Evidence of living together (renewal)

Hi,

I really appreciated the help received on here when applying for my wife's spouse visa in 2016, and am now hoping I can draw on that same generosity and expertise to answer a few questions for the renewal.

Our main source of bamboozlement at this point is satisfying the correspondence re. proof of living together. We are really struggling to put together enough examples, either jointly or individually, and are trying to figure out the possibilities. 

Could I ask:

Are downloads of utility bills and council tax acceptable? I don’t see how we could get those downloads authorized (could be wrong?)

Do all downloaded bank statements need to be authorized by the bank – what’s the acceptable level of authorization?  – stamped AND signed? Is there wording for an accompanying letter?

Are bank statements that cover a given period acceptable? E.g. For May ’17 my wife has an HSBC statement that goes from March 17 to June 17, with May ‘17 transactions on it. (That one may be a stretch but we're really lacking...)

Huge thanks in advance,
Craig

Our main source of bamboozlement at this point is satisfying the correspondence re. proof of living together. We are really struggling to put together enough examples, either jointly or individually, and are trying to figure out the possibilities. 

Could I ask:

Are downloads of utility bills and council tax acceptable? I don’t see how we could get those downloads authorized (could be wrong?)

Do all downloaded bank statements need to be authorized by the bank – what’s the acceptable level of authorization?  – stamped AND signed? Is there wording for an accompanying letter?

Are bank statements that cover a given period acceptable? E.g. For May ’17 my wife has an HSBC statement that goes from March 17 to June 17, with May ‘17 transactions on it. (That one may be a stretch but we're really lacking...)

Huge thanks in advance,
Craig

For proof of living together, anything downloaded from online is not acceptable. Only items that were sent to one/both of you in the post can be submitted because that is how you show you were physically living in the same place at the date listed on the letter.

Hopefully one of the experts can pop by to help with your questions re: bank statements.

You can reorder paper copies of utility statements and bank statements. Paper copies posted to you count as originals. This is the better option for bank statements as some banks will be funny about certifying online printouts.

You can reorder paper copies of utility statements and bank statements. Paper copies posted to you count as originals. This is the better option for bank statements as some banks will be funny about certifying online printouts.

Reordering paper statements is fine for bank statements to meet the financial section, but won't work for the relationship section.  The point of the correspondence is to show that on six dates over the last two years the applicant and sponsor received post from official sources at the same address.

For purposes of the relationship correspondence, if you are using bank statements as an official correspondence, the date that is significant is the date it was posted to you, not the transaction dates contained within.

You can reorder paper copies of utility statements and bank statements.

That doesn't help for the correspondence evidence though, because the only date that will count is the date they were posted, not the date(s) covered by the statements.So, if you ordered them now, they would only count as correspondence evidence for July 2019.

Our main source of bamboozlement at this point is satisfying the correspondence re. proof of living together. We are really struggling to put together enough examples, either jointly or individually, and are trying to figure out the possibilities. 

In order to prevent this happening when it comes to renewing the visa, we always recommend that you turn OFF paperless billing for everything as soon as the visa holder arrives in the UK, so that you receive ALL bills and statements through the post... that way you will have plenty of evidence when it comes to the next visa.

Obviously, this may not help you now, for this application, but I would definitely get paper statements sorted out now so you can start saving them for the next visa in 2.5 years.

In terms of what you can do for this coming application, do you have ANY other mail you have both/each received over the last 2 years?

Things like:
- tenancy agreements or mortgage statements/letters
- phone bills
- TV/internet subscription bills/letters
- letters from your bank or credit card
- letters from the NHS
- letters from HMRC
- letters from DVLA
- letters from DWP
- TV licence letters
- original payslips/P60/tax breakdowns with your address on them
- letters from your employer(s)
- letters from the council (like for renewing annual bin collection subscriptions)

Has that changed? When I did FLR, we reordered utility statements and they counted as the date they had been originally posted (they had no other date on them).

Has that changed? When I did FLR, we reordered utility statements and they counted as the date they had been originally posted (they had no other date on them).

