Starting Fiancé Visa - Gathering Evidence

Hello All,

I am new to the forum, as my fiancé and I are starting to gather our evidence to apply for the UK Fiancé Visa in roughly January 2022.  I've been reading through the existing threads on this topic and they're all very informative, so I appreciate the information!

We are starting the evidence-gathering process by compiling all of our flight documentation from previous trips we have taken between the UK and the US to see each other.  One question we had on this was whether or not the booking confirmation/itinerary emails are sufficient evidence for the trips?  We have some of our old boarding passes, but not all of them, as some of our trips date back a few years.

If the evidence really needs to be the boarding pass rather than just the email confirmations, would it be better to just include the trips that we have boarding passes for, rather than all of our trips?  Or should we still include all of our trips and just try to explain in our supporting letter that we included all the boarding passes that we still have.  In total, we've been back & forth 12 times, but only have boarding passes for roughly half of these trips saved.

Thanks in advance!

Hello All,

I am new to the forum, as my fiancé and I are starting to gather our evidence to apply for the UK Fiancé Visa in roughly January 2022.  I've been reading through the existing threads on this topic and they're all very informative, so I appreciate the information!

We are starting the evidence-gathering process by compiling all of our flight documentation from previous trips we have taken between the UK and the US to see each other.  One question we had on this was whether or not the booking confirmation/itinerary emails are sufficient evidence for the trips?  We have some of our old boarding passes, but not all of them, as some of our trips date back a few years.

If the evidence really needs to be the boarding pass rather than just the email confirmations, would it be better to just include the trips that we have boarding passes for, rather than all of our trips?  Or should we still include all of our trips and just try to explain in our supporting letter that we included all the boarding passes that we still have.  In total, we've been back & forth 12 times, but only have boarding passes for roughly half of these trips saved.

Thanks in advance!

Confirmation emails and itinerary emails will definitely be enough. We didn’t have all our boarding passes either and for some trips, we didn’t even have the confirmation email or itinerary. We ended up submitting a mix of confirmation emails, itineraries, receipts and boarding passes, whatever we could find per trip really and there was no issue with that, we got the visa last week.

Good luck!

Hello,

We had another question arise regarding the bank statement evidence.

My fiancé started her job that meets the 18,600 requirement in June and also finished a student job she had while in university in June.   However, there were a few lingering payments from her student job that came through in her July & August bank statements.  Do we need to provide any evidence related to the student job (which we're not relying upon for the application) in addition to our evidence for her current full-time job (that we are relying upon for the application) that she'll have been in for over 6 months by the time we apply?

We were thinking about including a letter from the student job's payroll that basically explains what the lingering payments were for and the dates she worked there, just to be transparent.  Is that necessary?

Hello,

We had another question arise regarding the bank statement evidence.

My fiancé started her job that meets the 18,600 requirement in June and also finished a student job she had while in university in June.   However, there were a few lingering payments from her student job that came through in her July & August bank statements.  Do we need to provide any evidence related to the student job (which we're not relying upon for the application) in addition to our evidence for her current full-time job (that we are relying upon for the application) that she'll have been in for over 6 months by the time we apply?

We were thinking about including a letter from the student job's payroll that basically explains what the lingering payments were for and the dates she worked there, just to be transparent.  Is that necessary?

Not necessary and it might confuse the application. Just provide the evidence for the income you're relying on.

Hi Again,

We had a couple more questions arise as we gather more evidence.

1. It states in Appendix FM-SE that "where this Appendix requires the applicant to provide specified evidence relating to a period which ends with the date of application, that evidence, or the most recently dated part of it, must be dated no earlier than 28 days before the date of the application".  I'm assuming this is the 28 Day Rule that I've seen referenced in the forums... Based upon how I read that, the only requirements that the 28 Day Rule would apply to would be the Financial Requirements (i.e. the most recent bank statement & payslip must be from within 28 days and the letter from the employer must be dated from within 28 days).  Are there any other sections/requirements that would fall under the 28 Day Rule? 

