# Refused Tier 2 ICT dependent visa: help with new application



## Ordev (Sep 24, 2015)

Hi, I have recently been refused a Tier 2 ICT long-term staff partner visa and need help.

My spouse and I are from Belarus and he is in the process of being relocated by his company to the UK. Eariler this month we have applied for visas together, and on 16.09.2015 he got his visa while I got a refusal letter.

I don't have the refusal at hand right now but it went something like this: 
*"You intend to accompany your spouse, who has been granted entry clearance as a Tier 2 General Migrant [this confused me as he actually was granted Tier 2 ICT visa]. I acknowledge that you have submitted your marriage certificate dated June 2 2015. However, you have failed to submit other evidence in support of your application. You did not submit any evidence proving that you are in a subsisting relationship such as shared travel, photos, joint financial obligations. I also note that you both noted in your applications that you live at separate addresses in Belarus, in separate cities. I am therefore not satisfied that you are in a subsisting relationship and intend to live together in the UK. 319C(d)(e)"*

Now, the address thing is because we supplied our official registration addresses, which are indeed different, but we in fact live together. We don't have hard evidence of that though, because ours is a same-sex marriage which is not recognized in our country and so I can't register my partner at my address as my spouse. We also don't have letters and bills sent to the two of us at the same address, unfortunately. So I'm planning to explain the situation in my cover letter and hope to prove our relationship with other evidence.

I am planning to submit the following evidence with my new application which is scheduled for 28.09.2015:
1. Cover letter explaining why we are not registered at the same address, explaining each enclosed evidence, with a request to give consideration to the fact that my spouse is unwilling to travel to the UK without me, although he already got a visa, which negatively impacts his work. I also state that we are willing to be interviewed to confirm our relationship.
2. Our marriage certificate (we had to travel to Denmark to get married as we can't do it in our country, so no guests, no photos).
3. My bank statement with transaction covering a 90-period showing that I have sufficient funds to support myself.
4. Photocopies of my spouse's passport (I did not certify the copy, should I?)
5. Documents relating to our shared travel history, 5 trips in all, starting from 2012: visa copies with entry/exit stamps showing same dates, bookings of hotels and plane tickets, bus tickets, insurance paid by my spouse for both of us. Most bookings show both our names, although two show only my spouse's name but with a reservation for two people. I also only have visa copies for 3 of the trips, the other 2 were in my old passport and lost now.
6. Photos from our trips. We only have two pairs of photos though, both from the 2012 trip, and we are not together in the photo - we just took photos of each other in the same place. It's clear in the photo that it's the same place and time though. 
7. A sample of screenshots of our chats from Skype and Viber, 9 from different periods. I also supplied translations of them, I know it's not necessary but it's clear from the samples I selected that we live together and seeing as we don't have other clear evidence of that...
8. A reference from my spouse's place of work, showing that he works in the same city as the residence address I supplied, intended to further prove that we do not in fact live in different cities.
9. Call history: some screenshots from my phone from different periods showing calls to him, as well as full phone history over the last year (4 pages) exported from my phone, showing that I mostly call him and my parents.
10. My TB test

That's all the "evidence of subsisting relationship" I could think of. What are our chances? What else I can do?

Any advice would be appreciated, I'm really worried to get a refusal again. Please help!


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## AmyD (Jan 12, 2013)

I don't see how you can possibly get a visa since you don't, in fact, live together. If you can't prove that, you can not get a visa. Maybe someone else knows more about the requirements and can think of a way to help but I just do not see it. Good luck to you.


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## Ordev (Sep 24, 2015)

Thanks for your reply AmyD, but, as I stated in my original post, we DO in fact live together, we just can't provide official proof of that largely because the laws of our country do not recognize our marriage. And living together prior to the application is actually not a hard requirement for this type of visa, as far as I can see. Our refusal grounds were *319C(d)(e)*:
*(d) The marriage or civil partnership, or relationship similar to marriage or civil
partnership, must be subsisting at the time the application is made.
(e) The applicant and the Relevant Points Based System Migrant must intend to live with
the other as their spouse or civil partner, unmarried or same-sex partner throughout the
applicants stay in the UK.*

So, I'm asking whether the additional evidence I'm planning to provide should be enough to convince the officer of these two points and what else I can do for my case.


