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UK Settlement Visa Application Checklist - Applying from Malaysia

2K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  Rina Zainul 
#1 ·
Hey everyone,

I recently applied for the UK settlement visa to join my husband who is a British citizen in the UK. I submitted all original and copies of docs as well as my biometric information on the 5th of June 2015. We started our long distant relationship in September 2010 and we got married in June 2011 and has been living apart since. We do however visit each other every 6 months or so. I would travel once to the UK each year and he would travel once to Malaysia each year. We applied under category A as my husband has a salaried income of over GBP18,600 and has been in this employment for almost 2 years.

These were the documents I submitted. I even created an index in this order.

PART A : APPOINTMENT CONFIRMATION & APPLICATION FORMS
• Appointment Confirmation
• IHS Number and Payment Confirmation
• Application Form – VAF4A Online
• Application Form – VAF4A Appendix 2

PART 1 : PERSONAL INFORMATION : APPLICANT & SPONSOR
• Letter of Support from Sponsor
• Certified True Copy of Sponsor’s Passport Biometric Page
• Applicant’s Current Passport
• Applicant’s Previous Passport
• Letter of Support from Applicant’s Employer
• Applicant’s Pre-Departure TB Test Certificate

PART 2 : PROOF OF RELATIONSHIP : APPLICANT & SPONSOR
A) Marriage
• Original Marriage Certificate in Bahasa Malaysia
• Certified Translated Copy of Marriage Certificate in English
• Invitation Card for Wedding Reception
• Invoice for Audio Visual Equipment for Wedding Reception
• Receipts for Ballroom Rental for Wedding Reception
• Receipts for Purchase of Wedding Rings for Wedding
• Photo Collage
o Wedding Reception
o Outdoor Wedding Photoshoot

B) Subsisting Relationship
• Email Correspondences between Applicant & Sponsor
• Flight Reservations of Applicant & Sponsor’s Joint Travels/ Holidays
• Booking Confirmation of Gifts and Flowers Sent between Applicant & Sponsor
• Photo Collage
o Malaysia Trip : Apr- June 2011
o Engagement Ceremony : 1 May 2011
o UK & Europe Trip : Dec 2011 – Jan 2012
o UK Trip : Jun-Jul 2012
o Malaysia Trip : Dec 2012
o UK Trip : Apr-May 2013
o Malaysia Trip : Dec 2013- Jan 2014
o UK Trip : Dec 2014-Jan 2015


PART 3 : PROOF OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
• Original Bachelor of Law Degree in Bahasa Malaysia
• Certified Translated Copy of Degree in English
• Official Academic Transcript
• Statement of Comparability from the UK NARIC

PART 4 : PROOF OF SUFFICIENT ACCOMMODATION
A) Sponsor's Property Ownership
• Certified True Copy of the Register of Title for Sponsor’s Property
• Halifax Mortgage Offer Letter
• 2014 Annual Mortgage Statement
• 2015 Annual Mortgage Statement

B) Proof of Sponsor’s Residence in Property
• 2014-2015 Council Tax Statement
• 2015-2016 Council Tax Statement
• Severn Trent Water Bill
• NPower Electricity Bill
• NatWest Credit Card Bill
• Halifax Annual Eligibility Statement
• Sky Internet and Satellite TV Bill

C) Clarification on Postcode Inconsistencies
• Postcode Inconsistency Clarification Letter from Halifax
• Reforwarding of Electricity Bill Letter from NPower to correct Postcode Address
• Google Streetview of Postcode B5 4TR, B5 4TT and B5 4TU
• Royal Mail Postcode Finder B5 4TR
• Royal Mail Postcode Finder B5 4TU
• Royal Mail Postcode Finder B5 4TT

PART 5 : PROOF OF MEETING THE FINANCIAL REQUIREMENT
A) Employment and Position
• Offer Letter of Employment
• Employment Contract
• Letter of Completion of Probation
• Letter of Confirmation as Permanent Staff

B) Salary
• Letter of Support from Employer Confirming Position and Outlining Total Salary Earned
• Payslips :
o Sept 2014
o Oct 2014
o Nov 2014
o Dec 2014
o Jan 2015
o Feb 2015
o Mar 2015
o Apr 2015
o May 2015
• Letter of Support from Halifax Confirming Sponsor’s Name, Details and Account Number
• Bank Statements
o Sept 2014
o Oct 2014
o Nov 2014
o Dec 2014
o Jan 2015
o Feb 2015
o Mar 2015
o Apr 2015
o May 2015

C) Tax Returns
• P60 2013-2014
• P60 2014-2015
• P45 2013 for Leaving Previous Employment
• Tax Repayment for 2011-2012

D) Non-Salaried Directorship
• Companies House : Company Details for Common Ground Foundation CIC
• Companies House : Current Appointment Report for Common Ground Foundation CIC

