Document checklist for disabled spouse on spouse visa

Hey everyone. Looking for some advice on getting a spouse visa for my American wife who is in a wheelchair.

I'm not sure if her inability to currently work a full time job will harm her chances of getting a visa.

Also I am looking for a full checklist of the documentation I would need before beginning the spouse visa process.

I am in the U.K. right now, and she is in the U.S.. She has been here many times before for vacation and never over stayed. She has paid for a doctors visit over here but has also had emergency walk ins that the doctor wanted no money for even after we explained her visa situation. I make over 30k a year and have done for 6 months now.

I believe that is all of the important information, but if anything else is needed ask away and I will answer.

Thanks for your time and experience, your help is much appreciated

Joe Cusack

Hey everyone. Looking for some advice on getting a spouse visa for my American wife who is in a wheelchair.

I'm not sure if her inability to currently work a full time job will harm her chances of getting a visa.

It makes absolutely no difference in regards to getting a visa. You don't necessarily need to mention her disability in the application, unless it relates to an aspect of the application (i.e. explaining medical care in the UK, or reasons why she is moving).

Also I am looking for a full checklist of the documentation I would need before beginning the spouse visa process.

There is no definitive list, because the documents you have to send will depend on your personal situation and the category under which you are meeting the financial requirement for the visa.

If you can give us some more information about how you meet each requirement of the visa, we can help you work out which documents you need.

Namely:
- where you will live in the UK
- how you meet the financial requirement (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/525708/Appendix_FM_1_7_Financial_Requirement.pdf)
- the history of your relationship (how you communicate, how often you visit each other etc.)

I am in the U.K. right now, and she is in the U.S.. She has been here many times before for vacation and never over stayed. She has paid for a doctors visit over here but has also had emergency walk ins that the doctor wanted no money for even after we explained her visa situation.

She'll need to list her NHS care on her application form and provide receipts from her payment. If the emergency care was truly classed as an emergency, she didn't need to pay, but it may be worth contacting the hospital/centre she went to, to confirm she didn't need to pay (hopefully getting it in writing), or to get a bill (and pay it) if it turns out she did need to pay.

As long as she has paid for any care she was supposed to pay for, it will be fine. The issue comes if she has more than £500 in unpaid NHS debt... which is an automatic visa refusal.

I make over 30k a year and have done for 6 months now.

Ah, okay, if you have been making over 30K with the same company for more than 6 months, you will probably be applying under financial requirement Category A (employment income of over £18,600 per year, with same employer for 6 months or more).

We have been married for 10 years and talk daily on messenger. I am a U.S. Citizen and we have moved to London to be with my family (this is where I grew up and left in 2007).
We were given horrible advice from someone at the visa department here and thought she could come over on a tourist visa, and as long as I met requirements she could stay. That wasn't the case and so to avoid her over staying her 6 month tourist visa, we got her on a plane back to the U.S..
I understand I probably need my job to confirm my employment, length of employment and salary so I will be contacting them to do this soon.
She has a return ticket back to London that I will be delay till closer to the end of June as we will be filing an expedited visa application in a couple of weeks from now (officially 6 months at my current job with bank statements showing 6 months paycheques)

We have been married for 10 years and talk daily on messenger. I am a U.S. Citizen and we have moved to London to be with my family (this is where I grew up and left in 2007).

I'm assuming you are also a UK citizen? (based on saying you grew up here, I assume you are)

We were given horrible advice from someone at the visa department here and thought she could come over on a tourist visa, and as long as I met requirements she could stay. That wasn't the case and so to avoid her over staying her 6 month tourist visa, we got her on a plane back to the U.S..

That's good - glad you realised that before she went over 6 months . As you have now found out, she must apply for and be granted her spousal visa before she enters the UK to live.

I understand I probably need my job to confirm my employment, length of employment and salary so I will be contacting them to do this soon.

Yes, for the financial requirement of the visa, you will need ALL of the following:

- 6 full months of original payslips showing a minimum of £1,550 before tax on each one
- 6 full months of original bank statements showing the deposit of every single payslip
- a letter from your employer stating ALL of the following:
(i) the person's employment and gross annual salary;
(ii) the length of their employment;
(iii) the period over which they have been or were paid the level of salary relied upon in the application; and
(iv) the type of employment (permanent, fixed-term contract or agency).

