New Family visa rulings in the UK

[esllou]

My visa people back in london have told me savings do count fully (over £16k) so if you are self-employed/unemployed and can't count earnings at all, you will need:

2.5 years (period of time initial spouse visa for) x £18,500
plus £16,000 (the ignored amount)
Total = £62,250

In their initial guidelines published last month, it wasn't even clear that savings alone would be valid and there HAD to be a job/earnings.

So no worries at all if you have £62k rolling around. Oh, and that has to have been in your account for at least six months before application.

All the noises I'm hearing are that a lot of this stuff will get struck down in court, but that might be months and months away, possibly longer.

 

[jp]

All the noises I'm hearing are that a lot of this stuff will get struck down in court, but that might be months and months away, possibly longer.

I think it was struck down yesterday.

More info here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/...immigration-rules?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

 

[Gringoboy]

I read the original OP with horror.
I will be marrying my Argentine fiance in March and our long term plans are to live in the UK.
I'm talking 3 to 4 years from now due to family circumstances, but at least for-warned is for-armed.
Thanks for bringing this up.

 

[walkingtwig]

interesting that on a minimum wage (£6.08 - the main rate for workers aged 21 and over), working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year (no sick leave or holidays etc etc) you can only earn £12,646.40 in a year.... You need to earn at least £9 an hour to just scape over the threshold. Utter madness.. this alone should be a point of contest.

 

[Gringoboy]

Has Teresa May's bill actually been overturned?
I'm a little confused as to the current situation right now.
I'm assuming, rightly or wrongly that the probation period still goes to five years, but the income requirements have been overruled.
Am I correct?

 

[esllou]

interesting that on a minimum wage (£6.08 - the main rate for workers aged 21 and over), working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year (no sick leave or holidays etc etc) you can only earn £12,646.40 in a year.... You need to earn at least £9 an hour to just scape over the threshold. Utter madness.. this alone should be a point of contest.

this is where I see it falling down in the courts. For JSA, the govt. themselves state that far less is required to "support a couple" (of course, low balling those figures suits the state in that case because it means they have to pay less out) so it's a bit rich (pun intended!) them saying "you only need this amount to survive" to a couple seeking JSA then saying to family visa applicants "oh really, you need far more".

 

[esllou]

I think it was struck down yesterday.

More info here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/...immigration-rules?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

yes, that looks bad for them. With a working majority in the Commons though, there's no reason why they can't do the required and take it through parliament although my guess is they'll need to shift on the earnings/savings requirement.

JSA for couples is £5800 per year:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consu...@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_200090.html

why are they asking for more than triple this?

I think even £10k would be more realistic amount, and forget the ignored £16k too.

 

[trennod]

I am very sorry to hear this Ashley and to any others that are affected.

What an embarassment. How about focussing their efforts on overstayed visas, illegal border crossings etc etc. I read a statistica few months back which estimated there was somewhere around 60,000 overstays in Australia, can imagine that number is heaps higher in the UK.

I am not all across the existing partner visa process in the UK, but assuming it is similar to Australias, which has a very robust process where you must prove the genuinity of a (minimum) defacto relationship over 12 months, surely that kind of process would catch out most of those trying to cheat the system?

 

[esllou]

the real problem is the EU because they have little or no control over that, so have decided to go uber crazy on all the non-EU stuff as that plays well in the press. Even Labour admitted very recently they made a huge mistake in 2004 allowing unfettered immigration from poland/romania even though most other EU countries put some level on restriction on those nations. Think a million poles and half a million romanians came in the years after 2004.

here's the labour apology story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18539472

He said Gordon Brown and Tony Blair should not have allowed uncontrolled immigration from new EU states in 2004.


In 2004, the government allowed free migration to the UK for workers from EU accession states including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.


But its estimates that only about 13,000 people a year would come to the country were soon proved wrong, with a peak net migration figure, from the EU and elsewhere, of 252,000 in 2010.

I was also told that UKBA reject a lot of applications even knowing they'll go through on appeal because the figures that get released to the press are the initial figures, not the ultimately accepted on appeal figures.