Reassurance/advice for a stressed wife dealing with FLR (M) please!

UKVI are allowing some leeway with documents at the moment, if you can't get hold of them all due to Covid restrictions, so you should be fine with what you have.

See here for the allowances being made due to Covid:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for-uk-visa-applicants-and-temporary-uk-residents#if-youre-applying-to-enter-the-uk-or-remain-on-the-basis-of-family-or-private-life

Thanks ksand24. That's what I'm hoping for too. I will upload the previous certificates that I got in 2017 too just in case.

Hoping to get the employer's letter tomorrow and will be back to update with it hopefully.

Thanks once again for your help!

Hi, I am back with an updated correspondence list and would really appreciate if anyone could cast their eyes over it:

September 2018
Joint Natwest Current Account statement

January 2019
Joint Natwest Current Account statement

May 2019
Polling Cards- Husband and myself

September 2019
Nest Pension letter- Husband
Natwest Savings Account Letter- Me

January 2020
Joint- Natwest Changes to Savings Account

May 2020
Joint Natwest Savings Account Statement

August 2020 (Technically should be September but our letters/statements arrive mostly at the end of the month and we are hoping to apply in the middle of the month)
Lloyds Current Account statement- Husband
Talk Talk bill- Me

I'm a bit worried there seems to be a lot of Natwest letters! Would these be counted as two separate sources (current account/savings account) or one as they are from the same bank? I do have another provisional list from Aug 2018-2020 in case there is something fundamentally wrong with this one?
 

Just edited my previous post for May 2020 as I found an actual statement that was posted to me!

Your documents look fine to me .

I'm a bit worried there seems to be a lot of Natwest letters! Would these be counted as two separate sources (current account/savings account) or one as they are from the same bank? I do have another provisional list from Aug 2018-2020 in case there is something fundamentally wrong with this one?

Nothing to be worried about... as long as you have at least 2 other sources, it doesn't matter how many Natwest letters you have.

You only need 3 sources and you have 4 sources in total... and they're all evenly spaced, so your documents meet the requirements perfectly .

Anything from a bank counts as 1 source only, so the Natwest statements, Natwest letters and Lloyds account statement are all 1 source... but you also have 3 other sources, so no issues there.

So, as a summary, you have:

September 2018
1. Joint = Natwest Current Account statement (Source 1)

January 2019
2. Joint = Natwest Current Account statement

May 2019
3. Applicant = Polling Card (Source 2)
3. Sponsor = Polling Card

September 2019
4. Applicant: Nest Pension letter (Source 3)
4. Sponsor: Natwest Savings Account Letter

January 2020
5. Joint = Natwest Changes to Savings Account

May 2020
6. Joint = Natwest Current Account statement

August 2020
7. Applicant = Lloyds Current Account statement
7. Sponsor = Talk Talk bill (Source 4)

Thank you so very much for your swift reply and support. You have saved me a lot of grief and late-night stresses. Thank you very much for letting me know about all bank statements being classed as one source. Honestly I thought that if they were from different banks, they would be separate sources. I'm glad to be finding this out now rather than later.

I think we are just waiting for the employer letter and arrival of last few payslips/bank statements and hopefully will be ready to apply. And I'm sure I will be back with more queries. Apologies and a million thank yous in advance!

Thank you so very much for your swift reply and support. You have saved me a lot of grief and late-night stresses. Thank you very much for letting me know about all bank statements being classed as one source. Honestly I thought that if they were from different banks, they would be separate sources. I'm glad to be finding this out now rather than later.

The thing about the sources is that they need to be from different TYPES of institution or organisation, so documents from different named companies within the same type of organisation (such as Natwest bank and Lloyds bank) still just count as 1 source: a financial institution.

I think we are just waiting for the employer letter and arrival of last few payslips/bank statements and hopefully will be ready to apply. And I'm sure I will be back with more queries. Apologies and a million thank yous in advance!

Fingers crossed they all arrive soon .

Hi, have finally got the employment letter this week but there was an issue so we have been trying to sort it out.

The letter states:

This letter is to confirm that applicant is employed as a permanent employee on a full time basis. He is employed as a FC Associate I and commenced employment on Feb 2 2020. Their annual base salary is £19,760 GBP.

Now I remember when applying for the spouse visa that the letter also needs to state how long the person has been paid at this wage rate which is obviously missing from the above letter. So husband went to his local HR department to try and add this one sentence on to the letter and unfortunately they said it cannot be done from their office and has to be done from head office.

It took a few days to find this contact information and we were provided with another letter with a different format which states:

This letter confirms that applicant is a permanent full time employee with Amazon.
Start date: 2 Feb 2020
Pay frequency: Weekly
Business title: FC Associate I
Hourly Salary: £9.50 GBP
Annual Salary: £19,760 GBP
Contracted Hours: 40 hours weekly
DOB
Address

Additionally I can confirm that applicant is being paid effective 2 Feb 2020.


Its this last sentence which is throwing me off as it doesn't explicitly state he is being paid at that rate from Feb 2020. Plus here they have mentioned his hourly pay as well as annual so I don't know if that will cause issues re: salaried/non- salaried.

Or I don't know if the letter is okay and I am just over-analysing?

Would it be okay for me to upload both letters or just the second one?

Thanks again for reading through.

Quick question first:

Is his job salaried or non-salaried?