When I submitted all these, I was confident that I had submitted everything I could to evidence how we fulfill all requirements. However upon reading some of the posts on this forum (I didnt know about this forum before my submission :() I realised that the main reasons for rejection is :

1) not having enough docs to evidence the fact that you fulfill the financial requirement
2) not having sufficient proof of subsisting relationship

I thought I have evidenced both quite clearly however upon reading the document checklist of other successful applicants, I realised that I didnt include the following :
- A cover letter from myself explaining how I met my husband etc that will complement his letter of support. I did however include a letter of support from my current employer as we are a global company headquartered in London and with offices in over 30 countries (Malaysia being one of them)

- Skype and Whatsapp messages log (Some of these are too personal and at times it was rather sexually graphic and I didnt feel comfortable sharing them. Besides I didnt think they were crucial given that I have submitted other evidence)

- Phone call logs

- My individual flight tickets to the UK to visit him over the past 4 years and his ticket to visit me in Malaysia over the past 4 years (though I have included flight tickets of our joint travels where we went to Europe together when I visited the UK and we went to East Malaysia and Langkawi together when he visited me in Malaysia)

- Any pictures where he visited me during our relationship BEFORE marriage as these were saved in an old hard disk that has since crashed (I did however include pictures of us being together POST marriage in a chronological order from 2011 to 2015)

- Prospective flight details of the date I intend to move to the UK. Other successful applicants shared this. However I read on the UK Visa Application website that you shouldnt book your flights till AFTER you get your visa. So by that logic, wouldnt prospective flight details be redundant?


Based on the above, do you think that I have provided enough documentations to merit an approval? Or do you think my missing out on the items listed above would affect my chances? Would the fact that we have been married and living apart for over 4 years but only applying for this visa now make them suspicious of the authenticity of our relationship and thus reject my visa?

I am waiting for the results at the moment and I do realise that I am asking for speculation on my chances. But I am a tad worried now and getting any information from people who have gone through the similar process would help me manage my expectations on the outcome.

Thank you.
 
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#2 ·
Letters of introduction are suggested, but not mandatory. It's just an appeal to the human side of the ECO reviewing your case, and provides an opportunity to clear up any possible confusing information.

In my humble opinion, you actually went WAY overboard with the documents you've provided. So much of this is unnecessary... Tax documents from pre-2014? Wedding invitations? These are just clutter. It's actually possible you've submitted enough documents to confuse the ECO, so I do hope you made it very clear that you are relying on category A for the financial requirement.

You have thoroughly supplied the information needed to confirm your sponsor's employment and financial stance, and your genuine relationship. Communication evidence provided should have just shown some contact for every month or so you've been apart. It doesn't need to cover every medium by which you communicate.

The only required document which you omitted was the proposed flight itinerary. Correct, it should not be booked yet, but you should have provided the flight details from the carrier's website. It sounds silly but it is asked for.

There is little you can do now that the documents are submitted, hopefully you will be accepted!
 
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#3 ·
Thank you so much for your quick reply. I know there are a lot of documents there, but I actually divided my documents into sections and had a table of content for each section with the documents arranged in accordance to the table of content so that the ECO will know what he/she is looking at in each section. We were advised to put in as much info about wedding/ marriage as necessary, hence the "clutter" with wedding cards etc. This is especially given that our reception took place 1.5 years after the registration of our marriage. (We clearly mentioned all of this in my sponsor's letter of support). So our marriage certificate would have a different date than our wedding.

I think I evidenced quite clearly that we are applying under category A (salary of over GBP18,600 with sponsor having been in employment for over 6 months) in both his letter of support and the Appendix 2 Form. So I really hope the ECO wont get confused about this as well.

I read through all of the guide to supporting documents as well as the guidance notes from the VAF4A form but could not find any info at all that I needed to evidence my proposed flight details. :( How I really wished I'd known about this forum before my application now.

I can only hope that they will at least give me a chance to send this when they are reviewing my documents since it seemed pretty minor compared to the rest of the docs. Though I understand that increasingly they have started to reject applications outright for not having ALL docs even though just merely sending it in when they are in the review process would've changed the outcome.

Just one last question. Do they usually call your sponsor or any of the other parties you include in the application to verify the docs you submitted during the review process or would they base their judgement solely on the docs alone?
 
#4 ·
The wedding reception doesn't really matter. It's just a party. All they care about is the marriage certificate. I honestly do think you will be be accepted, but this is just my subjective opinion, I'm not in any legal position to advise you. I wouldn't fret too much.
 
#5 ·
I also agree with clever.
I think you will be accepted due to all your papers, but the long wait may be because you provided so much information (for example papers from previous years etc)

I hope everything goes well for you.
 
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