Unique Visa Provisions
In our previous case study, we can see how Move Up’s free assessment serves to help reduce risk of refusal (before visa submission). In todays study, we will see that Move Up’s free assessment also serves to identify unique visa opportunities that exist.
A young couple, one British, one South African, were looking to relocate to the UK together. Not yet married but the couple were serious about their relationship and all they knew is that they wanted to be together for the foreseeable future.
MEET MELANIE LANGWOOD
Melanie is our office manager here at Move Up. She also deals with our leisure market and British passport applications.
Amongst all this, Melanie provides casework support to Jason and Linda. She also handles new staff training as well as support in our research and development programs.
INTRODUCTION
Melanie introduces todays case as:
Sholto Morgan was introduced to me from my fellow colleague Jason. Sholto had the option to choose between going to the UK as an Unmarried Partner (claiming family dependency to his partners British nationality) or going over to the UK with intent to register a marriage within 6 months of arrival.
Sholto opted for the “Marriage Visitor Visa” and opted to continue presenting a case where he would register a marriage in the UK. Melanie took over the case and helped prepare the case for the British government to process.
Again, MoveUp’s leading free assessment functioned in the clients best interest. We helped identify an approach to visa compliance that the client was not aware of. Not only did we help in identifying visa options available, we then continued to address the expectations that the UK government has set out in their legislation.
If you are wondering, Move Up’s free assessment can be found on this link.
CASE CHALLENGE
The Marriage Visitor Visa has unique qualifying requirements that need to be addressed. Compliance with interaction of the UK’s Register Marriage Office appliable in the county of intent needed to be met.
Melanie helped the client navigate this compliance and the remaining qualifying requirements that need to be met.
Interestingly, in pandemic times, the conditions of this Marriage Visitor visa has changed. Previously, the expectation was that South Africans could apply for this visa, marry within 6 months and were then expected to return to SA to change status to claim marriage dependency (in SA).
In other words, changing status from visitor to settlement, after registering the marriage in the UK was not permitted (in pre-pandemic times).
Since the pandemic though, the UK government have changed their legislation to allow for in country change of intent (from visitor to settlement status – after marriage occurs).
Which means that this couple could initially apply for a cheaper visitor visa for entry to the UK, the British passport holder could secure work and raise more finances for the settlement visa.
SUMMARY
Move Up’s assessments serve not only to assess risk of applications but also to assess which approach best suits the applicants intent. We often lead our clients down paths that they did not know were available.
Here is what Sholto had to say about his experience (taken from Google reviews):
Please be encouraged to get in touch for your UK visa needs.