Banks and Money and whatnot...

Hi all,

I was just wondering how everyone went about providing bank details etc. Basically my partner and I are gathering up all the documents for a Proposed Civil Partner (Fiance essentially) visa and obviously they're going to want to see money moving in accounts etc. Whilst my partner in the US has all his statements to hand, I've had all of mine done online, so am I going to need to get in contact with the banks and have them forward me copies of my statements upto date, or will the Embassy accept printouts from online statements?

Also, I've just finished Uni, so my accounts don't exactly look the best right now. I have already secured a job, which I start on Monday, and have agreed a lease on a flat which, I have managed to get in mine and my partner's name. To help get to where I my partner and I need to be, my parents have taken out a loan which they are depositing straight into my account, however I'm worried that the Embassy will think that suspicious, seeing that as up until now I have had very little in the accounts (hurrah for Student overdrafts). I've heard a lot of people say that a lot of the time, when they realise the sponsor has just left Uni and has a job secured they're a little less harsh on the money front, but I just wanted to know what you guys thought or if any of you have had any similar experiences??

Matt

Also, I've just finished Uni, so my accounts don't exactly look the best right now. I have already secured a job, which I start on Monday, and have agreed a lease on a flat which, I have managed to get in mine and my partner's name. To help get to where I my partner and I need to be, my parents have taken out a loan which they are depositing straight into my account, however I'm worried that the Embassy will think that suspicious, seeing that as up until now I have had very little in the accounts (hurrah for Student overdrafts). I've heard a lot of people say that a lot of the time, when they realise the sponsor has just left Uni and has a job secured they're a little less harsh on the money front, but I just wanted to know what you guys thought or if any of you have had any similar experiences??

Congrats.  I am registering my civil partnership with my partner in September.  I already have my entry clearence.  The process is VERY close to fiancee.

What does your partner's prospects look like money wise and job wise?  He should include his CV and his bank accounts.  Also, if your parents are friendly, and they sound like they are, there is nothing to keep from submitting a letter of support from them stating that if you guys have trouble getting settled that they would help support you.  What is especially useful is if they are willing to stay you can stay with them if necessary and they provide proof of their mortage, then it would be a total non-issue.  That would also help explain the recent funds.

Best of luck!

Thanks for the reply kitsonk.

My partner is relatively stable, money wise. Whilst we don't have a great amount between us, he has been working his socks off for the last few months in order to make sure all his bills are paid off and he has something in savings etc. Work-wise, he's just finishing his Associates but has a lot of background experience in areas of electrical and car mechanics - manual stuff. We were thinking it may be worth his while doing a modern apprenticeship once he was settled over here.

As far as support goes, unfortunatley my parents aren't quite as helpful as they seem. They're fine with getting us set up, but have basically said that it's upto us to make the best of this, and my Dad is highly neurotic about giving out personal details, especially to the government :/ What we do have, however, is my partners Mum writing a letter of support bascially saying that she's prepared to help us out money-wise if we should need it, and she's including the past 6 months of her bank statements, showing her significant wages each month.

Essentailly we have managed to arrange a deal with our landlord so that between my Dad and I, we are paying off the first 6 months of the rent, so the money I make each month will not include and rent payments until January. Of course, by this time, my partner, given he's in the country, will be able to work and, hence, can also start bringing in an income, but really the greatest worry is that with so much going out initially, we are going to be left with somewhere between £1,500 and £2,500 in savings (after moving, setting up the flat, organising utilities etc etc etc) and I don't want the Embassy declining his application simply based on what funds we have available right now. We have drawn up a 12 / 24 month budget to plan out how much we would be paying out and how much we'll be making, and in the long term it works out very well, though as I said, I'm just worried about the short-term outlook from the point of view of the Embassy!

I'm just worried about the short-term outlook from the point of view of the Embassy!

I think you should be ok.  You will want to include as much detail about your partners outlook and ability to get a job and earn money as you would about your own.  There are no hard and fast rules, but you are likely to be in the "ok" category with the current situation.  They hopefully are going to look and say "ah, a young couple just out of Uni with good job prospects, should be fine."

You are not going to raise any red flags on the relationship piece are you?  Meaning you both have actually met before in person and had a relationship for a while?  They are going to look at this as just like someone who is getting married.

Also, you realize there is a delay between him entering a company and actually being able to work.  It takes about 21 days to get through the whole process of giving notification and registering a civil partnership in England and Wales and then converting to an FRL-M.

Well, I should hope we don't raise any flags on our relationship! We've officially been together since January, when we both met in person for the first time (although we've known eachother since the previous October). But since then we've become pretty much unseperable (as much as you can with 5000 miles inbetweeen you), taking it in turns each month to visit for a fortnight or more. We've asked a few friends of ours to write supporting letters to confirm that they've met my partner, that we have met and that we are a couple etc etc. We're also including a tonne of IM coversations, Livejournal entries, Phone records, Pictures, Cards and so forth. We've been discussing the prospects of 'marriage' for quite a while and whilst we got officially engaged at the end of May, it's been pretty much a given for about a month before that. Suffice to say, if the US had the mechanisms in place, we would be doing this in reverse. Of course, it's just conveying this to someone who doesn't know of us and our relationship.

Yeah, we know about the delays (having spent the past 3 months researching the process top-to-toe). We've agreed to try and get a September ceremony and, therefore, have been looking hard at budgeting and so on to get the most out of the couple of months before we can apply for his FLR. Essentailly, we want to get us both in the same place and happily settled-in so that we have time to look at doing the Civil Partnership with a clear head and without the surrounding pressures of all this Visa stuff. We've agreed that while we could do it within weeks of him arriving in the country, we would rather wait a month or two to ensure that both he is comfortable living here for an indefinate amount of time, and that we can plan the ceremony together to best suit what we really want to get out of it - it may not officially be 'marrige', but that doesn't mean that it has any less significance for us as a couple, thus we want to treat it as such.

We've agreed that while we could do it within weeks of him arriving in the country, we would rather wait a month or two to ensure that both he is comfortable living here for an indefinate amount of time, and that we can plan the ceremony together to best suit what we really want to get out of it - it may not officially be 'marrige', but that doesn't mean that it has any less significance for us as a couple, thus we want to treat it as such.

I really think you should be all set then!

I know the feeling.  My partner and I are probablly actually going to wait a year after we register to have some sort of ceremony.  We have known each other for almost 7 years and are coming up on our 6 years together.  We were lucky to live together for 18 months in Ireland when I was working there, but as you know US immigration is not as kind and understanding as the UK is.  After a couple of denied entries for my UK partner, we realized that I would have to move to the UK.

We also have been inseperable over the past 6 years.  With as much distance between us I would not have thought we would have survived all the problems we have encountered, but somehow that has made us stronger.  We are lucky that both sides of our families are friendly and supportive.  In fact my family is so attached to my partner, and he to them, that everyone was gutted when he got denied entry to the US.

Anyways, best of luck!