Optional but recommended as they may ask for them:
- your original job contract
- your latest P60

She has a return ticket back to London that I will be delay till closer to the end of June as we will be filing an expedited visa application in a couple of weeks from now (officially 6 months at my current job with bank statements showing 6 months paycheques)

Okay, at the moment, spousal visa processing is around 4-6 weeks if you pay for priority processing and around 3 months or so for non-priority processing (people who applied in February non-priority still don't have their visas yet).

However, the timeline for applying is tight, so she needs to make sure she has ALL the documents before she applies online.

Your most recent bank statement, payslip and the employer letter must be dated within 28 days of the date she applies online and pays for the visa.

The general timeline:
- research the visa and work out all the documents that are required
- gather all the documents
- courier the documents to her in the US
- she prints and completes the VAF4a Appendix 2 form
- she completes the online application
- when she has every single document in her hands, she submits the online application, pays for the visa and the IHS surcharge and books a biometrics appointment at a local USCIS center in the US
- she attends the biometrics appointment, taking with her her passport and appointment confirmation sheet. The sheet will be stamped at the appointment.
- within 5 days of the biometrics appointment, she must mail her application forms, passport, stamped sheet and documents to Sheffield for processing, purchasing priority processing (and shipping labels) if required
- she waits for the visa to be processed (allow up to 2 months for this)
- the visa will be mailed back to her in the US
- she will have 30 days from the visa start date to enter the UK
- within 10 days of arriving in the UK, she must pick up her BRP card (the actual visa) from a designated UK post office

My general list of supporting documents for a category A application:

Applicant (US citizen)
- Printed online application form (don't submit until she has all the documents in her hands and is completely ready to mail the application package to Sheffield)
- Completed VAF4a Appendix 2 form
- Stamped Biometrics Confirmation Sheet (when she has attended the biometrics appointment)
- Receipt for IHS surcharge payment
- 2 passport photos (they can be US size (2 inches by 2 inches) or UK size (45 mm by 35 mm, which is 1.77 inches by 1.38 inches))
- Her current US passport
- All of her previous passports
- Optional cover letter (contents letter)
- Proposed flight itinerary
- Receipt for priority processing (if paying for priority)
- Return shipping labels
 
Sponsor (UK citizen)
- Certified copy of your UK passport photo page
- Sponsor letter of support for the visa, stating:
i) how you are eligible to sponsor the visa (his UK citizenship),
ii) how you meet the financial requirement (which category and details of current employment),
iii) where you will live together in the UK (accommodation details),
iv) a brief history of your relationship (no more than 1 paragraph, where/how you met, when you got married, where/when you have lived together in the US, how you've been in contact since returning to the UK and why you are choosing to settle in the UK now)
v) a list of all the documents you are including in the application package to support the above requirements

Accommodation
If you own:
- your Land Registry document (can be downloaded from here for a small fee: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry)
- your latest original mortgage statement (if applicable)

If you rent:
- your original tenancy agreement with your name on it
- a letter from your landlord giving her permission to live there when she gets her visa

If you will live with family or friends:
- a letter from the homeowner giving you both permission to live there and stating that the home will not be overcrowded
- their Land Registry document
- their latest original mortgage statement


Finances
Category A:
- 6 months of original payslips showing earnings of at least £1,550 per month before tax
- 6 months of original bank statements showing the deposit of every payslip
- original letter from your current employer

Optional but recommended as the guidance says they may ask for them:
- his original job contract
- his latest P60 (issued April 2016)

Relationship evidence
- marriage certificate
- 1 or 2 photos of you together
- evidence of living together in the US since 2007 (tax returns, house deeds/rental agreements, utility bills etc.)
- boarding passes from trips to see each other (since living apart)
- any physical letters and cards sent to each other (since living apart)
- screenshots of your email inbox/Skype call logs/message logs showing a selection of emails/calls/messages (subject line and date only) sent to each other since living apart

It's important to show regular communication while she has been back in the US and you in the UK, to show that the relationship is still subsisting. However, no actual message content should be included, just evidence of sending them. If you talk daily, I would just include evidence of maybe 1 or 2 messages per week (or maybe less frequent, depending on how long you've been apart).

