even sure we can fit the passport in.


Also slightly related - we are relying on Category A income for the financial section of our application. I don't get paid "continuously the same amount" as stated in the application form, but it is still category A because every month I still get paid over the minimum required amount. But because I have answered "not the same amount continuously", the government checklist asks for 12 months worth of pay slips rather than 6. We have only prepared 6 months worth of pay slips because our checklist specified that we don't need 12 months regardless of what the government checklist says, since we're still relying on Category A. Has anyone gone through this same thing and submitted the 6 months rather than 12 and did it turn out ok?


And one more question, which might be a bit specific. I work for a company in the UK, who is owned solely by a US company. I (and more than 5 other people) receive shares for the US parent company, but not the UK subsidiary. Would I be right in saying this is still Category A? It's a bit confusing because technically I don't even own shares in my employing company. The UK company only has a single owner which is the US company, but the US company has thousands of shareholders. I'm fairly confident Category A is still fine but I'm maybe just overthinking it a bit.


Thanks in advance


Dode

Hi Dode, welcome to the forum. 

It might be easiest if you could list everything you intend to include here and we can check it over for you and take it from there.

Hi Dode, welcome to the forum. 

It might be easiest if you could list everything you intend to include here and we can check it over for you and take it from there.

Thank you!

Ok that's a good idea, I've made up a list of all the documents we have.

Applicant’s personal documents
 - Her passport (which we'll send to NY)
 - Copy of all current passport pages
 - Applicant’s letter of support

Sponsor’s personal documents
 - Copy of passport photo page
 - Copy of stamped pages (to show my travel to USA)
 - Sponsor’s letter of support

Sponsor’s employment documents
 - Payslips from last 6 months (7 payslips so the full 6 months is covered)
 - Employer payslips letter verifying the payslips
 - Employer letter confirming employment length, pay, how long I've been paid the current amount etc
 - Most recent P60 (from the 2020/21 tax year but it's all I have since I haven't received this years yet, would that be an issue?)
 - Signed job offer and T&Cs of employment from 2015 (which hopefully they will accept as a "contract" because it's all I have)

Sponsor’s bank documents
 - Bank statements from last 6 months (with monthly wages highlighted)

Accommodation documents
 - Copy of title deeds
 - Copy of most recent mortgage statement from June 2021
 - Most recent council tax bill to my address

Proof of relationship
 - Photographs of relationship
 - Order confirmation of engagement and wedding rings
 - Receipt for wedding dress
 - Document we received from company confirming our deposit and date of wedding (for some reason they didn't sign it, it's just a PDF with the information on it so hopefully this isn't an issue)

We also have screenshots of chat logs but are debating whether or not to include them because our checklist from the law firm specifically said not to, but to mention in the support letter that you'll supply them if requested

We've also just now realised from another thread on this site that the checklist you get from the gov website is supposed to be completed, signed and submitted to the VFS site at this stage, despite the checklist specifically telling us not to sign it until the appointment 

And I was also wondering if I should add a cover letter to just explain that there's only 6 months of payslips rather than 12 because we're relying on Category A income; that I haven't received this years P60; and that the start date of my employment in 2015 doesn't match on a couple of the documents (about 2 weeks out) because they decided to have me start earlier than expected at the time I signed the contract.

Sorry for the wall of text haha I think I'm overthinking a lot of it but little things like the GOV checklist could have easily caught us out if it wasn't for this site, and now I'm second guessing everything

Thank you!

Ok that's a good idea, I've made up a list of all the documents we have.

Applicant’s personal documents
 - Her passport (which we'll send to NY)
 - Copy of all current passport pages
 - Applicant’s letter of support

Sponsor’s personal documents
 - Copy of passport photo page
 - Copy of stamped pages (to show my travel to USA)
 - Sponsor’s letter of support

Sponsor’s employment documents
 - Payslips from last 6 months (7 payslips so the full 6 months is covered)
 - Employer payslips letter verifying the payslips
 - Employer letter confirming employment length, pay, how long I've been paid the current amount etc
 - Most recent P60 (from the 2020/21 tax year but it's all I have since I haven't received this years yet, would that be an issue?)
 - Signed job offer and T&Cs of employment from 2015 (which hopefully they will accept as a "contract" because it's all I have)

Sponsor’s bank documents
 - Bank statements from last 6 months (with monthly wages highlighted)

Accommodation documents
 - Copy of title deeds
 - Copy of most recent mortgage statement from June 2021
 - Most recent council tax bill to my address

Proof of relationship
 - Photographs of relationship
 - Order confirmation of engagement and wedding rings
 - Receipt for wedding dress
 - Document we received from company confirming our deposit and date of wedding (for some reason they didn't sign it, it's just a PDF with the information on it so hopefully this isn't an issue)

We also have screenshots of chat logs but are debating whether or not to include them because our checklist from the law firm specifically said not to, but to mention in the support letter that you'll supply them if requested

We've also just now realised from another thread on this site that the checklist you get from the gov website is supposed to be completed, signed and submitted to the VFS site at this stage, despite the checklist specifically telling us not to sign it until the appointment 

And I was also wondering if I should add a cover letter to just explain that there's only 6 months of payslips rather than 12 because we're relying on Category A income; that I haven't received this years P60; and that the start date of my employment in 2015 doesn't match on a couple of the documents (about 2 weeks out) because they decided to have me start earlier than expected at the time I signed the contract.

