Forum Immigration UK

[tigerjohn]

I have posted earlier here, but now explain the situation again.
I recently got married in January with my wife from Colombia. We got married in Norway.
I have dual nationality, British and Norwegian.

My wife is Colombian, but have a 13 month student visa in the UK, which expires in middle of May.
She is planning to continue studying here in the UK. I also was her sponsor for applying for this visa last year. We have been living together for almost 2 years, first 6 weeks abroad, then 6 months on her student visa here in the UK, then a period in Colombia together (around 1 month) and then back in the UK again for now around 11 months.

I did consider the EEA treaty, but feel would be better to apply for the UK spouse visa now first. I have receieved 2 conflicting advice from the Home office and the Colombian consulate.

The Colombian consulate say my wife needs to return to Colombia and get entry clearance as spouse.
The home office say I can change the status here in the UK trough the FLR(M) - husband, wife, civil partner, or unmarried or same-sex partner of a permanent resident.

I did mention to the home office what the Colombian consulate had told me, and they said they would check it, and few minutes later they told me that the information from the Colombian consulate was incorrect.

I have been searching on the forums here to, but have not found a post covering exactly this situation.

So I guess the main question will be, can I change the Student status visa to Spouse visa? Without leaving the UK. I have all my documents for this application, so I would like to know if somebody could shed some light on this and maybe let me know if you have similar experience and if the Home office information is correct?

[tigerjohn]

Fantastic - The system really works!

Applied for Spouse visa just before easter, after 4 weeks got positive reply yesterday.
It is easy if you send ALL DOCUMENTS they require, and you have sufficent funds available. Got a 2 year temporary leave to to remain in the UK.

One note of advice, the advice the Colombian consulates legal team gave was completly wrong! They told us we had to return to Colombia and apply for the Spouse visa there, so there might be people being given wrong advice from officals from different consulates, however many of these people do not have a clue.

Actually my general advice is DO NOT LISTEN TO ANY LAWYERS, all the advice they have given me during my relation with my wife has been USELESS - WASTE OF TIME.

2 errors they made for us, one just mentioned here.
You can change Student visa to Spouse visa in the UK, altough you do require certain conditions of your student visa.
We married in another European country/ Norway - during the student visa period, and could change the status of that student visa here in the UK afterwards.

Second legal advice it took which was completly wrong happen approx. 1 year ago, when my wife (we was not married that time), applied for Student visa in Colombia, she got refused! We did ONE ERROR, I was sponsor but did not declear I was boyfriend/fiancee, the consulate suspected this and did not like we had not been completly truthfull.

Lawyer wanted £2000 to prepare an appeal, told me would take 6 - 9 months, and 20% chance of success. I asked the lawyer if he think we should apply again in Colombia, he told me NO CHANCE, once refused impossible to get new chance.

Instead I took matters in my own hands, booked a ticket to Colombia, emailed the consule for advice, the FOLLOWING WEEK we had 100% success with a 13 month student visa.

Conclusion - LAWYERS ARE USELESS - 2 times proven - I studied the things myself and had great success both times.


Anyway thanks to post on this forum, this also helped me a lot.
But stay away from lawyers and high legal bills, have friends of mine who spent thousands on lawyers and got exactly the same as me, spending nothing.

Advice - Don't be lazy, read forums, consulate sites, call home office - DO NOT TAKE ADVICE BY THIRD PARTIES FOR FACE VALUE, research all, and remember, Nothing is Impossible!

[DPG]

Hello tigerjohn,
thank you very much for your post and congratulations!

Your information has been very useful, as my fiancee and I are in a very similar situation. I'm EU citizen, she's non-EU with student visa are we are getting married in another EU and want to change her visa to spouse when we return to UK after wedding.

One question to your post:

You can change Student visa to Spouse visa in the UK, altough you do require certain conditions of your student visa.

Do you remember what those consitions are?

Many thanks! Muchas gracias!

[vargo23]

Could you tell me please what do you mean by some requirements in your student visa?
thanks

[texkourgan]

In the FAQ section we have an extensive section on visas including the UK Marriage Visa. Hopefully these help you to understand your options, but do you have a more specific question?