2. Also, could anyone please confirm that it's only the most recent bank statement & payslip that must be from within 28 days (e.g. so my fiancé's bank statement that she received in the mail for August would be fine as-is if we're planning on applying in January)?

3.  Lastly, which documents need to be originals and which can be copies? We know the bank statements need to be original and are planning on having her payslips authenticated with the employer letter, as we'll have to print those off, but are there any other documents that need to be original documents rather than copies?

Apologies for the long post - just wanted to explain our thought process!

1. It states in Appendix FM-SE that "where this Appendix requires the applicant to provide specified evidence relating to a period which ends with the date of application, that evidence, or the most recently dated part of it, must be dated no earlier than 28 days before the date of the application".  I'm assuming this is the 28 Day Rule that I've seen referenced in the forums... Based upon how I read that, the only requirements that the 28 Day Rule would apply to would be the Financial Requirements (i.e. the most recent bank statement & payslip must be from within 28 days and the letter from the employer must be dated from within 28 days).  Are there any other sections/requirements that would fall under the 28 Day Rule? 

No, only the financial documents fall under the 28-day requirement, namely:
- latest payslip
- latest bank statement
- employer letter

2. Also, could anyone please confirm that it's only the most recent bank statement & payslip that must be from within 28 days (e.g. so my fiancé's bank statement that she received in the mail for August would be fine as-is if we're planning on applying in January)?

Yes, it’s only the most recent... because the requirement is that you have to show the most recent 6 months (for Cat A) or 12 months (for Cat B) of income, where the 6 or 12 months that you are relying on ends no more than 28 days before you apply online.

3.  Lastly, which documents need to be originals and which can be copies? We know the bank statements need to be original and are planning on having her payslips authenticated with the employer letter, as we'll have to print those off, but are there any other documents that need to be original documents rather than copies?

The requirements for bank statements are that they must either be:
- official statements printed on bank stationery (usually received in the mail)
Or
- electronic statements that have been printed at home, which have either been stamped by the bank on EVERY PAGE or are accompanied by a letter from the bank confirming their authenticity

The requirements for payslips are that they must either be:
- official hard copy payslips issued by the employer
Or
- electronic payslips that are accompanied by a letter of authenticity from the employer

All other documents should be original.


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Thank you for the quick response, ksand24.

Regarding "all other documents should be original"... my biggest question here was around the accommodation evidence.  We are planning on living with family of my fiancé who own the house they live in, so we're planning on including a copy of the deed to the house as evidence that they own the property.  Is a copy of the deed to the house sufficient, or are you saying this should be original?

Thank you for the quick response, ksand24.

Regarding "all other documents should be original"... my biggest question here was around the accommodation evidence.  We are planning on living with family of my fiancé who own the house they live in, so we're planning on including a copy of the deed to the house as evidence that they own the property.  Is a copy of the deed to the house sufficient, or are you saying this should be original?

The accommodation documents should be original.

However, you can download an official (original) copy of the Land Registry document from the Land Registry website for £3 here:
https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/QuickEnquiryInit.do?_ga=2.83668950.1302925479.1631065699-2074224573.1608443038

You also need a letter (ideally with wet signature) from the homeowner giving you permission to live there and confirming the home will not be overcrowded.

If they have a mortgage, you should also include their latest annual mortgage statement too.


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Great, thank you for that link!

So, for our accommodation section, would the following be what we should submit as evidence (or anything additional)?
   - Land Registry Document (downloaded original copy from the link you provided)
   - Letter from homeowner giving permission to live there and that the home wont be overcrowded (typed, printed, signed and then copied
     back to electronic form)
   - Mortgage Statement (If the mortgage is already paid off, do you have any recommendations here?)

We had also read that we should include a Home Report from a surveyor that confirms that the house will not be overcrowded and does not contravene public health regulations.  Is the Home Report necessary?

Great, thank you for that link!

