# Spouse visa success



## TheBigBean (Jan 16, 2015)

We have just received our spouse visa. When I was researching what we needed to do I found a lot of posts on this forum very useful; however, it also made me panic a bit to read about rejections and things I hadn’t even thought of, so I thought I would create this post to tell people of a success story.

The process took 6.5 weeks including the Christmas period. It was processed in Manila.

We met all of the criteria without much difficulty (I’m very sympathetic to those that do not), so we elected to go with a belt and braces approach. I know this might have created more work for the ECO, but I took the view that it was better to provide too much, than too little.

I thoroughly recommend reading all the documents. These provide answers to lots of the questions. I read all of the following:
- Annex FM 1.21
- Annex FM 1.7 Financial Requirement
- Appendix FM SE
- Immigration rules – Appendix FM
- Suppporting Documents Settlement
- VAF4A
- VAF4A – Appendix 2

The visa application website is unbelievably bad and does not accept any punctuation other than a full stop and a comma. We chose the “wife” category from the initial list (husband is British) and listed the relationship to sponsor as spouse in the other information section. This makes more sense if you are trying to fill the form in.

We submitted the following documents. * denotes the fact that this was probably not necessary, but we included just in case.

English speaking
Certificate of MSc from UK university

Other
Certified copy of sponsor passport 
TB certificate
Printed application form (VAF4A)
Completed Appendix 2
Spouse passport
Spouse passport sized photo x 2
SU07*
Evidence of current employment of spouse*
Sample itinerary
Letter from Sponsor (explaining everything in the application)
Spouse letter (intentions of what to do when in UK)

Relationship
Marriage certificate
23 Photos stuck on A4 with labels (probably too many) from a four year period
Complete data dump of Kakao talk message time stamps* (Very large)
Flight tickets from honeymoon, holidays together and visits to spouse’s country
Certified copy of entry stamps
E-mails / kakao screen shots

Finances
Bank statement showing six months of savings (Actually showed 2+ years)
Letter from bank explaining that black and white statement is original*
Letter stating source of funds*
One current account statement showing source of some of the funds*

Accommodation
Letter from landlord stating floor area and that it was ok for spouse to live there. It was quite old though.
Tenancy Agreement
Electricity bill
Water bill*
Letter from parents stating we could also live with them for as long as wanted*
Registry extract of parents house*


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

Your application was certainly not overblown, and you included all the required documents and not much else. You didn't have to show details of housing offer from your parents as insurance policy. You could have trimmed some of your communications record. Otherwise fine.


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## TheBigBean (Jan 16, 2015)

Joppa said:


> You didn't have to show details of housing offer from your parents as insurance policy.


I took the view that there could be little harm in doing so - one one page letter and an extract from the registry (£7). The letter from my landlord was from 10 months ago and it showed that I have a very high rental cost, so I wanted to make the point that we could live for free if required.

The problem for me is that unless the government clearly defines the exact rules then the temptation will always be to provide too much.


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## gigisweden (Feb 21, 2015)

Hi,
Im not sure if I can still post here as it is going back until January. I can see you didnt include a 'property inspection report' just a letter from the landlord stating floor area...assuming this was sufficient?


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## TheBigBean (Jan 16, 2015)

gigisweden said:


> Hi,
> Im not sure if I can still post here as it is going back until January. I can see you didnt include a 'property inspection report' just a letter from the landlord stating floor area...assuming this was sufficient?


That was sufficient for me as a single occupant of a flat. Three months has now passed so I've completely forgotten everything I learnt, but I have a feeling you only need the property inspection thing if you planned to live with other people or had a large family or something. Hopefully, someone else will be able to answer your question more precisely.


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## nyclon (Apr 3, 2011)

The OP is correct. They didn't need a property inspection because they had their own flat. They included information on their parent's home as backup-which was unnecessary. They weren't actually living with their parents so they didn't need a property inspection. 

If you are sharing with friends or family you should have a property inspection.


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## Jubilee_Royal (Apr 24, 2015)

wow, that is good to know that if we are renting a flat which is only for us we don't need to provide inspection report.


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## gigisweden (Feb 21, 2015)

Managed to get a letter from the solicitor at the time of the purchase of the house detailing the amount of bedrooms etc , it's pretty detailed so fingers crossed that is ok! Now the 10 day wait.....


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