Background
I'm the partner and am British. I'm doing all the legwork on the application. My wife is a US citizen and we're on the 5 year route to citizenship. We're relying on both our salaried incomes (which has not changed in the last 6 months) to meet the financial requirement.
Figuring out the dates we can actually apply
She originally entered the UK on Tier 4 student visa on 25 Sept 2015.
We then married and applied in country for FLR(M). Our letter confirming our first application was successful was issued on 17 Jan 2017. The BRP was issued on 02 Feb 2017 and expired on 28 Jul 2019.
The letter confirming our second FLR(M) application was successful was issued on 08 Jul 2019. The BRP was also issued on 08 Jul 2019 and expires on 05 Feb 2022.
We found guidance confusing as it says we could apply for ILR with 60 months of FLR(M) but it also says the application must be made within 28 days of the current FLR(M) expiring. You'll probably tell me I've got this wrong. We're planning to apply on 09 Jan 2022 as I counted back 28 days from 05 Feb 2022 (when current BRP expires) and then added a day to be safe.
Could we already apply or have I interpreted correctly?
Document checklist
Applicant's US passport (Have done a scan with every single page, and a scan with just the vignette. Her passport has been valid the whole time she's been here so there's no need to provide any previous passports).
Applicant's BRP
Partner's UK driving licence and birth certificate (to prove I'm a British citizen)
Declaration signed by partner (dated the date of the application - 09 Jan 2022)
We have the digitally signed tenancy agreement (docusign).
We also have a signed and stamped letter from the letting agent confirming the details of our tenancy.
We have the most recent council tax bill from Nov 2022.
We both have letters from our employers confirming we're full-time employed, job titles, gross salary (and when it started at this level - both for longer than 6 months), commencement date (and for me also the date of my job realignment/promotion). My letter is signed by CEO (with covid lots of people weren't in the office to sign so I went to the CEO (small organisation) who signed it). My wife couldn't get a physical signature but is being sent a letter with a jpeg signature on it (Will this be an issue?).
Then we've got statements and payslips. Because of some advice we received last time when doing FLR(M) we're providing 7 payslips each with corresponding statements to make absolutely sure that it is seen to cover the 6 months prior to application. My payslips have been printed off and signed by the payroll officer with an accompanying letter verifying their authenticity signed by the same payroll officer. My wife's payslips are all original and sent via post so they're not stamped/signed but they are the originals (will this be an issue?). The statements and payslips are as follows (and we're going to provide a cribsheet for the case worker to help cross-reference the payslips with the statements):
| Statement date | Applicant's pay date (with payslip) | Partner's pay date (with payslip |
|---|---|---|
| 22 Dec 2021 (this is a proper interim statement that we've had issued) | 21 Dec 2021 | 21 Dec 2021 |
| 18 Dec 2021 | 26 Nov 2021 | 23 Nov 2021 |
| 18 Nov 2021 | 28 Oct 2021 | 22 Oct 2021 |
| 18 Oct 2021 | 28 Sep 2021 | 23 Sep 2021 |
| 18 Sep 2021 | 27 Aug 2021 | 23 Aug 2021 |
| 18 Aug 2021 | 28 Jul 2021 | 23 Jul 2021 |
| 18 July 2021 | 28 Jun 2021 | 23 Jun 2021 |
Correspondence... as we're applying on 09 Jan 2022, I split the last 2.5 years into 30 monthly periods (10/07/2019-09/08/2019, 10/08/2019-09/09/2019 etc through to 10/12/2021-09/01/2022) and spaced out the correspondence within those making sure there was something in the first and last period. We've ended up with (again we're going to provide a cribsheet showing the distribution of the documents):
- 10/07/2019 - joint bank A statement
- 24/01/2020 - applicant credit card statement, and 06/02/2020 - partner credit card statement
- 18/07/2020 - joint bank B statement
- 10/12/2020 - joint bank A statement
- 24 Jun 2021 - applicant credit card statement, and 06/07/2021 - partner credit card statement
- 18 Dec 2021 - joint bank B statement
Does this all seem to be in order? Anything I've missed out or misinterpreted?