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## ashkevron (May 1, 2012)

From reading a bit about it, it seems to be common practice in some countries which require citizens to have IDs with their address on the IDs - the citizens actually don't bother to change the address on their ID every time they change where they live as it's too much hassle/costs too much etc. As a result of that, spouses end up appearing as living at different addresses when in fact they live at the same address. Additionally, I remember someone from Macedonia struggling with utility bills at the same address because utilities often remain in the landlord's address even though the tenants pay the bills. So it's a nightmare to prove people actually live together.

No idea what you can do except find whatever official documents you have and which were sent to the same address (utility bills, internet bills, mobile phone bills, parking tickets, bank statements, etc) and explain very clearly why your official addresses are different. Without it, unfortunately, it's not looking good.


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## Ordev (Sep 24, 2015)

This is exactly the situation in our country, ashkevron. My spouse didn't bother to change the address on his ID when he moved to the city where we currently live. I could have added him to my address without much hassle if our marriage was valid in our country, but as it is not, I can't. We perhaps could have got a joint tenancy agreement on a friend's place or something, but seems like it's already too late to do that after a refusal.

However, judging by the refusal letter, it seems to me that the officer was more concerned with the fact that we did not originally provide any supporting evidence that our relationship is subsisting(=long-term, genuine?), so I'm hoping our shared travel over the years and communication logs would be enough... How to show our intent to live together in the UK, I don't know, other than just express this intent, but surely people can have an intent to live together even if they were not currently living together for some reason!

If someone can shed light on whether it is obligatory to provide proof of living together for this type of visa, please advice. Because I didn't get this impression reading the immigration rules and pbs dependent guidance.


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

You don't have to cohabit before marriage but you must after you tie the knot. If you don't without good reasons (such as job situation or caring for sick relative), they assume your marriage isn't genuine. As stated, you just have to find any evidence of cohabitation.


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## ashkevron (May 1, 2012)

> However, judging by the refusal letter, it seems to me that the officer was more concerned with the fact that we did not originally provide any supporting evidence that our relationship is subsisting(=long-term, genuine?), so I'm hoping our shared travel over the years and communication logs would be enough... How to show our intent to live together in the UK, I don't know, other than just express this intent, but surely people can have an intent to live together even if they were not currently living together for some reason!
> 
> If someone can shed light on whether it is obligatory to provide proof of living together for this type of visa, please advice. Because I didn't get this impression reading the immigration rules and pbs dependent guidance.


It's obligatory to provide evidence you have been living together for the past two years or since you got married if that happened less than two years ago. Normally you need six official letters sent to each of you during this period, to the same address or six sent to the joint names or a combination thereof. In case you don't have enough evidence and you are a little bit short, you may stand a chance if you explain why you can't provide the correct amount they are asking for, but you must have some. Without it, chances of being refused again are quite high.


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## DeaMK (Jun 9, 2015)

Ordev said:


> This is exactly the situation in our country, ashkevron. My spouse didn't bother to change the address on his ID when he moved to the city where we currently live. I could have added him to my address without much hassle if our marriage was valid in our country, but as it is not, I can't.


I am the one from Macedonia that ashkevron mentioned that had problems with proving co-habitation with partner. Things just added up in our case and made what is reality - living together, an impossible fact to prove. Moreover, the evidence which the UKBI asks for is not evidence which can be obtained here easily and some does not even exist or is illegal. For example, joint bank accounts do not exist, doctors do not send reports at home addresses, there is no such thing as a council tax which can tie you to your residence address, and if you do not own the place where you live than even if you pay for all bills and have a valid written renting contract you will not get bills on your name (this is just not done as it is illegal - bills are charged to the owner of the property not the inhabiter) and a valid renting contract is not even a regular thing and is more an exception than a rule in practice... And we can add to this inability to obtain detailed phone records which go beyond the current year (keeping such records is illegal).

Anyhow, as my partner's visa application was initially refused I do not think it is smart for me to propose anything as possible evidence as thus far we have not been successful (we have asked for an administrative review, though, and are still waiting for the reply..). 

But, did you go for the application on the date you mentioned above? What did you submit this time?


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## DeaMK (Jun 9, 2015)

Ordev said:


> Now, the address thing is because we supplied our official registration addresses, which are indeed different, but we in fact live together. We don't have hard evidence of that though, because ours is a same-sex marriage which is not recognized in our country and so I can't register my partner at my address as my spouse. We also don't have letters and bills sent to the two of us at the same address, unfortunately. So I'm planning to explain the situation in my cover letter and hope to prove our relationship with other evidence.