How soon after applying is she likely to get a biometrics appointment? Within a week? This deadline of 28 days for time sensitive documents is a real pain in the ass

Also what exactly is a certified copy of my passport page for supporting documents? Sorry there has been a gap in my questions, I have been working night shifts so getting all of this together and work are taking up my time

How soon after applying is she likely to get a biometrics appointment? Within a week? This deadline of 28 days for time sensitive documents is a real pain in the ass

Usually you can get a biometrics appointment within a few days, although it is usually possible to do a walk-in appointment a few days earlier than your booked appointment if you need to.

However, the 28-day deadline for financial documents is 28 days from the date the online application is submitted, which is before you attend the biometrics appointment. She should not apply online until all the documents are in her hands.

So it's a case of getting the documents first, and then making sure that she submits the online application no more than 28 days after they are dated.

So, say, for example, her timeline is:
28th May = submit the online application
31st May = attend biometrics
1st June = mail the documents to Sheffield
That means your latest payslip and bank statement must be dated no earlier than April 30th (28 days before May 28th).

Or the other way around:
- your latest payslip and bank statement are dated May 9th (today)
- therefore she has until June 6th to submit her online application
- she then attends biometrics and mails the application after that

Also what exactly is a certified copy of my passport page for supporting documents?

It means that you photocopy the page of your passport with your photo on it and get it certified by someone qualified, to verify that it is a true copy of the original.

You should be able to get this done at a UK Post Office for about £8 or £10.

Sorry there has been a gap in my questions, I have been working night shifts so getting all of this together and work are taking up my time

No worries - I work night shifts too (I'm switching from days to nights today... I start work in 2.5 hours) .

Yep rotating shifts suck. Thank you so much for sharing your vast knowledge on this with us.

I will be traveling back to Minnesota with all of the documents on the 27th of this month for a week. I'm hoping to go through as much of this process with her as possible. As long as we can get most of this done within a week of me being there, then I might be able to sleep easy

I'm surprised that they want a piece of paper stating that the landlord is happy with her to live at the property. We rent from an agency and it shouldn't be too hard for them to write a letter stating that its fine.

I'm surprised that they want a piece of paper stating that the landlord is happy with her to live at the property. We rent from an agency and it shouldn't be too hard for them to write a letter stating that its fine.

Why are you surprised?

It's a requirement to show that she has permission from the homeowner to live in the property. As she cannot be legally named on the lease yet, the landlord needs to confirm in writing that she will be allowed to live there once she has the visa.


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Lol I thought I was allowed to have whomever I'm with stay at my place of residence. I'm trying to remember what I went through to get initial temporary residence in the U.S..

Lol I thought I was allowed to have whomever I'm with stay at my place of residence. I'm trying to remember what I went through to get initial temporary residence in the U.S..

You can't compare US immigration with UK immigration - they are completely different.

The accommodation requirements for the UK spousal visa state:

6. MAA6 Accommodation: general requirements
The ECO must be satisfied as to:

- The availability and adequacy of accommodation (see MAA14 below).
- That (where applicable) the permission of the owner of the accommodation has been given
- No additional public funds will be necessary for accommodating the applicant in cases where the sponsor lives in accommodation from public funds. (see guidance on public funds - MAA2)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/maintenance-and-accommodation-maa/maintenance-and-accommodation-maa--2#maa6-accommodation-general-requirements

And

11. MAA11 Adequacy of accommodation

The ECO’s judgement should be based on the evidence from the applicant. If the ECO is not sure of the credibility of the applicant, he / she should ask to see a letter from the owner of the property (which may be a housing authority, housing association, landlord or a building society). This should confirm particulars of tenure and occupation of the dwelling, together with a description of the accommodation and, if rented, a copy of the lease.

The onus is on the applicant to provide confirmation that there is no objection to an additional resident moving into the accommodation.


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Good to know. I will be asking them to mail that to me asap. This is again