What about ye?! Looking moveback 'home' to Northern Ireland...

Hello all, my name is Sal - been referred to this site by a lad at the britishexpats.com site and now hopeful of shedding some light on some issues re: immigrating back to the UK.

I'm an American married to the loveliest Northern Irishwoman ever - I previously lived/worked in NI for approx 10 years, up to 2012. We moved together here to the States afterwards, but as things have turned out, circs have force our hands and we have now begun process of moving back home to Northern Ireland.

She is now back in our hometown with our children, and I am very keen to begin the immigration process to join them permanently in the UK.

I previously held leave to remain, although it never materialized into UK residency or citizenship. To my chagrin.

I have retained all of my P60s and P45s, I have my NI number and British driver license, have a zero police record in the UK.

I am curious to be signposted and take advice on my circumstances with a view to identifying the correct visa route to take. I am also curious to know if my previous leave to remain and history in the UK counts for anything in this process?

I'm a wee bit confused re: the financial requirements as well - and again, I just want to get started on the right track so that I can become reunited as quickly as possible with my wife and our children. I REALLY do miss Northern Ireland - I have great memories and tons of friends and former work-mates - I'm even going on holiday back home in December, and I am determined to make the move permanently as quickly as possible and in the correct manner so as to avoid any delays or denial.

Thank you all in advance - I'm looking forward to getting to know as many of you as possible - as you can do on a forum lol - and learning as much as I can from your advice and suggestions, anecdotes and personal experiences.

All the best,
Sal   

Welcome to the forum .

I am curious to be signposted and take advice on my circumstances with a view to identifying the correct visa route to take. I am also curious to know if my previous leave to remain and history in the UK counts for anything in this process?

Unfortunately, because you didn't hold permanent residency (ILR) or gain UK citizenship, your previous leave to remain and time in the UK counts for nothing and you will now have to start from scratch with immigration again.

If you had held ILR, then it would only have been good for 2 years outside the UK, so you would have needed to move back within 2 years (by 2014) to keep it valid. So, the only way your previous UK residency would have helped would be if you had gained UK citizenship, in which case you could just get on a plane and move, same as your wife and kids.

Also unfortunately, the visa requirements are much stricter and much more expensive than when you were here before, as the UK government is very anti-immigration at the moment and are trying to make it as difficult as possible for people to move here.

You will need to apply for a spousal visa to join your family in the UK. This is valid for 33 months and costs £956 plus a £600 NHS levy (to give you NHS access).

It is issued as a 30-day vignette in your passport and you must enter the UK within those 30 days (or you will have to pay to apply for another 30-day vignette). Once you are in the UK, you will have to go to a designated post office within 10 days to pick up your actual visa, which will be in the form of a plastic BRP card (Biometric Residence Permit).

After 2.5 years in the UK, you will need to extend your spousal visa by applying for FLR(M), which is valid 2.5 years and currently costs £649 plus £550 NHS levy (the prices rise in April every year.

After 5 years in the UK, you can apply for ILR, which currently costs £1,500. Then after you have ILR, you can apply for citizenship, which is currently £1,005.

So, your visa journey will be:

- Spousal visa (33 months): £956+£600 = £1,556
- FLR(M) visa (30 months): £649+£500 = £1,149
- ILR (after 5 years): £1,500
- Citizenship: £1,005
Total visa fees to citizenship: £5,210

... but this could be significantly higher by the time you apply for each one due to the annual price increases of the visas.

I'm a wee bit confused re: the financial requirements as well - and again, I just want to get started on the right track so that I can become reunited as quickly as possible with my wife and our children.

Okay, so in order to qualify for the visa, you have to meet 3 main requirements:

1) Genuine relationship:
- your marriage certificate,
- a couple of photos of you and your wife together,
- evidence of living together in the UK and US over the last 10-15 years,
- evidence that you have still been in regular contact while your wife has been back in NI (so screenshots of email inboxes, phone records, Skype call logs etc.)