In case you haven't re-applied yet, make sure you add the address where the two of you live together in the application form in the filed where it asks for the preferred contact is (it asks for permanent address and preferred contact details). My partner and I stated the permanent addresses (which are different and also in different cities just like the two of you  ) but added our joint address in preferred contact.


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## Ordev (Sep 24, 2015)

Hi DeaMK, yes, I re-applied last Monday with all the documents I listed in my first post. In the end it was also impossible for us to find any additional evidence to prove our cohabitation for all the above-mentioned reasons. But I successfully received my passport with the visa stamped today!

It appears I was correct in my understanding of the immigration rules and nowhere it is said that a *married couple* need to live together when applying for this type of visa. It is only explicitly required for unmarried couples. The only requirements as mentioned in the rules and my refusal letter are that a relationship is subsisting and the couple intends to live together in the UK. It's only logical, after all, a dependent can apply for a visa while the main applicant is already in the UK. So it seems the officer was satisfied that our marriage is genuine based on the evidence I provided. 

And yes, we did provide the same "preferred contact details" but different "permanent residence address" when we applied the first time, and both said yes to "is you partner currently living with you", but still the officer was confused/believed that we live separately. 

Thanks for all the replies anyway, although you got me really worried there for a while. But I hope this helps people in a similar situation.


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## DeaMK (Jun 9, 2015)

Ordev said:


> Hi DeaMK, yes, I re-applied last Monday with all the documents I listed in my first post. In the end it was also impossible for us to find any additional evidence to prove our cohabitation for all the above-mentioned reasons. But I successfully received my passport with the visa stamped today!


AMAZING!!! Congrats!!!  



Ordev said:


> although you got me really worried there for a while.


This is not addressed to me personally, right?  ) 

And btw just in case you need to use the forum again in the future - have in mind that people just write from their own experiences; if someone applied for a spouse visa they might be less acquainted with dependant visas or tier 4 visas... They just write what they know/have read/heard from others. For example, for me your case confirms what I was told by people here - that if my partner and I get married and reapply for this visa, we should not expect to have any problems (as co-habitation becomes irrelevant)...

And congrats again! Great news


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## Ordev (Sep 24, 2015)

DeaMK said:


> This is not addressed to me personally, right?  )


No, no, sorry, I was just really worried initially by other replies. Of course I understand that this is just a place for people to share their personal experiences and opinions and I don't hold it against anyone! After all we can all just try to interpret the written rules and share our experience. I'm just really glad that I got my visa and hope someone finds my experience useful too. 



DeaMK said:


> ...if my partner and I get married and reapply for this visa, we should not expect to have any problems (as co-habitation becomes irrelevant)...


In any case I think you'd better provide some other additional evidence of relationship like for example the evidence in my OP if you have anything. Because as you can see a marriage certificate by itself is often not enough. Even if you have phone calls only for the last year, as you mentioned, I would still provide it as supporting evidence if you don't have much of anything else, if only for variety's sake. Like in our case we only provided a few phone bills from different days over the last year that I chose at two month intervals, as the bills were very detailed (listing for example times of internet access) so each day took a whole page or two and of course we couldn't provide a whole year of that! 

Thank you for you kind words, I hope you and your partner are successful with your application too!


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## DeaMK (Jun 9, 2015)

Ordev said:


> In any case I think you'd better provide some other additional evidence of relationship like for example the evidence in my OP if you have anything. Because as you can see a marriage certificate by itself is often not enough. Even if you have phone calls only for the last year, as you mentioned, I would still provide it as supporting evidence if you don't have much of anything else, if only for variety's sake. Like in our case we only provided a few phone bills from different days over the last year that I chose at two month intervals, as the bills were very detailed (listing for example times of internet access) so each day took a whole page or two and of course we couldn't provide a whole year of that!


Thanks for this! We'll make sure we do this (and I also plan to post on this forum soon to ask for an advice on how to approach the issue in case we need to reapply). 

Btw we also have joint trips (and tickets/reservations/concert tickets/passport stamps), photos (though not too many as aside from not being fans of photographing at all, and in our case this was a highlighted rejection reason), a LOT of communication from other sources (so aside phone from this year, I can also produce print screens from sms-s for the whole duration of the relationship; but we also have skype logs, facebook logs, email communication..). And we submitted a large part of this in his application, but they say it is not enough...



Ordev said:


> Thank you for you kind words, I hope you and your partner are successful with your application too!


Very sweet of you! Thanks


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