Spouse Visa - Cash Savings Outstanding Loan Question

Hi all, hope you are all keeping well as can be during  this hectic year!

Getting ready to apply for my spouse visa through the cash savings route and are mostly there with all the paper work. This forum has been great and we are very grateful to have found you =)

We believe that we have passed the required £62500 savings requirement since June this year and will be providing bank statements (in the name of myself and husband solely) covering  June 1st to December(end) 2020 for an application hopefully around the 10th of January 2021.

However there's a point of concern that we kindly seek clarity on;

My husband took out a loan to help pay for our wedding back in May 2018 (the  funds were effected to his account on the 27th of April 2018). 

He has since paid off the full outstanding amount on the 28th October 2020  and received a letter confirming full settlement from the bank. We have still remained above the necessary savings requirement since June 2020.

Will the ECO deduct the outstanding loan amount from June from our total savings at that time? My husband is able to provide bank statements from April/May 2018 showing the full loan sum being paid out to our wedding venue and suppliers; all dated within 8 days of receiving the loan (funds received 27/04/18 followed by full loan sum leaving account by 05/05/18) 

Would this be enough to justify that the loan was not borrowed in an attempt to meet the savings requirement?

Sincerely appreciate any insights you have.

 

With gratitude,
Brenda

Welcome to the forum .

We believe that we have passed the required £62500 savings requirement since June this year and will be providing bank statements (in the name of myself and husband solely) covering  June 1st to December(end) 2020 for an application hopefully around the 10th of January 2021.

Just to note here that the bank statement will need to cover the day of January 1st 2021 as well, otherwise you will be 1 day short of 6 months (which will be 1st June 2020 to 1st January 2021)

We usually recommend sending 7 months of statements to show your savings cover every single day of the 6 months.

Will the ECO deduct the outstanding loan amount from June from our total savings at that time? My husband is able to provide bank statements from April/May 2018 showing the full loan sum being paid out to our wedding venue and suppliers; all dated within 8 days of receiving the loan (funds received 27/04/18 followed by full loan sum leaving account by 05/05/18) 

The ONLY thing that matters is that the balance in your savings account did NOT dip below £62,500 for even 1 day during the 6-month period.

Any other money going in or out of the account on top of the £62,500 will ignored.

Therefore, your loan is completely irrelevant to your application and will not even be looked at. He does not need to provide any statements or paperwork relating to the loan.

Many thanks for the prompt reply ksand! 

Duly noted regarding the 7 months of statements and we will supply this as you suggested.

What you've said re the loan really helps ease our worries too. 

If I may; on my husband's bank statements (which is a current account), there is a monthly direct debit which says "Personal Loan" in the description. These are debited on the 27th of each month and are shown in the bank statements we are providing (until 28th October when he paid off the loan in full i.e. no more "Personal Loan" debits on the 27th November).

Will the ECO not query details of the "Personal Loan" as they can see it reflected in the statements?

Thanks again for your help!

Brenda

Nope.

As long as the total balance doesn’t drop below £62,500 on any day, they don’t care about the actual transactions on the statements.

Literally all they will look at is the total balance on each day and then tick a box to say that you meet the requirement.


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Thank you very much ksand; that's great to hear!

Will keep y'all updated on how our financial, accommodation and relationship document collation goes and will no doubt seek your guidance if there's any other questions.

Hope everyone enjoys the run up to Christmas!

 

Sincerely,

Brenda

You can earn £18,600 a year and have a mortgage repayment of £100,000 per year and you still qualify for the visa.  It’s not a wholly logical process.   

Hi everyone, hope your 2021 is off to a positive start!

PS KFDancer -  LOL, this is what we have discovered during this process!

We are almost ready to apply ... it's nerve-wrecking/exciting at the same time!
A couple of questions if we could seek your advice?

Financial

1a) For the cash savings declaration(s) would the following three statements suffice for each of our three accounts? (First is mine, second is husband's and third is joint)

And

1b) Do we need to supply a separate letter stating the same in our list of documents? :

Cash Savings Declaration:
- Account XXXXXXXX - The source of cash savings is from employment income/bonuses over the years,  signed by Me
- Account XXXXXXXX - The source of cash savings is from employment income over the years, signed by Hubby
- Account XXXXXXXX - The source of cash savings is from Wedding gifts given to us from guests on our wedding day, May 2018, signed by me and hubby (Please say that we don't have to get letters from ALL our guests...)

1c) Sorry if this next one is a bit confusing. For my account, I have ordered and received a consolidated paper statement from my bank covering the dates 1st July 2020 to 15th February 2021. This is not split by month and is a long running list of all transactions within that period (it states X of 5 pages on the bottom). The first three entries consist of 1) interest 2) BIG deposit 3) BIG withdrawal. Entry 4) has the correct balance as of July 1st. This is because the consolidated statement combines the total money in and out for the life of the account.  Should I explain this in my cover letter?