Sorry for the wall of text haha I think I'm overthinking a lot of it but little things like the GOV checklist could have easily caught us out if it wasn't for this site, and now I'm second guessing everything

The P60 and job contract are only optional anyway so that won't be a problem.

Are the same 6 full months covered with the bank statements as with the pay slips? Most people find they need to send 7 months of each to cover the same full 6 month period.
And  technically nothing should be highlighted.

Definitely do include the communication logs in your relationship evidence. Boarding passes are good too or copies of itineraries if you don't have those. Letters or cards too if you have them.

You can include that in your cover letter about the 6 vs 12 months. It's a glitch they've never bothered fixing! She doesn't need a cover letter unless there is anything that needs more explanation, usually arrests, that sort of thing.

The P60 and job contract are only optional anyway so that won't be a problem.

Are the same 6 full months covered with the bank statements as with the pay slips? Most people find they need to send 7 months of each to cover the same full 6 month period.
And  technically nothing should be highlighted.

Definitely do include the communication logs in your relationship evidence. Boarding passes are good too or copies of itineraries if you don't have those. Letters or cards too if you have them.

You can include that in your cover letter about the 6 vs 12 months. It's a glitch they've never bothered fixing! She doesn't need a cover letter unless there is anything that needs more explanation, usually arrests, that sort of thing.

Ok that's good to know about the P60 and contract, thank you.

Yeah the bank statements go back to the 20 September 2021 and cover up until about a week ago, and the first of the 7 payslips was on the 29th September so I think we should be good for statements and payslips. The checklist we bought from the law firm said they usually put a little * next to the wages on the statement which was why I did that, hopefully they are ok with this.

Ok I'll add in our chat logs, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do it just to be on the safe side, thanks.


I think the main questions I have left are just whether or not to upload scans of my fiancée's passport as well as sending the physical one. I might just see if I can find a way to compress the whole 32 pages into a single PDF so they have the option to ignore it if it's not needed.

Also maybe a silly question but for the cover letter would it be enough to just write a couple of paragraphs explaining the 6 vs 12 months thing and whatever else needs explained? Or is it almost like the support letter where I'd have to address it to the case worker, put my home address on it and sign and date it etc?

Ok I'll add in our chat logs, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do it just to be on the safe side, thanks.

Chat logs are absolutely essential.

You must show regular communication between you throughout the entire length of the relationship… and to do that, you need to show evidence of things like:
- chat logs
- phone/call logs
- email inbox screenshots

No actual chat content should be included, just a cropped screenshot of the name, date  and time of a selection of chats, spread evenly across the length of time you have been chatting. So if you have been chatting for say, 1 year, you want to screenshot maybe 1 chat per week. If it’s 2 years, then maybe 1 chat every 2 weeks etc.… then paste into Word and crop out the actual chat content. You should be able to get about 20-30 messages on a page, and you want to include no more than 2-3 pages total.

I think the main questions I have left are just whether or not to upload scans of my fiancée's passport as well as sending the physical one. I might just see if I can find a way to compress the whole 32 pages into a single PDF so they have the option to ignore it if it's not needed.

Yes, include a full scan of every passport she has held. Each file must not be more than, I think, 6MB and in black and white (to reduce file size), so you may need to split them up.

Check the scanning guidance on the VFS Global website in the Supporting Documents section.

Also maybe a silly question but for the cover letter would it be enough to just write a couple of paragraphs explaining the 6 vs 12 months thing and whatever else needs explained? Or is it almost like the support letter where I'd have to address it to the case worker, put my home address on it and sign and date it etc?

The cover letter just needs to address anything significant about the documents being included… Nothing else.

An example cover letter:

To The Entry Clearance Officer,

Please find enclosed my application and supporting documents for a marriage visa to join my fiancé in the UK. I would like my visa to start on [DATE] as per the intended travel date on the application form.

In regards to the financial documents provided, we meet Category A and therefore are providing 7 months of payslips and bank statements, however the supporting documents list on the online application states to send 12 months, which is not correct for Category A.

I am including the following documents with the application
[ list of documents]

Yours faithfully.
[APPLICANT’S NAME]


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