# Bringing my Korean girlfriend back to England



## Palebluedot (Mar 1, 2013)

Hello all,

I am currently teaching in South Korea and have been dating my (Korean) girlfriend for almost two years. We are looking at moving to England when my contract finishes in March 2014. We are trying to find out the specific requirements for applying for a visa so that she can move to England with me. The UK Border Agency seems to be a little vague and South Korean forums offer some details that i can not be sure are accurate. Does anyone have any clear details on what exactly we need to submit?

We were planning on going to England together as an unmarried couple. If it would make the process easier then we could get married (here in Korea). One website said that i will have to work in England for six months (to provide sufficient proof that i can support her financially) before she can even apply for a visa. Is this true? The thought of being apart for a lengthy period of time is worrying...

My girlfriend and I can prove that we have been on several holidays together, i have met her family, and we have a savings account together. Neither of us have been married before and we have no children. She has visited England but has not yet my family yet.

Thanks for reading. Any help would be greatly appreciated!


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

Palebluedot said:


> Hello all,
> 
> I am currently teaching in South Korea and have been dating my (Korean) girlfriend for almost two years. We are looking at moving to England when my contract finishes in March 2014. We are trying to find out the specific requirements for applying for a visa so that she can move to England with me. The UK Border Agency seems to be a little vague and South Korean forums offer some details that i can not be sure are accurate. Does anyone have any clear details on what exactly we need to submit?
> 
> ...


Your choice is either unmarried partner visa, spouse visa or fiancée visa. For unmarried partner, you need documentary proof of having lived together for two years. Travelling together doesn't count, unless you were already cohabiting. Evidence required includes joint tenancy, bills in joint names and official letters bearing the same address. For spouse visa, you get married first in Korea (can be somewhere else outside UK), and for fiancée visa, you must get married within 6 months of arriving in UK and switch to leave to remain as spouse.

Each of these visa carries financial requirement, which you can meet in one of several ways. If you want to return to UK together, first you need to have earned £18,600 gross in Korea during the last 12 months and you have a confirmed job offer in UK starting within 3 months paying at least the minimum. If you haven't earned the required amount in Korea, you have to return home first, get a job and start earning £1550 every month for 6 months before she can apply. Or there are savings of £62,500 between you, the amount left untouched for 6 months. Savings can be combined with earned income in some cases.


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## Palebluedot (Mar 1, 2013)

Joppa, thank you so much for your response.

Proving living together is a little tricky for us because I am a teacher and the flat we are living in is paid for by the school so there is no rent. We do pay the bills for the utilities but they area actually addressed to the person who owns the building and so don't have our names on, although we do pay them from our accounts. I guess this might be a problem as it might not give enough proof of us living together.

Do you have any advice on this matter?

Thanks again.


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

I think the easiest place to start is to ask yourselves if you do intend to marry. If so, you can avoid the headache of proving you've lived together for a full two years and all you need to do is decide where (and when) you would like to marry - which in turn will determine which visa best suits you both.

If no, then you really do need a good collection of official paperwork proving that you have the same address(es) for two years or longer. That will require documents in joint names or individually but addressed to the same address. Any thing such as utility bills, banking correspondence or government-issued papers will be accepted. You need something that dates you at least two years back, but also a few more papers covering the span of time you've lived together. If you don't have this either, it's going to be difficult to prove your cohabitation.


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## smithcalvin37 (Jan 16, 2013)

Your choice is either unmarried partner visa, spouse visa or fiancée visa. For unmarried partner, you need documentary proof of having lived together for two years. Travelling together doesn't count, unless you were already cohabiting. Evidence required includes joint tenancy, bills in joint names and official letters bearing the same address. For spouse visa, you get married first in Korea (can be somewhere else outside UK), and for fiancée visa, you must get married within 6 months of arriving in UK and switch to leave to remain as spouse.

Each of these visa carries financial requirement, which you can meet in one of several ways. If you want to return to UK together, first you need to have earned £18,600 gross in Korea during the last 12 months and you have a confirmed job offer in UK starting within 3 months paying at least the minimum. If you haven't earned the required amount in Korea, you have to return home first, get a job and start earning £1550 every month for 6 months before she can apply. Or there are savings of £62,500 between you, the amount left untouched for 6 months. Savings can be combined with earned income in some cases.


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## Palebluedot (Mar 1, 2013)

Thanks 2farapart.

So if we were to marry in Korea or in England, would we not have to prove our living together? I presume when we marry we would need to provide documentation relating to our marriage (marriage certificate, ring receipts etc.)?

