Work Visa

[Dynamic Sounds]

As some of you may, or may not, know my OH is American. Whe we got married just under 2 years ago, we had to apply for a visa for her to move here. When we got her visa, it cost us £500, and we knew that it was only a "provisional" visa that after 2 years we would have to apply to change into a permanent visa.

Well today we were searching the internet for information about how to change her visa to a permanent visa. At the time we were told it was straight forward and would not be a problem.......

.....well found out that the fee for the permanent visa is another £750! And on top of that she has to sit a "LIFE IN THE UK" test, at a cost of another £35, and a trip to Inverness. The fact that English is her native language, she is degree educated and a qualified teacher menas nothing!

OK I admit that we should have looked into all of this earlier, but seems that the government wants nearly £1300 off of us just so we can live together! Nice :mad:

Rant over......

[hotrod4]

Thats bad crack dynamic,
But if she came in the back of a lorry and claimed to be "under severe threat of danger from rabid tribesmen" then she would be allowed to stay no problem!!!!:roll:
And people wonder why some people dont like Assylum seekers who milk our country when an educated person from our so called "best friend" country cant get in but we can accept those from a country we are at war with?

It beggars belief doesnt it.

Hope you can find a way without shelling out all that dosh dynamic,all the best to you and our American Cousin!!!:)

[davie]

Simple solution to this problem - get rid of existing visa, passport, any identifying documents, then present yourself to Border Security at London Heathrow. Bobs your uncle, British citizenship arranged on the spot. Any problems you consult one Keith Vaz c/o Parliament Buildings SW1, who for a very small fee, will iron out any hitches.

[canuck]

Dynamic Sounds, I'm with you on this. Your rant is heard over and over in my household.

My first visa was for 2 years. Now I have to apply for another which should last 3 more years. Then I get to apply for permanent residency. And all these applications cost many pounds. I've given up keeping track.

I was was willing to go along with all of this (well sort of) until I discovered that I had to now do an English language competency test. That costs £100. Apparently because Canada is bilingual there is a very real chance that French might be my first language. It doesn't matter that my three university degrees are from English language universities. You can probably read the rage in my post. Yes, ggggrrrrr!

Now, I do have the option of claiming ancestry status. But that has to be done from Canada. The visa is cheaper than an airplane ticket, but just!

[EDDIE]

As some of you may, or may not, know my OH is American. Whe we got married just under 2 years ago, we had to apply for a visa for her to move here. When we got her visa, it cost us £500, and we knew that it was only a "provisional" visa that after 2 years we would have to apply to change into a permanent visa.

Well today we were searching the internet for information about how to change her visa to a permanent visa. At the time we were told it was straight forward and would not be a problem.......

.....well found out that the fee for the permanent visa is another £750! And on top of that she has to sit a "LIFE IN THE UK" test, at a cost of another £35, and a trip to Inverness. The fact that English is her native language, she is degree educated and a qualified teacher menas nothing!

OK I admit that we should have looked into all of this earlier, but seems that the government wants nearly £1300 off of us just so we can live together! Nice :mad:

Rant over......

Well if your better half passes her life in th uk test she will more than likely no more than me i have lived in th uk all my life.
I think the life in the uk test is heap of u know what i can fully understand someone had to learn to speak english if they want to live and work in the uk u can see the logic in that but a life in the uk test a bit stupid she we learn what life in the uk is from her own experience when she comes in

[riggerboy]

just a thought but have you looked into the cost of a DIVORCE, (for goodness sake i was only joking) cheaper to let her stay buddy

[Alice in Blunderland]

Been there done that got the t shirt. ;)

It is as you say money, money, money,all the way.

The good thing is once its done there will be no more payments to make....................... well unless its a British Passport.

[crayola]

To those of you who think it's easy to get into this country and work.

Things have changed drastically recently. The government wants to keep close tabs on all non EU residents and as usual its solution is to get us to do its dirty work by forcing employers to spy on our own workforce. The new legislation is bound with miles of red tape and is draconian. Smoke is coming out of my ears already. [disgust]

[JAWS]

Didn't she flee here in danger of her life from all those pesky injuns running round scalping people? And don't say I'm wrong, folks, I seen it at the pictures when I was young. ;)

What I find annoying is that people who do their best to abide by the rules, wherever they come from, are made to grovel and squirm in order to be ripped off and penalised whilst those who ignore or avoid the rules are given better treatment.

Quite apart from that, how on earth do they justify the fees that are charged? On second thoughts that is a stupid question when any government is involved.
It’s not how much a service actually costs, it more a question of how much they can fleece people for.

