Yes.

You must get a visa before you travel to the UK as a husband, wife, civil partner, fiancé, fiancée, proposed civil partner, or my unmarried or same sex partner.

 

Hi Jilly,

That depends. Where are you now???

If you are still in Australia, by far the easiest way to do it is this:
1) Apply for a fiancee visa from BHC in Canberra. Either in person or by mail/internet
2) Once this is granted, you have 6 months to marry. You can do this anywhere you like... UK, Gibraltar, wherever.
3) Once the marriage has taken place, in the UK you can fill in a form for him to switch to Spouse visa. This will be granted, it will be a mere formality to get the sticker in his passport. They've already given you permission to marry, all you need to do now is show them you have done that within the 6 month validity of the fiance visa.
4) Once this spouse visa is granted he can then start to work.

If you aren't in Oz anymore, let's just say you're both in the UK and he's in on a 6 month visitor visa...
1) Marry in Gibraltar, or Malta, or Italy, or Cyprus etc. You cannot marry in the UK.
2) He must then fly home to Australia. You do not have to go with him. But, he HAS to get the spouse visa from Canberra. He will not be able to get it anywhere else, so don't even bother wasting your time or money to get it elsewhere
3) Apply for Spouse visa in Canberra, either in person or by mail/internet
4) This application will be important to have everything presented perfectly.
- You must fulfil certain requirements about income (to prove he will not revert to public funds) - which will be hard to prove if you don't both have a good amount of savings. I say this, because I assume that you won't be working because you're pregnant (I think I read this in one of your other posts). There is no specific amount of money they require, as all situations are different. Just that you can make payments for rent/mortgage etc. So copies of all bills and copies of bank statements.
- You must show you have somewhere adequate to live. Photos, mortgage statements, floorplans, valuations, lease etc.
- You must prove evidence that the relationship is real. EG photos together, letters, postcards, phone bills, emails, IM logs from chatting, etc. This should be easy to prove since I think you two have lived together for a while?

There are a few other things you need to prove, a search of the archives on this board will no doubt tell you all you need to know.

Yes, as stated above. Unless of course he enters the UK on a fiance visa, which again he can only get from Oz.

No and no, as stated above

If you do Option 1 above, it will be a mere formality and very straightforward.
If you do Option 2, you need to be aware that you will need to provide abundant proof. As long as you can supply all this proof and set out your application in an orderly manner, then it too will be relatively straightforward.
If you apply in person in Canberra you will have it same day and can fly to UK that night. However, it'd be a bit risky to book plane tickets for that night just in case the application is denied. I'd give yourself a week just in case anything needs sorting out.
If you apply by mail it is cheaper, but will take a few weeks, maybe 2 or 3.

Well, yes, as stated above if you are applying for a spouse visa from Canberra you do need to produce a lot af varied proof and information.

Please search the archives for this kind of info, or see the following poston another board which is invaluable. Forget about the "failed assylum seeeker" bit and just read the many posts giving suggestions of what they provided as proof and how they set it out. As long as the application has all the information they need and you can prove you fit the criteria for the visa, there is no reason it should be denied.

 

:thumbsup:

Great info !!!

 

Jilly,
Glad I could help.

Just remember to provide ample proof of all the conditions and he will get the fiance visa easily. Without the proof he won't get it. If you have any problems in Canberra getting the fiance visa, feel free to PM me and I will see if I can help you work out how to re-submit it to get a positive answer.

Also, you might need to look into this but I think it might pay to tell the immig authorities in Canberra that you're getting married in the UK. Because the fiancee visa is issue for the purpose of marrying in the UK, you might fail the criteria if you're getting married in Gibraltar. By all means tell them that you plan to wed in your local registry office within 3 months of him arriving, and once he gets to the UK you're welcome to wed wherever. (This is what I have been told, and I cannot see why this would not be the case).

Alternately, if you're in the UK go see your CAB (Citizens Advice Bureau) - they have immigration assistance.

Good luck with it all, and please post on here with your success story to let us all know what you did and how you did it and what proof you gave and how long it all took!

(We need more success stories )

 

Hi Jilly,

Do you have a doctor's letter you can give them to say you're preggers? I don't in all honesty think you'll need one.

Yes, you're right, the list of docs and proof required is a LOT higher from Africa. I suggest this might be so because there is such a change in living conditions between there and here, they likely have a LOT more people wanting to "upgrade" countries. Whereas Aussies to UK there is not much change - some might say we're even moving down a peg *winks*

I think as long as you can provide proof for all the requirements (relationship, financial, housing) and give them some basic plans for your impending nuptuals (e.g. when he arrives we'll go to our registry office and give notice. We think we'll have the ceremony XXX and we think we'll have a small reception for XX people held at XXX) then that will be more than good enough.