The ideal situation would be for us to go to England together when my current job contract finishes in March 2014. I think I am currently earning just over £18,600 (by a tiny amount but that still counts!) but I imagine getting a job lined up in England while I am in Korea might be a tricky task... We want to be apart for as short a time as possible (but obviously preferably not at all) and i would like to do everything in my power to make that happen.


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

Palebluedot said:


> Thanks 2farapart.
> 
> So if we were to marry in Korea or in England, would we not have to prove our living together? I presume when we marry we would need to provide documentation relating to our marriage (marriage certificate, ring receipts etc.)?
> 
> The ideal situation would be for us to go to England together when my current job contract finishes in March 2014. I think I am currently earning just over £18,600 (by a tiny amount but that still counts!) but I imagine getting a job lined up in England while I am in Korea might be a tricky task... We want to be apart for as short a time as possible (but obviously preferably not at all) and i would like to do everything in my power to make that happen.


If you marry first (or decide to marry in the UK on a fiancée visa), there is no fixed term that you must have been living together beforehand (though UKBA will expect that you have lived together since marrying and if that's not possible, you need to offer a good explanation). If there isn't a single piece of paper you would be able to put forward showing you have lived together (even just recently), it might be easier to apply as fiancés and marry in the UK because UKBA won't expect any period of living together at all. The main proof for these visas (besides financial proof) will be your marriage certificate (or some wedding plans made), and some proof that your relationship is genuine. To that end, any correspondence you have between you when you've been apart, cards, gift labels etc can help here. Really, anything that proves you are a genuine couple and not just arranging a marriage to give your partner a one-way ticket to the UK. Remember that the purpose is for UKBA to trip up bogus couples only, and to allow genuine couples through the system.

The 2-year proof of living together is there for unmarried-partners who have no intention of marrying. There is no legal or offical proof underpinning the relationship between unmarried partners, and so two people could technically claim to be in a relationship without even a single piece of paper cementing this, so UKBA expects other types of proof instead (hence the 2 years living together 'as if married').

Check your earnings with OANDA - Forex Trading and Exchange Rates Services | OANDA (this is who UKBA uses for currency conversion). Yes, you will also need to have a job waiting for you in the UK of at least £18,600 too (a confirmed job offer in writing). That's going to be the most tricky part. If you find you can't secure a job in advance, then the other option is for you move to the UK first, find a job that is at least £1,550 a month before tax, then your partner can then apply to join you (either as your wife where she applies direct for the first 2.5 year spouse visa) or as your fiancée so she can marry you in the UK, then from the UK apply for the 2.5 year Further Leave To Remain. Both visas have the exact same financial requirements; the fiancée visa is simply a shorter initial visa to allow you to marry in the UK before moving to the longer 2.5-year visas.


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

Palebluedot said:


> Thanks 2farapart.
> 
> So if we were to marry in Korea or in England, would we not have to prove our living together? I presume when we marry we would need to provide documentation relating to our marriage (marriage certificate, ring receipts etc.)?


Cohabitation before marriage isn't required, and is positively shunned by some couples because of personal, religious or cultural reasons. If your marriage certificate isn't in English, it will have to be professionally translated. If applying in SK, the UKBA site usually carries a list of approved translators.



> The ideal situation would be for us to go to England together when my current job contract finishes in March 2014. I think I am currently earning just over £18,600 (by a tiny amount but that still counts!) but I imagine getting a job lined up in England while I am in Korea might be a tricky task... We want to be apart for as short a time as possible (but obviously preferably not at all) and i would like to do everything in my power to make that happen.


Be careful about your current salary. If the exchange rates move against you, your salary may dip below £18,600 and you will be rejected. Can you do overtime etc now to be comfortably (say at least 5%) above the required level? They use Oanda spot sterling closing rate for the date of application to work out the sterling equivalent. While sterling has dipped against most currencies recently (by about 7%), it may come back up again by the time you apply, and since you are talking about past salary, it will be too late to do anything about.
As for getting a UK job offer, I agree it's difficult but you can use your holiday allowance to return briefly to UK and job-hunt or attend interviews.


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## Palebluedot (Mar 1, 2013)

Thanks again.

Perhaps marrying in England would be the better option then, which would mean we have to marry within six months of arriving right? So let's say hypothetically that i return to England in March 2014. I look for a job and get one starting in April. I would work for six months (earning over £1,550 a month before tax), which is when my fiancee could apply for her visa. When that is granted she would fly to England and we would have to marry within six months of her arrival. Is that a correct timeline of events? And if we married in Korea first then the same process would be fitting?

Joppa - as you mentioned I do need to be careful about my salary. The exchange rate is sending my wage below the threshold... There is no overtime available to work at my school. I could get extra cash in hand by teaching private classes, but would that be ok? Does the £18,600 need to be from one source (ie. my school) or can it be from several (ie. my school and private classes)?