So, for our accommodation section, would the following be what we should submit as evidence (or anything additional)?
   - Land Registry Document (downloaded original copy from the link you provided)
   - Letter from homeowner giving permission to live there and that the home wont be overcrowded (typed, printed, signed and then copied
     back to electronic form)
   - Mortgage Statement (If the mortgage is already paid off, do you have any recommendations here?)

No, that’s all you need.

If they no longer have a mortgage then you just leave out the mortgage statement and only include:
- Land registry deed
- letter from homeowners

We had also read that we should include a Home Report from a surveyor that confirms that the house will not be overcrowded and does not contravene public health regulations.  Is the Home Report necessary?

No, you do not need a Property Inspection Report.

All you need for the no overcrowding requirement is for the homeowner letter to state the following:
- total number of bedrooms + living rooms in property
- total number of people who will be living in the property (including you and your fiancé)

Property inspection reports are only needed if you will be living in an HMO (House of Multiple Occupation) where a number of different, unrelated families/households are all renting out different rooms in the same property.


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Hi Again,

I'm trying to understand the submission of documents a little better.

I know it was stated earlier in the thread that all documents should be original, but we'd still only be uploading scanned copies of said original documents to VFS Global, correct?

And then, once we've uploaded all our scanned documents/evidence to VFS Global, we wouldn't send the original documents to UKVI in New York would we?  From other threads I've read, it looks like all you send to UKVI in New York after your biometric appointment would be what I've listed below. Is this the full list?
 
- Applicant US Passport
- Biometrics Confirmation Letter with Barcode
- Return Shipping Label
- Return Shipping Packaging
- Receipt Showing that we Purchased Priority Service (we're planning on doing this)

Finally, to better illustrate my question... our process would be to scan our deed to the house, bank statements, etc. then upload them to VFS Global, then mail the items listed above to UKVI in New York after the applicant attends the biometric appointment?

Hello All,

I just wanted to bump this thread to see if anyone knows the answers to the questions in my previous post?

Also, one additional question. My fiancé's company only provides its employees with electronic payslips so we'll have to print them out and have the employer state in their letter that the payslips are authentic.  However, do we need to do anything else with the electronic payslips (i.e. have them signed by the person who writes our employer letter from her company)?  Or, is the statement/confirmation of authenticity provided in the employer letter sufficient?

Many thanks in advance!!

Hello All,

I just wanted to bump this thread to see if anyone knows the answers to the questions in my previous post?

Also, one additional question. My fiancé's company only provides its employees with electronic payslips so we'll have to print them out and have the employer state in their letter that the payslips are authentic.  However, do we need to do anything else with the electronic payslips (i.e. have them signed by the person who writes our employer letter from her company)?  Or, is the statement/confirmation of authenticity provided in the employer letter sufficient?

Many thanks in advance!!

The confirmation of authenticity in the employer letter is enough. Ideally, they should mention the date and amount of each payslip in the letter in order to verify them.

Thank you larrabee!

Do you happen to know the answer to this question as well?  Thanks in advance! This forum has been extremely helpful so far!

I know it was stated earlier in the thread that all documents should be original, but we'd still only be uploading scanned copies of said original documents to VFS Global, correct?  And then, once we've uploaded all our scanned documents/evidence to VFS Global, we wouldn't send the original documents to UKVI in New York would we?

Thank you!

Thank you larrabee!

Do you happen to know the answer to this question as well?  Thanks in advance! This forum has been extremely helpful so far!

I know it was stated earlier in the thread that all documents should be original, but we'd still only be uploading scanned copies of said original documents to VFS Global, correct?  And then, once we've uploaded all our scanned documents/evidence to VFS Global, we wouldn't send the original documents to UKVI in New York would we?

Thank you!

I'm a bit rusty on that part of the application but I think that if you are scanning them,  then you don't also mail them. Except for the passport which needs to go to NY. Someone will correct me if I am wrong!

Just hold on to the originals.