2) Accommodation requirement: evidence of somewhere suitable to live in the UK
If your wife owns:
- her land registry document
- latest original mortgage statement
If she is renting:
- original tenancy agreement
- letter from the landlord giving you permission to live there too when you arrive
If you will be staying with relatives/friends:
- their land registry document
- a letter from them giving you permission to live there and stating that the home will not be overcrowded

3) Financial requirement: this is generally on your wife to prove that she has a UK income high enough to support you (£18,600 or more), You cannot use any employment income from yourself to meet the requirement.

There are several financial requirement categories that you can apply under, so you need to see if you can meet one of them:

Category A: Salaried/Non-Salaried UK employment, with employer for at least 6 months
- your wife has been working at the same UK company, earning at least £18,600, for 6 months or more

Category B: Salaried/Non-Salaried UK employment, with employer for less than 6 months
- your wife has been working at a UK company, earning at least £18,600, for less than 6 months
AND
- your wife has earned at least £18,600 in total (in the US and/or UK) in the last 12 months

Category C: Non-employment income from you and/or your wife
- between you, you have non-employment income of at least £18,600 per year, which I believe you must have been receiving for at least 12 months and will continue after you have moved
- things like: rental income from property you own, interest from stocks, shares and dividends, academic stipends etc.

Category D: Cash Savings
- If your wife has no UK income, then you need to have held at least £62,500 in savings in full in your account(s) for at least 6 months
- If your wife is working in the UK, but doesn't quite meet the £18,600 requirement for Cat A OR the first part of Cat B, you can use savings to make it up, but the first £16,000 doesn't count and then on top of that, you need 2.5 times the difference between her salary and £18,600... so if she was earning £10,000, you would need in savings: £16,000 + (2.5 x £8,600) = £37,500
- If you own property in the US and will be selling it before you move, you can use the proceeds from the sale to meet the £62,500 requirement without it having to be in your account for 6 months... as long as you owned the property for at least 6 months before selling it.
- Money in pension savings accounts (i.e. 401K) can be used to meet the requirement as long as it's in liquid funds and can be immediately withdrawn

Category E: Pension Income:
- if either you or your wife receives pension income of £18,600 or more per year (either in the US or UK), you can use this to meet the requirement

Category F and G: Self-Employment Income
- your wife has been self-employed in the US and continues to be self-employed in the UK, and she has earned at least £18,600 after expenses but before tax in the last financial year (Cat F) or an average of £18,600 after expense and before tax in the last 2 financial years (Cat G)

So, you need to work out if you/your wife can meet any of these requirements (some can be combined, some can't) to see if you will be able to qualify for a visa. If you can't meet any of them, unfortunately, you won't be able to move back to NI.

_________________________________________________ ________________________

See here for more information:

The visa: https://www.gov.uk/join-family-in-uk/overview

The financial requirements: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/469692/Appendix_FM_1_7_Financial_Requirement_August_2015.pdf

The specifications for your evidence: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-fm-se-family-members-specified-evidence

List of suggested supporting documents: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/270197/sup-docs-settlement.pdf

Paper version of the online application form (for reference only): https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/274029/VAF4A.pdf

Second half of the application form, VAF4a Appendix 2, which you must print and fill out by hand - it has all the questions relevant to meeting the requirements of a spousal visa: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/270484/VAF4A-Appendix2.pdf

Hi ksand24,

Thank you for the welcome.

I'm very grateful to you for having taken the time to draft such a detailed and informative response. It's easy to follow the process as described, and it confirms what I already read about over the last year or so in terms of amendments to UK immigration requirements.

Indeed I am aware the Governnent has shifted to a more anti-immigration orientation; it does cater to increased public and political pressures but unfortunately does have the consequence of disadvantaging some UK citizens and their non-EEA spouses. Frustrating and a real shame.

Anyway - my biggest challenge will be the financial requirement as obviously there is a disadvantage in working with $ and not the £, although the requisite £64,000 figure is absurd in my opinion. The 6 month window requirement as much as the actual money.
I did also suspect with not having acquired ILR before leaving NI to settle in the States, that my previous time spent with leave to remain may mean little if anything.

Sigh.