Also, i have seen that the UK Border Agency has been abolished. Does anyone know how this will affect the visa application process? Where and to whom do we now apply?


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## WestCoastCanadianGirl (Mar 17, 2012)

You may want to crunch some numbers before deciding on which visa to apply for.

If you married in Korea beforehand, you'd eliminate one visa... i.e. by marrying outside of the UK, you get the 33 month spousal visa, then a second 30 month spousal visa and then apply for ILR, whereas if you chose to get married in the UK, Miss Gangnam Style would need to get the Fiancee visa (she can't enter on a tourist visa then get married and switch to FLR(M)), then two 30 month further leave to remain visas before she is eligible to apply for ILR.

If it's cheaper for you to get married in Korea than in the UK - i.e. how many of Miss Gangnam Style's family will want to come to the UK for the wedding vs how many of your family would go to Korea for the wedding... East Asians like a party and weddings are no exception (I know this for a fact, as I'm ethnically Japanese) - then you may want to consider going the spousal visa route over the fiancee visa.

In regards to the death of the UKBA... it's more of a nominal change than anything else... at the end of the day, the same bean counters will still be counting beans (i.e. the ECOs will still be processing applications) while the widget makers will still be making widgets (border enforcement will still be doing enforcement related duties)... whom they report to and how they title themselves wil change, but the substance of job will stay the same.


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## Palebluedot (Mar 1, 2013)

Thanks for the replies. If I return to England to find a job, can my partner come to the UK on a tourist visa for six months and then return to Korea to complete the visa application? I know that you can't directly change from a tourist visa to another visa while in the country but what if she went home? That would mean we weren't apart for the whole six months that i need to be working in a job earning over the specified amount.


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

That would be possible if the immigration officer grants her leave to enter as visitor for 6 months. They are rather suspicious of people with a partner/lover in UK but without settlement visa, and suspect they may be trying to overstay. So she needs to have convincing evidence that she is a genuine visitor, not trying to stay long-term, will not get illegal work or access public funds and will return home. She will need such evidence as a job to go back to, property in S Korea or family responsibility (e.g. caring for a sick relative). In addition she needs financial proof, either her own savings or sponsorship letter from you with your bank statement (showing you can afford to maintain her) and proof of accommodation (such as letter inviting her to stay at your place). Asking for full 6 months will be more difficult than for a shorter period, so you should consider restricting her initial stay to a month (not many people can get unpaid leave for 6 months).


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## Crawford (Jan 23, 2011)

..... one other thing to consider if that, as a visitor, your girlfriend will not have access to the NHS. So a travel insurance policy with medical cover is needed.


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## captainjack (May 14, 2013)

Joppa said:


> Each of these visa carries financial requirement, which you can meet in one of several ways. If you want to return to UK together, first you need to have earned £18,600 gross in Korea during the last 12 months and you have a confirmed job offer in UK starting within 3 months paying at least the minimum. If you haven't earned the required amount in Korea, you have to return home first, get a job and start earning £1550 every month for 6 months before she can apply. Or there are savings of £62,500 between you, the amount left untouched for 6 months. Savings can be combined with earned income in some cases.



I thought that the savings was a minimum of £16,000?


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

captainjack said:


> I thought that the savings was a minimum of £16,000?


No. £16,000 is the amount of savings you need before you calculate the savings equivalent of £18,600 over 2.5 years (length of the visa). Therefore, if the sponsor is not using income at all, they will need £18,600 x 2.5 years (£46,500) + the initial £16,000 = £62,500


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## Palebluedot (Mar 1, 2013)

Thanks Joppa. If my partner were to come to the UK on a tourist visa then I can provide the financial proof and proof of accommodation. Proving she is not here to stay longer would be a little tricky as she won't be returning to a job or any responsibilities as she is coming to the UK to live with me whenever she is able. She lives with her family in Korea so they can vouch for her returning. Perhaps she can come for a month and we can buy a return ticket home in advance to show the immigration officer. Do you think that would be enough evidence?

Crawford - thanks for the reminder of the health insurance


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## nyclon (Apr 3, 2011)

Palebluedot said:


> Thanks Joppa. If my partner were to come to the UK on a tourist visa then I can provide the financial proof and proof of accommodation. Proving she is not here to stay longer would be a little tricky as she won't be returning to a job or any responsibilities as she is coming to the UK to live with me whenever she is able. She lives with her family in Korea so they can vouch for her returning. Perhaps she can come for a month and we can buy a return ticket home in advance to show the immigration officer. Do you think that would be enough evidence?
> 
> Crawford - thanks for the reminder of the health insurance


Personal statements from friends and family carry no weight. Limiting her visit to a month seems more reasonable.


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