Baby born here - Our visa is about to change - Please help

[BarbsintheUK]

Hello.
We are on a South African passport on our 2nd 5 year visa. We qualify for ILR from 2 Feb 09. (Thats just around the corner) Now what we've done, is had a baby in July 08 and not yet applied for his SA passport (which we have to do until we are British Citizens) If we apply for it now before we apply for our ILR, we will wait for up to 4 months for it to be returned. Maybe longer. We feel we would be putting our ILR back by 5 or so months in total. What I really need to know please, is do we really need to apply for his SA passport and then the visa as a matter of urgency? We would prefer to wait until we have our opportunity to apply for British passports and then apply for his (and our other son) at the same time.
If we get our ILR now, we qualify for SO MUCH benefits and the financial rewards are much greater than that of delaying the ILR by nearly 5 months.
We are just not sure whether we NEED to by law, have our newborn on a SA passport and UK visa if we dont intend on doing any travelling.
Please could someone advise me soonest. As I want to get started with the paperwork for whichever way I need to go as Feb 2nd is just around the corner now and I'm getting very excited at the prospect of going back to work and being able to claim the financial benefits towards nursery / child care costs and all the other benefits I would be entitled to. (We are in a financial pickle at the moment and unable to pay our creditors (credit cards and storecards) until we have increased our household income)
Thanks so much and I look forward to some helpful advice.
Regards
Barbs

[sakura]

Hello.
We are on a South African passport on our 2nd 5 year visa. We qualify for ILR from 2 Feb 09. (Thats just around the corner) Now what we've done, is had a baby in July 08 and not yet applied for his SA passport (which we have to do until we are British Citizens) If we apply for it now before we apply for our ILR, we will wait for up to 4 months for it to be returned. Maybe longer. We feel we would be putting our ILR back by 5 or so months in total. What I really need to know please, is do we really need to apply for his SA passport and then the visa as a matter of urgency? We would prefer to wait until we have our opportunity to apply for British passports and then apply for his (and our other son) at the same time.
If we get our ILR now, we qualify for SO MUCH benefits and the financial rewards are much greater than that of delaying the ILR by nearly 5 months.
We are just not sure whether we NEED to by law, have our newborn on a SA passport and UK visa if we dont intend on doing any travelling.
Please could someone advise me soonest. As I want to get started with the paperwork for whichever way I need to go as Feb 2nd is just around the corner now and I'm getting very excited at the prospect of going back to work and being able to claim the financial benefits towards nursery / child care costs and all the other benefits I would be entitled to. (We are in a financial pickle at the moment and unable to pay our creditors (credit cards and storecards) until we have increased our household income)
Thanks so much and I look forward to some helpful advice.
Regards
Barbs

You should have applied for a passport and FLR for the baby as soon as it was possible. Funny as it sounds, but the baby has no status in the UK. The baby is not a British citizen so he needs a form of leave to remain.

What do you mean by "our 2nd 5 year visa"? What visas have you been on, and how long have you been in the UK?

Also, please do not double post, as it could fragment the discussion/answers.

[BarbsintheUK]

Sorry, i'm new to the forum. I first posted my query in the wrong thread (or so I thought) and I wanted to edit it and change the thread title, but couldnt find a way to do so. So what I did was viewed it and then copied it and pasted it into a new thread in the category "General UK immigration forum" . I wasn't trying to do anything i shouldnt. If you could tell me how to delete a post I will gladly do so.

My 2nd visa is: We came over on a 4 year ancestory visa. When it expired, instead of them granting a further 1 year, which used to be the case, they granted a 5 year ancestory visa (so as to give enough time to obtain your ILR). So, now, Feb 2nd we have been in the UK for a total of 5 years and then we can make our application for ILR.

My son was born here. I know he needs a SA passport. We will apply for that asap. I have been undoubtedly occupied (also have a 2 year old son) and never even thought of the application of his passport or SA birth cert. We have done his UK birth cert however.
The SA passport and birth reg will take 4 months approx. We need to wait till 23rd jan to ph to try and get an appointment in London. They are then only going to be taking bookings for the 28th onwards. I hope to get a spot. From my appointment date, I will have a 4 month wait to obtain his returned passport.
I would not want this to delay the rest of us our ILR as I mentioned in the main post that we qualify for so much more which would help us financially and I can go back to work once we have the ILR. Also that means that 2 years from Feb (if we get the ILR in Feb) that we can apply for Citizenship (British passport). We really dont want to wait another 4 or 5 months in order to get this process going.
So what we are really asking, is, if we arent planning to leave the country for a holiday during the next 2 years or so, is it possible to wait for my son's visa application until we all just apply for British Passports? Or is it imperitive that he too has a visa in his passport even though he is 6 months old only.

[BarbsintheUK]

You should have applied for a passport and FLR for the baby as soon as it was possible. Funny as it sounds, but the baby has no status in the UK. The baby is not a British citizen so he needs a form of leave to remain.

What do you mean by "our 2nd 5 year visa"? What visas have you been on, and how long have you been in the UK?

Also, please do not double post, as it could fragment the discussion/answers.

What is FLR? We are aware that the baby has no such status in the UK, but he isnt going to be working, so why is it that he needs a visa?

[vinny]

See also need for a dependent visa?

[GoodFun]

A child born in the UK who is not eligible for UK citizenship does not need a visa. Check this document (first paragraph refers to the visa requirement).

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/siteco ... iew=Binary

[sakura]

See also need for a dependent visa?

I didn't realise a LTR visa was only necessary only if wishing to travel outside the UK.

My mistake.