That is unusual. Normally when a company issues duplicates, they are dated on the day they are requested/sent. If yours were exact duplicates without the new date on them, you were lucky! 

Has that changed? When I did FLR, we reordered utility statements and they counted as the date they had been originally posted (they had no other date on them).

It's not changed but it sounds like you were very lucky to get them with the original dates on them. Obviously OP can try this but I wouldn't recommend it as it's massively risky.

Oh ok. Guess I lucked out then!

Thanks for the help folks.

Not being able to use originals is going to make things even more indigestion-inducing than already anticipated.

Nationwide provide a copy of the original statement with correct date when you download them, so I wonder if it's worth going into a branch and asking them to post 'original' copies - to be honest they would probably just print out what I've already done and stick them in an envelope, which would be pointless.

My wife's visa was issued in Dec 2016, and her official entry date into the UK was in Jan 2017.

I've got all of our originals laid out on the floor. The ones that fall in the same month are:

Aug 17 - Council Tax
Nov 17 - Bank Letter, Student Loan Company Letter
Jan 19 - Vodafone letter, BT letter
Mar 19 - Council Tax

Between that we have a smattering of things that fall close to each other, but not on the same month:
Jan 18 - Me, Feb 18 - Her
Aug 18- Her, Sept 18 - Me, Oct 18 - Her

And as far as originals goes, that's it. We could certainly try to get something delivered to her this month to satisfy July.

I do have the tenancy agreements for 21st Dec 2016, and 21st June 2019 - but they are electronically signed documents, downloaded off 'docusign' and don't actually have a date on them - other than the lease commencement dates.

So basically we do have some proof, but not in the quantity and regularity that they want it.
Not quite sure where to go from here - if I sent all of the above would they accept it but request an interview or just reject it outright?

Did you get a letter when you registered with the GP or applied for NI?  Any NHS appointment letters?  Anything from the DVLA for a provisional license?

While it won't be helpful for you on this visa just now, I would urge you to - going forward - hang on to every piece of useful mail (bank statements, NHS letters, bills, etc.) that come through to you going forward for the next visa. Make sure your bills are set to paper and file it away in a separate folder when it comes.

We will indeed be hanging onto things from now on.

And thanks for the ideas, Aquila.

After what I consider to be a thorough ransacking of our flat I now have this. Just taking the things that match in terms of months, and then with what there is, none of it matching for 2018:

Mar 17 - Bank Letters for myself and wife - MATCH
Aug 17 - Council Tax - MATCH
Nov 17 - Bank Letter, Student Loan Company Letter - MATCH

Jan 18 - Her,
Feb 18 - Me,
Mar 18 - Her

Aug 18 - Her,
Sept 18 - Me,
Oct 18 - Her

Jan 19 - Vodafone letter, BT letter -MATCH
Mar 19 - Council Tax - MATCH

July 19 - Me,  Can get for her I'm sure - IMPENDING MATCH

So I suppose the question is can I send all of this and include some form of cover letter?

Just wondering if anyone has any other thoughts on this - basically could we send the below originals with a letter of explanation, and if so what should we include in that letter?

Reading the description of the requirements it's clear that the last 2 years needs to be covered, with joint or combined separate (but same address) correspondence, but it doesn't actually seem to say that the separate letters have to be the same month. (?)

Mar 17 - Bank Letters for myself and wife - MATCH
Aug 17 - Council Tax - MATCH
Nov 17 - Bank Letter, Student Loan Company Letter - MATCH

Jan 18 - Wife,
Feb 18 - Me,
Mar 18 - Wife

Aug 18 - Wife,
Sept 18 - Me,
Oct 18 - Wife

Jan 19 - Vodafone letter, BT letter -MATCH
Mar 19 - Council Tax - MATCH

July 19 - Me,  Can get for her I'm sure - IMPENDING MATCH

Just for clarification, you do have items for 2018, but they aren't dated the same month?  Or are those the months of missing items completely?