Accommodation
2a) My mother in law is supplying (i) copy of Title Deed, (ii) copy of her driving license as well as (iii) a letter granting me permission to stay in the house indefinitely. Is this all that's required and are originals needed?

2b) Both my father and mother in law's names are on the Title Deed. As my father in law is not in the country, mother in law was going to sign the letter on his behalf. Would this pose a potential hiccup?
 The letter states the following:
   I am writing to confirm that my daughter in law, XXXXXXXX, has been given permission to stay at our premises indefinitely with my son XXXXXXXX

Our address is : XXXXXXXX

My husband and I solely own the property and the building has 5 bedrooms and 3 occupants thus it will not be overcrowded.

There is no outstanding mortgage and I am enclosing te property's title deed and identification as proof of ownership.

As my husband is out of the country and unable to travel due to COVID restrictions, I am signing on his behalf.

Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards,

XXXXXXXX

General
3) For things like boarding passes/ E-tickets/Marriage cert/UK Naric English Proficiency/ Degree cert etc... If I photocopy these and bring both the originals and copies to the biometric appointment will I get to keep the originals?

Apologies to collate all the above in one go and if anything needs further explaining please let me know!

With thanks,
Brenda

Financial

1a) For the cash savings declaration(s) would the following three statements suffice for each of our three accounts? (First is mine, second is husband's and third is joint)

And

1b) Do we need to supply a separate letter stating the same in our list of documents? :

Cash Savings Declaration:
- Account XXXXXXXX - The source of cash savings is from employment income/bonuses over the years,  signed by Me
- Account XXXXXXXX - The source of cash savings is from employment income over the years, signed by Hubby
- Account XXXXXXXX - The source of cash savings is from Wedding gifts given to us from guests on our wedding day, May 2018, signed by me and hubby (Please say that we don't have to get letters from ALL our guests...)

You need:
- A one-sentence statement from both of you saying that the source of cash savings is from employment income (this may be part of the online application - I can't remember if a separate paper statement is needed for US-based applications or not).

- A letter from each person who has gifted you money, stating that the money is a gift only and does not need to be repaid.

1c) Sorry if this next one is a bit confusing. For my account, I have ordered and received a consolidated paper statement from my bank covering the dates 1st July 2020 to 15th February 2021. This is not split by month and is a long running list of all transactions within that period (it states X of 5 pages on the bottom). The first three entries consist of 1) interest 2) BIG deposit 3) BIG withdrawal. Entry 4) has the correct balance as of July 1st. This is because the consolidated statement combines the total money in and out for the life of the account.  Should I explain this in my cover letter?

I would just include a sentence explaining what the large deposit and withdrawals were for.

Accommodation
2a) My mother in law is supplying (i) copy of Title Deed, (ii) copy of her driving license as well as (iii) a letter granting me permission to stay in the house indefinitely. Is this all that's required and are originals needed?

You need:
- the Title Deed
- the letter from her giving you permission to live there and stating the property details, including number of bedrooms + living rooms and total occupants of the house (to show no overcrowding)

I don't think you actually need her driver's licence, but the application may ask for it, so you can include it if you want.

2b) Both my father and mother in law's names are on the Title Deed. As my father in law is not in the country, mother in law was going to sign the letter on his behalf. Would this pose a potential hiccup?
 The letter states the following:
   I am writing to confirm that my daughter in law, XXXXXXXX, has been given permission to stay at our premises indefinitely with my son XXXXXXXX

Our address is : XXXXXXXX

My husband and I solely own the property and the building has 5 bedrooms and 3 occupants thus it will not be overcrowded.

There is no outstanding mortgage and I am enclosing te property's title deed and identification as proof of ownership.

As my husband is out of the country and unable to travel due to COVID restrictions, I am signing on his behalf.

Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards,

XXXXXXXX

I would also get your father-in-law to write an letter (or an email) confirming this and stating that he is happy for you to live in the house.

General
3) For things like boarding passes/ E-tickets/Marriage cert/UK Naric English Proficiency/ Degree cert etc... If I photocopy these and bring both the originals and copies to the biometric appointment will I get to keep the originals?

You don't take anything to the biometrics appointment except your passport and biometrics appointment confirmation letter.

Biometrics is done by US immigration on behalf of UKVI - they don't care what visa you are applying for and have nothing to do with your application. You walk in, they take your fingerprints and photo, and you walk out again... doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes.

All documents are now scanned and uploaded to the VFS Global website before you attend biometrics and the only thing you mail anywhere is your passport, biometrics confirmation sheet and return packaging to the New York scanning hub, which need to be mailed within 5 days of attending your biometrics appointment.

