Background
Miss O has a fiancé in the UK who is a British citizen.
She previously submitted an application for a UK Standard Visitor Visa to come to the UK. However, her previous application was refused because the Home Office was not satisfied with her financial circumstances in her home country.
Miss O and her fiancé did not wish to apply for a fiancé visa as they intended to get married outside of the UK at a later stage. If they had taken the route of applying for a fiancé visa, the couple would have been required to register their marriage in the UK within 6 months of Miss O’s entry to the UK. The couple did not wish to take this route.
Miss O instructed us to assist her with a fresh Visitor Visa application.
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How we helped
For a Standard Visitor Visa application to be successful, it is crucial to satisfy the Entry Clearance Officer that the applicant’s purpose of visiting the UK is genuine and that they will leave the UK at the end of their trip. To do this, the applicant must provide sufficient evidence to show that they have strong social and economic ties in their home country, and they will return at the end of their visit. The applicant must also provide evidence to show that they are able to support themselves during their trip.
During the consultation, Miss O informed us that she was working for a textile company in her own country. She further informed us that in her previous application, which was refused, she had not mentioned that she has a fiancé in the UK. The reason for this was because the purpose of the previous Visitor Visa application was to come to the UK for business related activities. We advised Miss O that we would clarify this in the fresh application to ensure that the Entry Clearance Officer would not impose a deception allegation against her, since she was engaged to her fiancé in the UK at the time of her previous application but did not disclose this in her previous application. Miss O further informed us that she would be relying on her fiancé’s finances to demonstrate that there are sufficient funds in place to cover the of her flight to and from the UK, and any other costs during her stay in the UK. Miss O would stay at her fiancé’s home which he owned in the UK.
Having carried out the detailed consultation with Miss O, we prepared a list of documents tailored to Miss O’s circumstances. Miss O provided various documents to demonstrate the genuineness of her relationship with her British fiancé such as photographs, including their engagement photographs, WhatsApp chat history, and evidence of the couple seeing each other through various passport stamps and flight tickets. She also provided her fiancé’s passport copy as proof of his identity.
To demonstrate her ties to her home country, Miss O provided various documents to show that she was working in her home country, including her recent payslips and bank statements showing receipt of her salary. We also advised her to include a letter from her employer which confirmed the particulars of her employer as well as confirming that her request for annual leave during her intended travel dates to the UK had been approved. As further evidence of her ties to her home country, Miss O also provided evidence to show that she was living with her family there, as well as proof of her relationship to her family.
With regards to evidencing that Miss O satisfies the requirement of having sufficient funds in place to cover the costs of her intended stay in the UK, we helped Miss O obtain several documents such as her fiancé’s recent payslips, bank statements, savings account statements. We also obtained proof of accommodation in the UK during her intended period of stay. We advised her that since the property she would stay at was owned by her fiancé, we would require the proof of ownership from HM Land Registry. We also helped Miss O’s fiancé to draft a detailed invitation letter and sponsorship declaration confirming the genuine purpose of the trip and that he will pay for the journey and provide her with the accommodation.
To further strengthen her application, we advised Miss O to provide evidence of any visa’s issued for other countries for which she left the country prior to the end date of the visa. We advised her that this would demonstrate that she abided by the conditions and left prior to the end of the visa.
We also helped Miss O to provide a detailed statement explaining her economic circumstances, her ties to her home country, and the purpose of Miss O’ trip to the UK. Within this statement, we helped her with providing an explanation of why she had not mentioned that she has a fiancé in the UK in her previous application which was refused. This would help the Home Office to have a better understanding and strengthen her application.
When we were reviewing Miss O’ personal bank statements, we noticed that she had not received the correct salary for some of the months. We advised her to reach out to the employer to rectify this and provide an explanation in the employer letter, so that there would not be any ambiguities in her application.
To strengthen the application, we prepared a detailed covering letter which explained that Miss O wanted to genuinely visit the UK, and there would be no reason for her to overstay her visa. We explained that if she had intended to stay in the UK permanently, she could have either submitted a fiancé visa and varied this to a spouse visa from inside the UK, or she would have arranged for her marriage to take place and applied for a spouse visa from her home country. She therefore had other application options available to her, however, she genuinely wished to come to the UK to visit her fiancé for a short period of time.
Result
We helped Miss O to submit her application with solid evidence to satisfy the Entry Clearance Officer that she would return to her home country at the end of her visit. We further assisted Miss O to book her appointment to enrol biometrics and uploaded all the documents beforehand. Miss O’s application was approved in less than 1 week of attending her biometric enrolment appointment at the visa application centre. The couple were very excited about spending some time together in the UK.