I understand of course the reasons for marriage, we're doing the same thing, but I won't be mentioning that at all We're getting married coz we're madly in love and want to become a proper family. You guys especially, it is important to the both of you that you're married before the baby comes so you can be a family in every sense of the word.

Good luck!

 

.

With due respect the reasons why Western embassies demand a LOT of documents for AFRICANS is just that they don`t trust/respect the BLACKS(racially motivated).Sham marriages reports in the UK doesn`t point to Africans as the main source of such practices.Do the world Really care about AFRICA as a continent ?

 

I don't think you have any reason to be paranoid, it should be pretty straightforward. But by the same token I know exactly what you mean, coz I often wonder how our app will go when our time comes!

I think it's a wonderful idea to put in your sponsor's letter that you're planning a registry wedding now and then to renew your vows in a year or so. You could mention that will give you more time to save for a big reception, and also that you'd like your son/daughter to walk down as pageboy/flowergirl. Plus, I think mentioning that you're going to save for a big wedding should help indicate to them that you're planning on hubby getting a job which will not only support your family, but will also have surplus funds to save.

Another idea which many others have done is to buy the paper on jobs day (which is today up north, dunno where you are) and circle/cut out jobs which your FH is qualified/experienced enough to apply for. This will help the immigration authorities to estimate FH earnings so will help you for the financial proof.

I wrote a big post earlier but it's disappeared, I had more in there for you but this is all I can remember for now

I'm sure you'll be fine, you sound well prepared so it should be just a formality.

Is your FH going to apply by post or in person for the Fiance visa?

Good luck with it all, but you're not gonna need it

 

Hi again Jilly,
Sorry I didn't see this yesterday, or I'd have replied sooner!
Yes, absolutely perfect to include the letter from your folks about staying in their house rent free until you can get your own place. This is quite common and a good thing to include.
And I'd do *at least* 3 months. We're inclluding 6 months, but am pedantic. Just prior to me submitting our application I will have been in Turkey and Vegas, so our recent 3 months statements are full of expensive charges to the credit card due to these 2 trips. If I include 6 months, then they will see what my savings history was like before I started to spend

 

Ooooh and since he's in Tas and you're in UK, I'd also include phone bills, letters, emails etc. Obviously nothing *too* personal in nature, but evidence of ongoing and frequent contact since the seperation would be good if you have any. If not don't worry!

 

Applying for a SPouse Visa Second Time Around

Hi i was very interested and impressed with some of the responces that i have seen given to queries on the web site and was hoping that I may be able to get some great tips and advice to. As me and my husband cant afford to pay for a immigration lawyer.

I meet my husband in oz in feb 04 when i was on a working hol. Im irish and he is ozy but has dual citizenship for UK and the EU as his mum is english. He is in the defence forces in OZ.

after my working visa expired in July 04 i returned to ireland then went back to oz in the sept for 3 months holiday visa to live with him and then when that expired he returned to ireland with me taking leave from the defence forces and spent 6 weeks with me and my family in ireland and we spent over 4 weeks touring europe , 2 weeks on a tour and then 2 weeks with his parents as they came over to ireland to meet my parents and trvel around the uk.

he then went back to oz for work and when we had been together for 12 months i applied for a defacto visa and it failed so lots of expense wasted.I had to work for 7 months to get back to oz and was only again let in on a tourist visa again after a lot of hasstle and was given a crap visa that would not let me stay after it expirxed so i had to leave . We got married in Feb 06 and now i am back alone in irealnd waiting to apply again but am freaking that we wont get it again,

we just want to be together and it makes me so sad and depressed that 2 people from opposite ends of the world that just meet feel in love and are genuine are treated like this.

Does anyone have an positive advise for me please
xxxx

 

Uk fiance visa

im a 21 year old student living in london. i ama british citizen. my girlfriend is australian and i got with her in January 2005 while we were working together in a store on Oxford Street. she was on a working visa for two years and on April 29th this year that visa ran out. she has returned to Australia but we still want to be together and have decided that we will get married. we talked it over a lot and this is what we want to do. we are really serious about each other. now that civil partnership is legal we know this available to us. she is going to apply for a fiance visa as soon as i send her all the required documents. my questions are simply,
1. can i send photocopys of my passport and birth certificate?
2. if i put a couple of grand into a seperate savings account and get the bank to print me a balance is this proof of savings?
3. we will be staying in my parents house until we are married and she can work and we can move out into a flat. is this ok?
4. will me being a student have a bad effect on things? do they still class me as being stable?
5. other than passport, birth certificate, letter of explanation and saving statements, is there anything else i will need to send to her?

Thanks for helping. This whole thing is becoming a nightmare. I love my girlfriend and just want her back with me.

Thanks again,
Rosie

 

hey jilly thanks for your help. we are going to try everything we can and just hope that it goes through ok. i just hope it doesnt take so long you know? thanks