Having spent the last 3 hours reading so many posts I'm feeling much more reassured about the UK settlement visa application my wife will submit to the ECO here in China next week. We are just writing up the Additional Information page.
After reading the MANY posts on this site, I'm feeling confident that we'll be ok with the accommodation and maintenance requirement i.e. having the cleared funds to support us - currently approx. 18,000UK pounds, evenly spread between the UK and China bank accounts.
We had a few concerns though and I hope someone will be kind enough to give us some advice. I'm trying to explain clearly since it feels like a unique case and I haven't found it on your website yet.
1. We have lived together for more 7 years in China, married for 6 years (since 2005) and have a son who is 5 years old. However, though we have lived together and our marriage is subsisting under the language laid out by the UKBA, we don't have any documents really that have both our names attached to the same address.
i.e.
a) no bank statements - Chinese bank account statements don't have addresses written on them. [Joint bank accounts are not allowed in China]
b) no utility bills - since all of our elec, gas, water, telephone call charges are paid via a top-up card system (elec card, gas card, water card - very common in China) or telephone bills are instead paid with cash only at a cashier's window
c) no tenancy agreement with joint names - my wife always signed the agreements over the years (we've moved 3 or 4 times)
The local police station has a record of where I have lived (for China work visa purposes) in their database, but my wife's name is not written on it since this does not apply to her.
The documents we
do have to support her settlement application are:
a) about 1000 (one thousand) photographs showing almost every moment we have been together (i.e. before marriage, wedding day, both families together, photos of son's birth - mother and baby and I, photos of the three of us on countless days out together or at home, birthdays, spring festival, Christmas etc. You name it, we likely have a photo of it! We also have 100's of short videos of birthday's, parties, family meals, son learning to walk and talk, other special occasions etc.
b) letters from my family in the UK over the years addressed to me with the contents of the letters regularly asking how my wife is and generally saying hello to us both
c) 3 handwritten letters from fellow Brits (good friends) living in China (a school owner and a chief retirement fund manager) who have either known us since before we got married, or since shortly after then, testifying that we have lived together as a family for the entire time in a subsisting marriage/relationship
d) mobile phone and text message records dating back many months (the maximum allowed printable from the phone company website was one years' worth)
e) plane tickets (flight number and visa all corroborate) for a family visit to the UK in Dec 2006.
Question: Does anyone (with knowledge of the oftentimes paperless daily society of China i.e. the saying here is: cash is king) know if the above (a) to (e) will be sufficient to show a subsisting relationship?
feel so worried about this. I read so many posts on here talking about how it is useful to supply utility bills, bank accounts, payslips, tenancy agreements etc. etc. and we don't have any of them (as explained above)
2. I am working in a reasonably well paid job here in China currently. This is my third month of contracted employment. I will receive my payslip for my third monthly wage before the middle of September. My salary is paid in cash - the company is sorting out an employment salary paid to employee accounts system this Autumn. I personally carry my salary to the bank and pay it in myself on the same day I receive it.
My employer has agreed to write a letters to submit as a supporting document for the Sponsor for my wife's settlement visa application which states that when my wife receives her settlement visa, I will return to the UK with her and my son, and continue working for my current China-based employer full time from the UK property we rented last month for a year. The letter will state that I will commute between my UK residence (we will reside together there as a family) and the China office fairly frequently i.e. once a month for 10 days.
My employer wishes to open a UK office in early 2012. I've been asked to manage this development for the company (bringing, might I say, new jobs to the UK (oh yeah!)). But for the next 6 months or so, I will need to commute internationally on a number of occasions.
But with the employment situation being seemingly dire in the UK at present, the last thing I want to do is quit my current job - that would be financial suicide!
Question: Has anyone else submitted a successful settlement visa application where the sponsor continued to work for a non-EEA company (in my case China)? Can anyone foresee any issues? Is there any precedent in our favour?
My son will attend a UK primary school and it is planned that my wife will complete her KOL test and then apply for ILR as soon as possible which will allow her to work in the UK. Until that point she will be a full-time housewife. I will be living together with her and our son (the UK will be our home) but visiting China 10 days out of each month on business.
3. The HMRC office service manager I spoke with on the telephone stated that if I complete an SA1 form, or post a self-assessment before the end of the tax year then my income tax on my non-UK based job would be calculated against the dual tax agreement rules that already exist between the UK and China. I'm fine with that of course.
Question: Will the ECO need to see my willingness to pay UK taxes? If so, how can I prove this when I need to wait until Spring 2012 to submit a self-assessment (upon the advice of the HMRC)?
Honestly? I'm almost crazy with anxiety since as a family we have never spent more than about 3 or 4 days apart in the last 7 years (except for a couple of business trips) and we couldn't bear us being separated because of some nasty ECO or arbitrary ruling!!
I'm really hoping someone can help us with this. Thank you very much in advance!