My first post on these forums, loads of useful information as well
I would appreciate any advice you can provide.
Let me first outline my situation. I am engaged to a lady who was previously in the UK on a valid student visa to study english. She completed the first year of study but didn't pass the required exams to enable her to continue for a second year and so was directed to an alternative college where she paid the relevant application fee to an employee and received her place. This was submitted to the UKBA for successful extension of her student visa.
When she then tried complete the enrolment fees the college said they had no record of her being enrolled and furthermore had changed management. The employee who she had paid the application fee to had simply disappeared. So basically she had been scammed.
Anyway at the time she had a UK partner and was living with him. She decided to stay in the UK anyway (and yes I am aware that this is in breach of the immigration rules as she wasn't attending the course after the visa got extended, although she did try to resolve the situation with them numerous times to no avail). She did work part time (babysitting, waitressing, under 10 hours per week and less than £90 a week, but her employers did not ask her to set up a NI account. It turns out that this isn't a great thing at all, she should have had an NI number even though she was working and earning less than the minimum threshold at which NO becomes payable).
Anyway to cut a long story short she ended up overstaying her extended student visa by around 20 days and was removed home. I only entered into a relationship with her(having previously been a friend when she was in the UK) once she was back in her home country (and she has been back for 15 months). We got engaged in November last year and I have been to visit her 3 times already and will be going back to marry her next month.
Due to her immigration history we have employed the services of lawyers.
Here is where I would like advice of anyone who has been through a similar situation.
The lawyers have stated that the ECO may view the lack of an NI account as a serious matter. However they have categorically stated that if asked by the ECO whether she worked in the UK, she must answer the truth. Personally I can see no way whatsoever that the ECO could find out about her working (BTW she was entitled to work under the terms of her student visa) but the lawyers are clear that she must provide a truthful answer if this came to interview and she was directly asked about it (although apparently interviews are rare these days). Thoughts on this? If asked and she told the truth surely they would simply reject on 320(11) anyway? Or maybe the fact she told the truth would be looked on sympathetically at any appeal if that took place?
The lawyers advised us to switch our application from a fiance one to a spouse application as the advice was they are not judged equally - the fiance application is far more likely to be refused given the aforementioned compared to a spouse visa application where apparently they find it harder to say 'no' on human rights grounds which do not apply to the same extent with a fiance visa application. Is this correct? We had planned to marry in the New Year anyway and I was saving up for a big ceremony, bringing it forward 7 months means that we won't be able to have the dream wedding we were hoping for.
Finally I'm not sure the lawyers have all the information regarding my fiance not attending her second year at college. Advice I have been given elsewhere is that should be careful how much information we give them (it was us who ventured the information about her not having an NI number previously). Given the fact that the UKBA may investigate whether she attended her second year at college and then ask her about this, I was thinking that she should only disclose this information if asked directly about it by the UKBA, and nit before either to the lawyers or the UKBA. But do you think we should directly address this with the lawyers?
Apologies for the long winded post, any advice gratefully received as I don't want to be going through millions of appeals.
