Getting married after a Tourist visa
We once had a client get in touch with us by the name of Suzy. She had tied the knot with a UK citizen in Guatemala. Here was the gist of the message she sent to us: “I have previously received a British tourist visa and failed to write him down in the application form despite that we had known each other and been dating for a rather long time.”
The tour operator that helped process a British visa for Suzy advised her, “Don't put anybody down in your application form or you’ll get a rejection!”
Consequently, the embassy didn't know of any Michael that existed the last time Suzy put in an application.
Financial requirements
What do you do if your spouse’s income doesn’t meet the minimum requirement? What’s the amount their bank account needs to show?
Read all about it in our Financial Requirements Guide!
We started to take a deeper look into the situation. It turned out that things weren't all sunshine and rainbows with his finances. Income-wise, he was well above the requisite £22,400 per year (Suzy was planning on taking her child she had with her ex-husband and moving in with her new husband). His income was over £45,000 a year. The problem was that he’d only started making that income 2 months ago. Before that, he'd been out of work for several months due to COVID. His previous employer decided to downsize, and her spouse was stuck without an income. Our professionals analysed Michael's previous job which he had held until March 2020. His income was a little bit lower, but he did meet the requirements. That happened to be enough to get them out of their predicament, and Suzy and Michael didn't have to wait for him to work another 4 months at his new job to apply for a visa for her.
Financial requirements
What do you do if your spouse’s income doesn’t meet the minimum requirement? What’s the amount their bank account needs to show?
Read all about it in our Financial Requirements Guide!
After that, Suzy's ex-husband Marvin ended up being another hurdle. He didn't understand what they needed any documents from him for other than signing a consent form for their child to move to Great Britain with Suzy. He thought she intended to use those documents to deprive him of his custody. We wasted no time ironing the issue out with Suzy’s ex-husband, explaining to him in detail what sole responsibility is, which the child’s mother from a previous marriage was required to prove in order for the child to be issued a visa. Just signing a consent form for the child to make a permanent move was not enough for a visa to be processed for a dependent child. The embassy could easily issue the mother a visa and still deny the child one. When Marvin was finally able to let his guard down and study all the facts, he agreed to lend a hand in this tumultuous process of obtaining a visa for his ex-wife and kid to move to Great Britain.
Anyone who assumes kids are just guaranteed to be issued a visa is sorely mistaken.
More details about Child dependant visas from previous marriages
Then we gathered the documents we needed as evidence from Michael's ex-boss over October 2019 to March 2020. Not only that, we had to have the letter of recommendation from his boss redone two times, since he just wouldn't adhere to all the letter requirements. Either he didn't take his salary raise into consideration or he’d issue his payslip in the wrong format. Those payslips sure were beautifully designed! But all for naught. Besides that, we had to gather all of Michael's bank statements to prove that he had the salary he specified over that applicable time period, we added the P60 form, and voila – we’d completed a documents package on his old salary.
Michael's new employer was a lot quicker about getting his documents out to us. The quarantine period was also financially accounted for. At last, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief on the financials! We got the rest of the documents together rather quickly, and the last hiccup to sort out was writing a cover letter to the embassy for her, in which we explained the situation as to why Michael wasn’t mentioned in Suzy's last application form.
Suzy wanted to file the documents and request expedited processing, but at that time you couldn't request it, since the service had been temporarily suspended with the pandemic going on.
Fast forward 9 weeks, and we greeted Suzy in our office full of smiles to give her some tips to keep in mind for her departure to Great Britain. Everyone's visa was approved! And even though they gave Suzy and her child 3 months to make the move, she got ready in a flash and bought tickets for the next flight. She hadn't seen her spouse for so long that she wanted to put all the pandemic-related fuss behind them as soon as she could.
On her way out, we promised Suzy we’d get her mother a guest visa too.
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Since 2006, we’ve been successfully securing UK visas for people, just like you!