Successful UK Fiancee visa for Bangladeshi citizen

[pinkbubbles]

Timelines:

Fiancee citizenship: Bangladeshi
Fiancee location: Australia (student)

Country applying from: Australia
Type of visa applied for: Fiancee Visa
Date application submitted: Online Sept 24, 2011
Date biometrics taken: Oct. 13, 2011
Date documents sent to Sydney P.O. Box: Oct. 13, 2011
Date documentation was received by UK Border Agency office: did not receive an email confirming this.
Date Approved: 20th Oct 2011

[i.e received following email:

Your visa will be despatched shortly. Passports can normally be collected from the Visa Application Centre after 3 days. Applicants in Australia and New Zealand should allow 3 days before tracking their documents via the local post. UKBA-Manila Visa Hub]

Office location processing your visa: Manila
Projected timeline given: 4 - 6 weeks
Date visa was received: Delivered to door on 25th Oct 2011 (cause there was a weekend in between)

In total, alhamdulilah it took one and a half weeks, minus 3 days transport times from Australia to the Philippines both ways. Pretty quick alhamdulilah.

My advice: Make an awesome application, put in a cover letter explaining the various supporting evidences provided to make life easy for the visa officer. Mine was from my fiance so the application was pretty strong. Use a highlighter to bring attention to particular points on other documents...etc

By the way, you are immediately eligible for an NHS (National Health Service) card when you arrive on a fiancee visa. Just go to any general practice and register and you will get your card in the mail in no time. Free healthcare!

[Camille1]

Hello, congrats on your success. I have a question:

Ukba says if you hold temporary permission to stay you can only apply for student visa, tier5 and Entertainer visa (if I remember correctly)

Since you could lodge this fiancée visa application in Australia when you're on a student visa does this mean student visa is not classified as temporary permission to stay?

[pinkbubbles]

Hi

A temporary visa is usually something like a tourist visa. A student visa is more like a resident visa during your study. As the person spends most of the time in the country of study, living as the locals. Whereas visitors stay in relatives homes or hotels.

Hope that makes sense

[Camille1]

Do you mind providing a list of everything you included in your application?

[pinkbubbles]

We're Muslim alhamdulilah and we did our religious nikah ceremony before flying to the UK on a fiancee visa to complete our civil ceremony. Therefore, after the nikah, my husband and I travelled together which provided valuable proof of relationship material for our application.

List of items:

Application form
Passports (current and previous)
Cover letter: written by my sponsor. He started off with how we met and explained our application. Basically how we met, that we've had our religious marriage and intend to have an official civil ceremony in the UK (this was strong proof that we were genuine), explanation of the various items included in the application: nikah certificate, skype chat logs, emails, travel itineraries, pictures, UK housing documents, bank statements...etc and a closing statement declaring our love for each other and a kind request to grant the visa.

Its a good idea to exlplain your documents in the cover letter as it is as if you are speaking to the visa officer yourself. Instead of them just examining your documents themselves, you've given them a briefing about them which always helps them understand and process your application.

Documents:

Nikah certificate
Travel tickets and itineraries for the both of us. [Also a good indication that we have met.]
Skype chat logs and emails
Pictures of religious ceremony, travels...etc
Proof of accommodation documents in the UK
Bank statements
Husbands employment letter
Receipts of substantial presents (jewellery..etc)
Everything else that they asked in the application (I don't remember them now)

....and anything else that would help us prove our relationship.

Basically you need to convince the officer that you are in a genuine relationship, you have sufficient funds to survive on your own for at least 6 months in the UK and that you truly intend to go to the UK for marriage and settlement.

A fiancee visa is a settlement visa so it entitles you to use the UK NHS (national health service) as soon as you land in the UK. This is because you should be intending to settle with your spouse.

Hope this helps!

[jimmurray]

Basically you need to convince the officer that you are in a genuine relationship, you have sufficient funds to survive on your own for at least 6 months in the UK and that you truly intend to go to the UK for marriage and settlement.


Hope this helps!

disagree..regular income is more important than savings, infact there was a rumour going around how soon you won't be able to use savings..

I hope it's true because I have f-all savings due to supporting my wife aborad, lawyers etc, but have a regular income

[Camille1]

Thank you pinkbubbles

[Casa]

The 'funds' mentioned by Pinkbubbles can refer to income, not necessarily savings.

[Bingobango]

Would you mind disclosing how long you have known your fiance and how many times you had met them before you applied for the visa? I wish to apply for one for my fiance but I am worried it will be refused because of the amount of times we have met and the short length of our relationship.

Thanks