This is very important as it affects how UKVI calculate his last 6 months of income... which will determine whether or not the visa requirements are met.

Salaried = fixed annual salary of £19,760, regardless of actual hours worked each week.

Non-Salaried = no fixed annual salary, but is paid an hourly wage of £9.50, contracted for 40 hours per week... and is only paid for actual hours worked

If he is salaried, the annual income is calculated as follows =

Lowest weekly payslip (before tax) x 52 weeks = Total annual income of at least £18,600
or
Lowest monthly payslip (before tax) x 12 months = Total annual income of at least £18,600

If he is non-salaried, the income is calculated as follows:

(Total of all the payslips added together / number of weekly payslips) x 52 weeks = Average annual income of at least £18,600
OR
(Total of all the payslips added together / number of monthly payslips) x 12 months = Average annual income of at least £18,600

Now, the first letter mentions an annual salary of £19,760 and nothing about an hourly wage/contracted hours, but the second letter mentions both an annual salary AND an hourly wage and contracted hours... which implies he is both salaried and non-salaried at the same time - and he cannot be both.

What does his official contract say? Does it have a fixed annual salary or £19,760, or a non-salaried hourly wage of £9.50 with contracted hours of 40 hours per week?

Thank you for your reply.

This is the dilemma I've been having ever since starting this process! His contract states his normal hours of work are 40 hours a week and to be paid at 9.50 per hour. So with the information you provided in your last post, this means he is non- salaried?

The problem is with these employment letters as they are stating both types of salaries and I am really unsure which letter to go with?

With non- salaried, husband's wages for all weeks will be £380 (including holiday pay and excluding overtime) so I'm hoping the calculation and final amount would be the same for both salaried and non-salaried.

Thanks once again.

Thank you for your reply.

This is the dilemma I've been having ever since starting this process! His contract states his normal hours of work are 40 hours a week and to be paid at 9.50 per hour. So with the information you provided in your last post, this means he is non- salaried?

Yes, he is non-salaried.

The problem is with these employment letters as they are stating both types of salaries and I am really unsure which letter to go with?

With non- salaried, husband's wages for all weeks will be £380 (including holiday pay and excluding overtime) so I'm hoping the calculation and final amount would be the same for both salaried and non-salaried.

Unfortunately, you are going to need a whole new letter written up, which does NOT have the words 'annual base salary' written anywhere on it... because he does not have an annual base salary (i.e. the £19,760 is the total annual INCOME he receives, based on an £9.50 hourly WAGE, working 40 hours/week).

The letter MUST explicitly state that he is NON- SALARIED on it.

So, it should say something like:

This letter is to confirm that applicant is employed as a non-salaried, permanent employee on a full time basis. He is employed as a FC Associate I and commenced employment on Feb 2 2020. He is paid an hourly wage of £9.50 and is contracted to work 40 hours per week, which works out to be an annual income of £19,760.

If it is not explicitly stated that he is NON-salaried, they will use the salaried calculation, which could cause a visa refusal if any of the payslips are too low.

We had one applicant on the forum a couple of years ago whose employer letter stated they were salaried, when they were actually non-salaried. And even though they met the requirement based on the non-salaried calculation, UKVI used the salaried calculation which came to less than £18,600 because the lowest payslip was less than the required amount... and the visa was incorrectly refused.

Thank you once again ksand24 for your help. I will get husband to compose the email and send it off right away. Will be back to update again.

Back again with the 3rd employment letter. Asked HR to make the changes you mentioned ksand24. They have removed the annual salary but did not mention non-salaried even though we specifically requested them to do so.

This is the full text:

This letter confirms applicant is a full time permanent employee.

Start date: 2 February 2020
Pay frequency: Weekly
Business title: FC Associate I
Hourly Salary: £9.50
Contracted Hours: 40 hours weekly
DOB
Address

Additionally I can confirm that applicant is being paid effectively 2 February 2020.

I hope this will be enough? Husband is not keen to ask for another letter as they were reluctant to give us a third version. I don't know why they couldn't just add this non-salaried phrase on to the letter!

I am planning to upload a financial summary document too detailing the calculations as to how we meet the financial requirement.

Thanks in advance.

Back again with the 3rd employment letter. Asked HR to make the changes you mentioned ksand24. They have removed the annual salary but did not mention non-salaried even though we specifically requested them to do so.

This is the full text:

This letter confirms applicant is a full time permanent employee.

Start date: 2 February 2020
Pay frequency: Weekly
Business title: FC Associate I
Hourly Salary: £9.50
Contracted Hours: 40 hours weekly
DOB
Address

Additionally I can confirm that applicant is being paid effectively 2 February 2020.

I hope this will be enough? Husband is not keen to ask for another letter as they were reluctant to give us a third version. I don't know why they couldn't just add this non-salaried phrase on to the letter!

Hopefully it will be fine - I can't say for absolute sure, but given that it does not mention an annual salary and does mention an hourly-wage and contracted hours, I would hope they will calculate it using the non-salaried calculation.

The issue the other person had with their letter which caused the refusal was that it explicitly said that they were salaried when they weren't, which was incorrect information and caused an incorrect calculation of the income.

Thank you once again ksand24. I hope so too. The procedure is stressful enough without these small niggles cropping up! Before applying for the spouse visa, I had no idea there were such things as salaried and non-salaried but I understand the Home Office have their own rules and ways of looking at things!