I wonder: if we own a house in my wife's name already, can it be considered an asset to help meet the financial threshold? Prob not I guess in terms of it not being guaranteed as liquidity.

With her being a dual national I may have to explore the possibility of entering by way of Ireland; commuting to Dublin via rail from nearby Newry would be convenient enough and Dublin may also present increased employment opps compared to limiting sphere of Belfast.

I don't know, lots to consider here.

Anyway I digress, kand24 - again, thanks a million for drafting such a detailed, helpful response. It's given me an option to really think about, as well as force us to face these challenges in as systematic a way as possible.

Cheers - I hope your own day is going well, and I hope to have the benefit of your advice in the near future again, if possible.

All the best,
Sal

I'm very grateful to you for having taken the time to draft such a detailed and informative response.

No problem .

Indeed I am aware the Governnent has shifted to a more anti-immigration orientation; it does cater to increased public and political pressures but unfortunately does have the consequence of disadvantaging some UK citizens and their non-EEA spouses. Frustrating and a real shame.

Yes, it's very frustrating - unfortunately, because they can't do anything about EEA migration to the UK, they're tightening the non-EEA rules instead.

Anyway - my biggest challenge will be the financial requirement as obviously there is a disadvantage in working with $ and not the £, although the requisite £64,000 figure is absurd in my opinion. The 6 month window requirement as much as the actual money.

Yeah, it's sadly most people's biggest challenge and that was basically the point of the higher requirement... I think I read that when they brought the new financial requirement in, they estimated that about 45% of potential applicants would no longer qualify for the visa!

I did also suspect with not having acquired ILR before leaving NI to settle in the States, that my previous time spent with leave to remain may mean little if anything.

Even if you had acquired ILR though, unless you had moved back within 2 years of leaving the UK, you would still be in the same position today.

I wonder: if we own a house in my wife's name already, can it be considered an asset to help meet the financial threshold? Prob not I guess in terms of it not being guaranteed as liquidity.

Unfortunately not - it has to be in liquid, cash funds available for withdrawal immediately. If you were to sell the house, you could use the proceeds to meet the requirement (without waiting 6 months), but that's it.

With her being a dual national I may have to explore the possibility of entering by way of Ireland; commuting to Dublin via rail from nearby Newry would be convenient enough and Dublin may also present increased employment opps compared to limiting sphere of Belfast.

How will you do that though?

They have tightened the EEA rules for dual UK/Irish citizens too, which means that if she holds both Irish and UK citizenship, she cannot bring you to the UK using her Irish passport... she would have to renounce her UK citizenship and give it up completely in order to be able to bring you in under EEA rules.

So your possibilities would be:

1) Qualify for the UK spousal visa to live in NI by finding a way to meet the financial requirement

2) See if you can qualify for a spousal visa to live in Ireland instead of the UK... though that takes up to 6 months to be processed and also has an income requirement - your wife must have earned at least 40,000 Euros in total over the last 3 years (http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/Join%20Family).

3) Your wife renounces her UK citizenship and lives in NI as an EEA citizen exercising treaty rights... then she can bring you to NI as the non-EEA partner of an EEA citizen living in the UK. She must be exercising treaty rights though, either by working, looking for work, studying, or being self-sufficient.

As ksand24 has said, you do have a few options. I just wanted to add a bit more detail to the second option. The Irish immigration system is pretty different than the UK system. As a US citizen, you do not need a visa to enter Ireland, so there is no way to apply for a spousal visa from the US. The procedure is to enter on the visa waiver, and then go to the Garda National Immigration Bureau and apply to remain (Stamp 4 if I remember correctly.)  It's a pretty easy and painless process. If this is a route you want to consider, Drogheda and Dundalk would be locations that would give you pretty easy access to both Dublin and Belfast.  You could also check out the Americans in Ireland group on Facebook, they're really helpful there.

Regarding the third option, I just wanted to add that there is a cost of renouncing British citizenship, and it can take a few months to be finalized.

Something to keep in mind for the future... regardless of whether you live in NI or ROI, after living on the island for three years, you'll be eligible to apply for Irish citizenship