[JAWS]

To those of you who think it's easy to get into this country and work.

Things have changed drastically recently. The government wants to keep close tabs on all non EU residents and as usual its solution is to get us to do its dirty work by forcing employers to spy on our own workforce. The new legislation is bound with miles of red tape and is draconian. Smoke is coming out of my ears already. [disgust]
That is just so they can claim to "be dealing with the situation". Yet another case of penalising those people who try to abide by the rules for the sake of a favourable sound bite.

[crayola]

I don't think it's for political or soundbite purposes. I think Gordon Brown genuinely believes we should be protecting ourselves this way. It's the personnel departments in charge of big companies who are spinning the red tape.

[gleeber]

Someone somewhere must have done a time and motion study before coming up with those prices. Times are hard and the civil service has a lot of mouths to feed and pensions to fund. :(

[golach]

Someone somewhere must have done a time and motion study before coming up with those prices. Times are hard and the civil service has a lot of mouths to feed and pensions to fund. :(
Tell me about it, the duty on fags an booze, help pay my pension [disgust]

[JAWS]

I don't think it's for political or soundbite purposes. I think Gordon Brown genuinely believes we should be protecting ourselves this way. It's the personnel departments in charge of big companies who are spinning the red tape.
The Government have been caught massaging the figures too many times for them to actually be taking any serious action. People who fill in forms and have a permanent location are easily found and punished, ie. firms who inadvertently employ people who should not be here, and that makes good publicity.

People who are working who should not be here and who have no permanent address can easily "disappear" and are therefore hard to trace and prosecute so hitting the employer is the easy option.

I have lost track of the number of useless gimmicks this Government has come up with as “initiatives” to deal with the situation, including suggesting sending them text messages reminding them to leave the country. I’m still waiting to find out how they were going to get illegal immigrants to give them their mobile phone numbers so they could text them, but it got the headlines at the time.

Once again, the only people that suggestion could be applied to would be the people who had filled all the correct forms, ticked all the right boxes, were entitled to be here and who were quite willing to either leave when their visa expired or to apply for it to be renewed.
In other words, those who didn’t need a text message sending to them in the first place.

[crayola]

Yes, GB is a bit of a control freak and this fits in with that. Any income is a bonus.

[Dynamic Sounds]

Thanks for all the comments on this.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that Mr Brown et all wants to protect our borders, but I think that the £750 is totally excessive!

If we were married a year earlier the marriage visa would only have been £250! And the evidence we had to supply to the UK embassy was amazing. Was about half a ream of paper between evidence of housing, that we had met, her education, phone bills to prove we had spoken etc etc.. and then it took less than 24 hours for the visa department in New York to look over it and say YES!

The good news is that we won't be looking for dual nationality for her, as the US don't offically recognise dual nationality of its citizens, so no more expense there.

Thinking over it, what gets me is that although I have given the UK government lots of my cash, and they know exactly where we live, they have sent us nothing to inform us that the wifes visa is due for renewal, or what she has to do to renew it.

I wonder if we were bothe to have "selective amnessia" attacks and do nothing, how long it would take for the authorities to catch up with us?

[crayola]

My employer has decided we have to go through a similar process when we pay anyone to do anything, including hiring someone to work for us for one hour! This applies to everyone including UK nationals and it's all because of the new immigration and work permit rules. It's crazy.

[canuck]

The problem would arise when you were on a trip outside of the country and were presenting your papers at the border to re-enter the UK.

[Elenna]

The good news is that we won't be looking for dual nationality for her, as the US don't offically recognise dual nationality of its citizens, so no more expense there.



This is not true...the USA Does officially recognise dual nationality, they just don't officially approve of it. The law was changed way back in 1986, yet has been kept so 'un-publicised' that even many immigration lawyers and AIA personnel are unaware that it was changed, and are still giving out incorrect information.

PM me if you are interested in more information on this.



Otherwise, yes, the UK immigration system is like a maze that in the last few years seems to have been developed to choke as much money out of honest applicants as possible. 2-3 years ago, the application fee for naturalisation was £214. It is currently £655, but will be going up as of 6 April this year to £720 (This is just one example I am familiar with. I am sure that visa fees, etc are similar).

And it may be set to get worse in future (as early as the autumn this year), if the current government pushes through a few things into law. I don't know all the ins and outs, but from what I understand the result would be that 'permanant residency' (or 'settlement', as they call it) would no longer be permanent...instead requiring periodic renewal/review...with the focus being on 'encouraging' all non-naturalised long-term UK residents to become UK citizens.