Alternatively, you can pay for New York to scan the documents for you, but it costs $125 or $150 (including either return or round trip shipping) and you have to mail all the documents to New York and then wait until the visa has been processed before you get them back (photocopies can be sent though).

See here for how to upload the documents:
https://www.vfsglobal.co.uk/us/en/vacs/supporting-documents

And for more information about applying in the US:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/usa-apply-for-a-uk-visa/apply-for-a-uk-visa-in-the-usa

Thanks Ksand24 for the quick reply!

We'll update you soon and hopefully we will be ready to submit then!

Hi Everyone!!

We are more or less ready to apply, seeking assistance in double checking our list:


Applicant’s Documents
- Priority processing receipt
- Return shipping details/ label
- Return shipping packaging
- Applicant’s Cover/ Contents letter
- Application
- Appendix 2 of VAF 4A
- IHS payment receipt
- Stamped biometrics sheet
- 1 Current Passport
- 2 Old/Expired Passports
- 1 passport photo
-  UK NARIC Academic Qualification Level Statement
- Degree Certificate
- Travels over the Past 10 years (Extension to what was filled in the online application; it doesn't allow more than 30 entries)

Sponsor’s Documents
- Certified Copy of Spouse Passport Page
- Certified copy of ILR Vignette page
- Sponsorship Letter

Financial Documents
- 7 Months of Applicant’s Bank Statements
-7 Months of Sponsor’s Bank Statements
- 7 Months of Joint Bank Statements
- Declaration of Applicant’s source of cash savings
- Declaration of Sponsor’s source of cash savings
- Joint declaration of source of cash savings
- Wedding Gifts Declaration Letters from Guests
- Birthday Gift Declaration Letter from Parent
- 7 Months Balance Summary across 3 accounts

Accommodation Evidence
- Accommodation Letter from Sponsor’s Parents
- Certified Copy of Property Title Deed

Relationship Evidence
- Marriage Certificate Original 
- 2 Photos of Applicant and Sponsor together
- Holidays Taken together (Airline boarding passes/e-tickets/itinerary) from 2011 - 2020
-  Applicant’s Visits to the UK (Airline boarding passes/e-tickets/itinerary) from  2011 – 2020
- Sponsor’s Visits to Singapore (Airline boarding passes/e-tickets/itinerary) from 2012 – 2020

Evidence of regular communication while living apart
-  Screenshots of correspondence via Whatsapp messages/ Skype calls/emails/ Facebook messages from  Dec 2010 - Feb 2021


Thanks again for everything and hope you are all keeping safe!

Much love,
Brenda

Hang on, before I comment on your document list, which country are you applying from?

You mention the sponsor's visits to Singapore, so are you applying from Singapore, or are you resident in the US and are applying from the US?

This forum is primarily for people applying for UK visas from the US, so all our advice is tailored to US applicants. However, the application process for a UK visa in other countries may be quite different.

I have been giving my advice based on how the application process works in the US, but this may not be the same if you are applying from Singapore... which means I may have been giving you incorrect advice all this time.

Hi Ksand

Sorry for the confusion, I should have mentioned at the beginning. Yes I am applying from Singapore.

The online form asks for pretty much what's shown above and we're happy to defer to your opinion. 


Much love,
Brenda

Ah, okay... then your application process is different from what I've mentioned above... which means your document list is incorrect as well, as you won't need several of the documents in your list.

See here for how to apply from Singapore:
https://www.vfsglobal.co.uk/sg/en/vacs

In general though, there are a number of documents you do not need at all, namely:
- Application (at most, you only need to print the first page with the barcode on it)
- Appendix 2 of VAF 4A (Appendix 2 is not accepted anymore as it's now part of the online application. Only people applying in North Korea are allowed to use it now)
- IHS payment receipt (I don't think you need this, as the IHS number should just be entered into the online application)
- 1 passport photo (passport photos are no longer required)
- 7 Months Balance Summary across 3 accounts (not sure what this is supposed to be for, but it's unlikely to be needed as they will just add up the lowest balance from each account)
- Declaration of Applicant’s source of cash savings (you don't need 3 separate declarations... just write one for all 3 accounts and both sign it)
- Declaration of Sponsor’s source of cash savings (you don't need 3 separate declarations... just write one for all 3 accounts and both sign it)

And because you are applying in Singapore you shouldn't need the following either as you will be handing over your passport in person:
- Stamped biometrics sheet (you just take the appointment letter to your ASC appointment)
- Return shipping details/ label
- Return shipping packaging

Got it! THANK YOU for the clarification Ksand! We will update accordingly and are very grateful once again for all the help!!!

Hi Ksand

Hope all has been well!

I have received my spouse visa yesterday!!! My husband and I are extremely grateful that we came across UK Yankee forum and for all the help you have given us!

Thank you once again and take care!

Much love,
Brenda