I'm preparing my application for ILR under SET(M) (5 year route) and was hoping that some of you fine folks would be willing to do a document check for me. I also have a few final questions, which is really just to calm my paranoia! Thank you all in advance.
Background:
My husband is a British citizen by birth and I am an American citizen. We currently have no children, though I am 32 weeks pregnant. Neither of us have previously been married.
First spouse visa granted: 25 April 2013
Entered UK on first spouse visa: 15 May 2013
First spouse visa expiry: 25 January 2016
FLR(M) granted: 4 January 2016
FLR(M) expiry: 25 July 2018
Five year qualifying period met (I think) on 15 May 2018
1 x copy of completed SET(M) application form printed from website (applying online)
2 x passport photographs of myself (with name written on back)
2 x passport photographs of my husband (with name written on back)
My passport (valid for the entire duration of this process)
My husband’s British passport
My biometric residence permit
Our marriage certificate (though it didn’t ask for it, I see that many other people have included it)
Husband's signed declaration
Life in the UK pass certificate dated 30 June 2018
Financial Requirement Documents
- Bank statement for the period 6 Oct 2017 - 9 May 2018 (this whole period constitutes one statement from my bank and though we don't need the bits from 2017, I didn't want to remove pages from the document as it states page 1 of x)
- Printed copy of bank transactions from 9 May 2018 - 30 June 2018 (printed in branch with "digital stamp" - they refuse to properly stamp or sign as it's against policy and our next real statement won't be available until Nov 2018)
- Letter from my employer dated 25 June 2018
- Payslips from my employer with signatures from 8 Dec 2017 - 22 June 2018
- P60 from my employer with signature for 2017/2018 tax year
- Letter from my husband's employer dated 4 July 2018
- Payslips from my husband's employer with signatures from 31 Dec 2017 - 30 June 2018
Evidence of Cohabitation
- Council tax bill, jointly addressed, dated 10 Mar 2016
- Lloyd's Bank statement, jointly addressed, period July 2016 - October 2016
- Council tax bill, jointly addressed, dated 10 Mar 2017
- Tesco bank travel insurance renewal, addressed to me, dated 14 Sep 2017
- Council garden waste bill, addressed to husband, dated 1 Oct 2017 or Tesco bank credit card bill, addressed to husband, dated 13 Oct 2017 please see related question at end
- Gas bill, addressed to husband, dated 6 Jan 2018
- NHS appointment letter, addressed to me, dated 22 Jan 2018
- Lloyd's Bank interest rate letter, jointly addressed, dated Apr 2018
Other documents requested in the form
- mortgage details: completion of registration letter from Land Registry, letter from solicitor with loan amortization schedule please see related question at end
- council tax bills (said was not mandatory but preferred, and we have used these for correspondence evidence as listed above, apart from one from this year which we never received - guess they've made us go paperless!
)- MAT B1 NHS maternity certificate (photocopy signed by my midwife, original was submitted to employer for maternity pay) – NOTE: this is relevant because of the section that asks if you have any other reasons for wishing to stay in the UK. I stated that we are about to have our first child (who will be a British citizen). I stated that my current visa expires before the child is due but that travelling back to America to give birth in the event of an unsuccessful application was difficult for three reasons: 1) it’s against medical advice to travel at this stage in the pregnancy and many airlines won’t let you do it anyway, 2) it would impact on our time together as a family as leave is limited and obviously we don’t know exactly when the child will be born, and 3) it would be cost prohibitive given that I don’t have medical insurance in America. This part of the application asks what evidence you will provide and I stated that I would provide a signed copy of my MAT B1 from the NHS.
Whew! Thanks for sticking with me so far!
So my questions are these:
1) Given the odd way that my bank does statements, do you think it will be a problem using a branch printed copy of the past month and a half's transactions? I really don't know what else we could do since a statement won't exist yet and they absolutely refuse to physically stamp and sign anything, even though they fully understand the situation. Should I put a covering letter of sorts explaining this?
2) For the correspondence section, we have two different documents addressed to my husband for the same sort of time period - one is a credit card bill and the other is from the council but it's for garden waste. We're probably overthinking it, but do you think there would be a preference? We've otherwise really struggled with the correspondence section since so many things are paperless now.
3) For the mortgage bit, we have a private mortgage (through a family member) rather than one through a bank. It is an official mortgage but it means that we don't have a mortgage agreement as such. We only have the document from the Land Registry showing that we are the owners and that monies are owed to the family members, and the letter from the solicitor with the attached loan repayment schedule. Do you think this is fine?
4) Do you think I should include that bit about me being pregnant and due after the visa expires? I forget the exact way it was worded, but the question basically asked if there was any other reason for me to want to stay in the country, so I felt that I should include it. If I shouldn't, please let me know.
Thank you all very much for reading and for any assistance you may be able to give!
so we've been assuming that the date they would use is the date the bank statement is issued (rather than at any other point during the six months it covers) which means that none of our statements fall in conveniently spaced gaps for our other documents. 