Spouse visa - Financial requirements - Cash savings

[vtaneja]

Hi Guys,

First of all, thanks a lot for your invaluable support on this forum. It's absolutely amazing.

I'm a British citizen and my wife is an Indian citizen. Both of us were in UK till early 2015 (from 2008). I had a Tier 1 General visa and eventually got the British citizenship. My wife had a student visa to begin with followed by a Tier 1 General dependent visa. We left London in 2015 to travel and work on freelance basis online. My wife's Tier 1 General dependent visa expired while we were out of UK.

We are planning on moving back to London and are looking at applying for the spouse visa for my wife. We were thinking of going down the cash savings route to satisfy the financial requirements and I wanted to know if I can use one of my Fixed Deposits in India as financial proof.

Here are the 3 accounts we will use to show a total of £62500 in savings:

a) My wife's savings account in UK
b) My own savings account in UK
c) My fixed deposits in India (will this work?)

d) I also have a limited company registered in UK from which I draw a monthly salary (I am the directory), however from what I understand I can't combine this salary with my savings, right?

Thanks a lot for your help.

[CR001]

You can't use FD. Funds must be liquid and immediately accessible.

Savings must have been held for a minimum of 6 months with evidence.

[vtaneja]

Thanks for the prompt reply

So if I break the FD and have that money in my Indian savings account (NRE), can I use that (even though it's not in a UK bank account but Indian account).

Sure, the savings will be in our accounts for the past 6 months and we will show original bank statements.

In terms of "source of funds" (I believe we have to fill this in the form?), will something on the lines of "savings from when we lived in UK from 2008-2015" suffice?

Thanks once again

[vtaneja]

Hi friends,

Would appreciate if someone could answer my questions.

Thanks a lot

[michali]

We used two FD accounts when we applied in 2014 but they both offered instant access with a penalty. We got the two banks to write letters confirming this. They were foreign banks which is fine as long as they are accepted by UKVI.

Our declarations on the source of funds were a little more detailed, giving information on salary, company for which my husband worked, length of time of employment etc. If you have any statements that show money being transferred from chequing account to savings, that can be useful too.

If you have enough in savings, then there is no need to mention any other source of income. In fact, it can be confusing if you do.

[vtaneja]

Hi Michali,

Thank you ever so much for your response. Where did you get that list of banks that are accepted by UKVI?

Thanks

[michali]

I think this page gives that information. To be honest, I knew our banks were fine so did not really check but I have heard some financial institutions are not recognised.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration ... stitutions