Spouse Visa Application For Couple Moving To Uk

[Dawie]

Hi there

My girlfriend and myself currently live in Cape Town, South Africa and are planning on getting married soon and relocating to London. I am a dual British/South African citizen and my girlfriend is a South African citizen.

We have savings of about £10 000 and I am an IT professional earning a good salary in Cape Town. I have a university degree, have worked in London before for 7 years before coming back to Cape Town, and will have very good job prospects in London. My girlfriend is a Montesorri teacher.

We plan to relocate to London together after getting married and to look for employment once we are there. We have family in London who can provide us with accommodation until we are able to find our own accommodation. We have co-habited together for just over a year as boyfriend and girlfriend.

With all this in mind, I would like to check with you guys whether the evidence we plan to provide in support of our spouse visa will be sufficient. I am particularly concerned about proving sufficient maintenance and accommodation bearing in mind that we both currently live in Cape Town, and will not have any jobs waiting for us and will be relying on our savings. Will £10 000 be sufficient for maintenance purposes?

Also, besides our marriage certificate, the only other proof of an ongoing relationship we can provide will be 1 utility bill that is in my girlfriend's name for the past year that proves we have been living together as well as a year's worth of emails printouts as well as a lot of photographs of us together and of our wedding. Will this be sufficient to prove we are in a genuine relationship?

Just to show you, these are the documents we plan to submit:

1) Application Form
2) Copy of my British Passport
3) Wife's passport
3) Marriage Certificate
4) 6 Months of my bank statements (South African bank) showing £10 000 in savings
5) 6 months of my payslips showing salary (from South African employer)
6) Letter of accommodation from my brother who owns his own 4 bedroom house with his wife
7) Title deeds to house showing my brother owns it
Sponsors letter of support and motivation
9) 1 x monthly utility bill in my wife's name showing the same address as on my bank statements
10) A few (3) other miscellaneous one-off statements and letters addressed to my wife at our common address
11) Photographs of us together from previous 2 years that we have been together
12) Photographs from our wedding
13) Proof of our employment prospects including university degrees and CV's and letter from my current employer
14) Printouts of emails stretching back just over a year

Any input you can provide would be appreciated.

Many thanks

[Casa]

You'll need to submit a copy of your brother's mortgage agreement, or a copy of the property deeds if he owns it outright.

[Dawie]

You'll need to submit a copy of your brother's mortgage agreement, or a copy of the property deeds if he owns it outright.

My main concern is actually proving that our relationship and marriage is subsisting. Because of the way things work in South Africa it's incredibility difficult to get any bills or statements posted to your address, everything is done online these days and companies refuse to post statements. This means essentially that we only have 1 set of statements to prove that my girlfriend and myself have been living together. I know this isn't necessarily a requirement for the spouse visa, but it does prove that we are in a subsisting relationship. We do have plenty of photographs and emails that we can print out though and of course after we get married we will have photos of that too.

Just hope that it is enough!

[ElenaW]

You'll need to submit a copy of your brother's mortgage agreement, or a copy of the property deeds if he owns it outright.

My main concern is actually proving that our relationship and marriage is subsisting. Because of the way things work in South Africa it's incredibility difficult to get any bills or statements posted to your address, everything is done online these days and companies refuse to post statements. This means essentially that we only have 1 set of statements to prove that my girlfriend and myself have been living together. I know this isn't necessarily a requirement for the spouse visa, but it does prove that we are in a subsisting relationship. We do have plenty of photographs and emails that we can print out though and of course after we get married we will have photos of that too.

Just hope that it is enough!

I wouldn't reccommend printing out your emails. There have been cases of emails being misconstrued by ecos to be deception. They also keep these. I would just send proof that there was contact. Although because you're married, I wouldn't even add that honestly. Some pictures will do. The ECO doesn't even look at the extras. Someone else shifts through all the paperwork and picks out the important bits and gives them to the ECO they don't see the rest.